Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

I just came on to speak my mind on Sarah Palin. I specifically want to address any of her supporters that might come on this forum and read this.

Conservative pundits who support her always say don't underestimate Sarah Palin. Well I don't underestimate Sarah Palin. On the contrary, I think she's a dead serious problem.

First thing I want to say to supporters is I want to give y'all a lesson on patriotism. This is patriotism: Japananese Seniors Volunteer for Fukushima "Suicide Corps"

What is not real patriotism is driving around a bus that looks like this

http://www.drudgereport.com/bus.jpg

while acting like you're an american pilgrim seeing the holy relics of st. franklin and st. jefferson

I mean it looks patriotic. I'll bet if you sound the horn it plays the goddam star spangled banner. I'll bet a team america puppet drives it for her. So yeah patriotism. FUCK YEAH.

FUCK NO. patriotism is taking responsibility for your community and putting sharp sacrifices on the line for it. If you think standing in front of the liberty bell, without bothering to learn anything more about it than what gets you elected, is patriotism than you wouldn't know patriotism if it patriotically kept punching you in the face.

And what kind of a person votes for a candidate because they think that choice is the most patriotic? I don't have any problems if you're voting for Palin because you agree with her policies. But I know you aren't voting for her because you agree with her policies, because that would be impossible. So you're voting for her because her bus tour is a thinly veiled attempt to architect a comprehensive bid for the white house based on the foundational argument that to vote for her is to vote for patriotism and american exceptionalism. And you've bought it. So basically you're a tool and if GI Joe broke out of his cellophane wrapper at Toys R Us and ran as the most patriotic american candidate you'd probably switch for that. Especially if Barbie is his running mate.

I've listened to Rush Limbaugh so I know how you think. He carries on like a teen ager who's got a crush on the activities director at the neighborhood church. Like him, this shit goes freudian and you just want to drill baby drill. To have your country run by your mom psychological archetype while being in love with her. What has ever been more psychologically tempting?

You're even willing to change history at her whim, without her even asking you to. This sentence was recently added to the entry for Paul Revere on Conservapedia.

"Part of the purpose of Revere's ride was to warn the British that colonists would exercise their natural right to bear arms."

because of this embarrasing performance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oS4C7bvHv2w

She's not even looking at the camera when she speaks, and you can see her mentally flip a coin in order to decide to either say "colonists" or "british." She flipped. She lost.

Maybe its a gotcha question. It would be a gotcha question if you asked her the color of George Washington's white horse.

And for me its not her intelligence that's the problem. Even though pond scum has more intelligence because at least pond scum knows better than to insinuate itself as presidential material. For me its that its quite obvious she's got a cruel streak running right down her beauty queen back side and she's in it for herself.

I'm serious with this shit. Its not funny anymore.

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

Speak of the devil.

The whole Paul Revere bit was blown outta proportion, but her handling of the "BREAKING NEWS" bit was kinda ..... umm, why?

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

Best post ever.

I also never underestimate her tenacity or her potential to succeed.

And kudos for mentioning those Japanese seniors. I heard about that a couple of days ago and it brought me close to tears.

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

Like somebody said "Every question for Palin is a gotcha question"

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

Wait, there's a Conservapedia? Thats just sad.

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

Palin speaking to Christina Lamb in the Sunday Times:

An ally of Mrs T:

Alex Massie (no stranger to the staunch right):

Rush Limbaugh just can't understand it:
Unseemly, eh? We'll give you unseemly if you give us 'loathsome', Rush.

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

too funny for words - good old maggie - who'd'athunkit?!

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

This is the bit that I most identify with you on at the moment. I mean, I fully agree with everything else you said, but I'm at this point of fed-upedness too. Sure, the Paul Revere thing was blown out of proportion, but I've been in forums the past few days watching her supporters maniacally claiming that everything she said about him popping off warning shots and ringing bells to give the British a heads up was completely accurate, and that the people criticizing her over it were making themselves look like fools. And claiming that a question about what she's seen and what she'd be taking away from her visit is a "gotcha" question is just freakin' stupid. I mean flat out stu-pid.

Yet it's just a matter of time before this faux-patriotic mental midget declares her Presidential bid under way. How depressing.

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

Pff! Palin's a shabby amateur. She doesn't even have a fake dissertation.

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

this should prove an interesting election season. we'll see what happens. It will be anything but boring, I think. And hopefully you'll all be around to discuss shit.

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

Yup, it should certainly be an interesting one.
Q: Will Michele Bachmann tone down her anti-gay rhetoric in the debates? (I suppose it depends what counts as populism in America right now.)

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

I missed a lot of the debate. Was she delivering some hardcore anti-gay rhetoric? Or are you just speaking in general?

I did quite enjoy watching them all find their way of expressing how they'd treat Muslims differently than anyone else they'd consider for their cabinets though. Except for Romney. Gotta give him credit for just flat out stating that all religions should be respected here in the U.S.

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

No I just mean in general, given what she's come out with in the past. I didn't actually see any of the recent debates.

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

Aww, damn. I was reading your sentence and expected the word 'abolished' instead of 'respected'. I'm all for equality under the law.

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

Out of interest, what do you think will be the key topics during this upcoming campaign?

I'm guessing Libya (and foreign intervention generally) could be one, what with Iraq now apparently behind us.

Employment and the deficit, obviously.

Immigrants? (that's how you tell when it's election time in Britain)

Anything else stirring the American electorate particularly?

And will we have the pleasure of hearing from Joe the Plumber?

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

It's less a quantifiable topic that I'm anticipating, and more a pure spectacle based on the outlandish level that anti-Obama rhetoric from his opponents has reached. With people like Palin and Beck and Limbaugh and Hannity filling the heads of Tea Party types with a gut-busting helping of dogmatic rhetoric, I expect to see some high level crazy coming from the Republican candidates this election season. And it's already beginning judging from what little of the Republican debate I saw. As I mentioned, Cain came out saying it's not that he wouldn't have a Muslim in his cabinet - he would just make them pass a loyalty test that no one else would be required to pass. That was an applause getter for him. And then Newt jumped on board with an even more stark declaration that added a comparison between Muslims, Communists and Nazis - no distinction whatsoever between radicals or moderates. He too received wild applause. When Romney pointed out that the Constitution already prohibits Shariah law in the U.S., and that we're a country that respects ALL religions, he was met with silence. This, to me, was a preview of what's to come.

Basically, all the crazy they've been sowing since 2009 is ready for harvest, and it's probably going to make for quite a show.

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

Oh boy that's depressing. I really didn't realise the mainstream Republican party was now so tainted by tea party twerps. Would Romney even make it to become their presidential candidate? I guess McCain made it last time so there's hope. (Though look what happened to him!)

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

Sounds like Romney's actually the front-runner overall, but this idealogical purity wing of the conservative side of things looks to be changing the whole Republican approach. Particularly during their primaries, we'll probably be seeing who can out-conservative each other on a whole new level, and I'd be willing to bet right now that the result of it will be a Republican nominee that's unelectable in the general election. They'll have painted thmselves into such a far-right corner that they'll be irrelevant to all the moderates who ultimately decide these things.

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

Another possible key topic for the election: "negotiating with our enemies"

(Afghanistan's Karzai: US 'in peace talks with Taliban')

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

With the quality of candidates throwing their hat in the game I've just been waiting for this guy to announce his candidacy for Republican Nomination 2012

http://ricketyclick.com/blog/wp-cont...of-sauron2.jpg

Eye of Sauron: CHANGE YOU DAMN WELL BETTER BELIEVE IN.

The key topics will not be real topics. They will involve the suspicion around Romney's mormonism, Santorum sucking up air time blaming unemployment on homosexuality, Sarah Palin's paper thin populism "why can't we just be great americans by going back to what makes america great, wouldn't that be great, america? great." Obama's religion/nationality/communist leanings, and the decidedly insane posts some Ron Paul supporter makes on one of his community web sites. All of this will comprise about 85% of the national dialog during the election.

The real topics, when we get around to looking at them, will probably be exactly the ones you listed.

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

The thing about the tea party I find the most distressing is its soaking up essential institutions in the political environment. We needed a third party and we needed that party to shore up and voice the frustrations towards the existing two party establishment with all of their hypocrisies.

And for about 15 minutes I had hope that the tea party would be that real grass roots movement to bring legitimacy back to the two party system. Nope. Now they are a liability to democracy because they were easily hijacked by those already in power, like the christian right lobby, and infiltrated by whore politicos like Palin and Glen Beck by parroting their grievances.

Now that the tea party has become the militant wing of the corporate conservative instead of their critic, it leaves the vacuum open to be filled by something else.

And I don't have a lot of hope on this but I do think progressives have abandoned Obama, and enough centrists who are more issue centered have observed that the only difference between the bush years and the obama years is that now its the established democrats that are making excuses for their president instead of the established republicans.. Which means Obama might have a real centrist problem this election, in addition to a rear guard attack from the progressives.

To be quite frank, I would take MoveOn.org a hell of a lot more seriously if they took Obama to task for doing the same things Bush did.

And I'm usually pretty good about listening to Rush and Hannity but lately when they talk about the economy I just can't swallow the injustice of letting these noise boxes squak when they should be held accountable for the part they themselves played.

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

i just realized I didn't even get to my point.

So Obama could have a centrist problem.

Since 2008 those in the middle have been flocking to the republican party according to certain polls. That was especially the talk around the mid term elections.

That center may (*MAY*) offset the tea party winds blowing everything off the cliff of stupid so that we may end up having a centrist republican nomination.

To be personal that is my wish because I won't be voting for Obama. Better than Romney is Jon Huntsman Jr. ex governer of Utah, current ambassador to China for Obama. Centrist, supporter of gay marriage, has a brain. But unfortunately for him, he's also mormon and has gone on record saying nice things about his boss.

We'll see....

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

You know, I was originally thinking, whether tea party or centrist, that the Republican nomination would surely end up being one of the following:

1) Macho tough-talking meathead with great hair
2) Ignorant and rather scary dolly-bird with great hair

So it's good to hear about Jon Huntsman who, yes, despite the name, seems like he could be a bit different.

Oh I wish I could say the same about this one who I discovered today...

A former air force pilot, [Rick] Perry has built up a reputation for tough talking and ruggedness. He jogs with a laser-sighted pistol in his belt and shot a coyote during a run last year.

Haha, seriously, where do you manufacture these guys? Do 50% of American voters really need such big strong daddies all the time? (Don't we have websites that satisfy those kindsa needs?)

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

. . . .. ... uumm, what were we talking about again?

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

Best thing about Perry is when he was threatening to lead Texas in seceding from the U.S. Now there's a good resume point in a Presidential candidate. :rolleyes:

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

See that's the thing - candidates are primarily playing to the party activists at the beginning, which involves some sucking up to the most stupid and prejudiced in the party. But you have to go careful not to go too far with that, because it can totally dump on your chances to succeed later on when you're forced to elaborate and justify. It seems to me that many of these wingnuts have gone too far and ruined their chances.

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

Seriously though, being out of my country for a year or so and coming back, two things struck me.

1. The IQ slide. Every time without fail, I leave the states and come back I watch the average IQ slide down significantly. Its pretty alarming and I'm not sure why because americans aren't inherently dumb. Maybe its a combination of 0 curiosity about the world, diet of fast food, and the fact that they just don't read.

2. The men are extremely self aware about their gender. I mean even in Scotland men who play rugby wear skirts and say "wee" and its no issue. But in the states, you have to take the manliness truck and drive out into the wilderness of masculinity before anyone feels comfortable. The way men walk around, what they drive, what they wear, its all a very fastidious effort to not appear gay. And everyone knows that fastidiousness is, you know, kinda gay.

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

For me, I wonder how much of this sentiment is accurate, and how much is the result of anti-Obama rhetoric. I don't personally buy into the claims of Obama and Bush being the same. Yes, Obama is clearly more of a centerist and pragmatist than leftists and progressives would have liked, but to compare, say, Libya to either Iraq or Afghanistan (and don't get me wrong - I didn't want us to get involved in Libya), or the approaches to taxes, or the whole health care issue, or Don't Ask Don't Tell, etc. reveals pretty significant differences.

I just heard a piece on NPR about gay activists being frustrated that yes, there have been positive developments for them under Obama, but not as much as they want, so they're upset with him. I'm far more sick of people expecting that they should be getting everything they want instead of accepting that this is a nation of vastly differing views and beliefs, and that the compromise this necessitates means progress will always be slow. When one group is getting everything they want, then other groups are invariably getting nothing that they want. That's selfish and untenable to me.

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

I've been spending a lot of time overseas lately too and in addition to agreeing with you on those two points, the third thing I'm consistantly struck by is American obesity. I always know when I'm getting on my connecting flight that's going to an American city because there are suddenly way more obese people boarding the plane. It's alarming.

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

yeah, sean, but nobody wants this corporate tied hawkish crap that we've had in every president since at least the first bush. pretty much everyone is tired of goverment getting involved in business (not regulation, bailouts), everyone is tired of invading other countries for no particular reason (oil), everybody is tired of corporate interests in washington, and finally everyone is tired of people claiming they have nothing to do with any of those things and getting tied up in it.

those things i listed above are common in both the campaign rhetoric of the democrats and the republicans, because that's how people feel. they want their rights back and they want their money to stop being sent to thieves and used to wage war against people we don't even understand. and we keep asking for it, and we believe every guy that comes along and says he's not those things— bush said it, obama said it, and they both are tied up in all of that garbage. yes, obama is on the left side of the aisle and is passing environmental and health care reform. but when it comes to how the government works and wastes everyone's money and wastes young peoples' lives, he's just like bush. and i don't think the republican candidate will be any different.

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

okay, that's crap too. we really aren't all fat, that's a european delusion. come over here and see for yourself. i mean, if you go by the technical definition of "obese" which is a BMI of 30, which would fit this guy (who i googled BMI 30 for):

http://www.johnstonefitness.com/all/front/1.jpg
then, yeah, a lot of us are obese. but if you're talking about people like this:
http://resources0.news.com.au/images...il-5993930.jpg

then you're full of crap. in senior year there was a german girl who come over on a foreign exchange program, and we went on a theatre trip together. i asked her what europeans thought of americans. she said "they think you're all fat. like really fat. i haven't seen anyone like that since i've arrived."

so, are we overweight as a society? yeah, we're pudgy. but is there a higher percentage of morbidly obese people in the united states? i don't see anything to lead me to believe that.

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

Yeah that's pretty much the spirit of it I think. Its not that Bush and Obama are the same because clearly they aren't. Its that people's frustrations under both presidents have been generally the same. Except that for Bush it was the republicans giving the litany of excuses why things were getting worse, and now under Obama its the democrats giving the litany of excuses why things are getting worse.

In my opinion, no support for the president is ever more important than support for the country and fixing its problems.

So yeah, I'm done with Obama because I'm done with presidents overstepping the constitution when declaring wars, not balancing the budget, not investing in science and education, not curbing wall street influence, not divorcing corporate interests with government, etc.

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

dude we are so incredibly fat, I don't know where you've been, but its important to note that its also location specific. If you've been hanging around with your german exchange student friend in more affluent neighborhoods that's one thing. Take her to Walmart on the other side of town, then see what she thinks.

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

I totally see what you're saying about being able to compromise and accept that change has to happen on its own time.

I'm coming from the perspective that we are

* 4th from the bottom in inequality of wealth between rich and poor
* experiencing a drop in life expectancy, the first time in our history
* about to surpass our GDP with our Dept, and soon the interest servicing will absorb all of our GDP
* below places like sweden, canada, in terms of social mobility.

blah blah blah.

it's endless and for me its clear from just this that we have a leadership crisis, because I don't for a minute believe the american people aren't capable of doing better for themselves.

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

I'm an American who lives in Los Angeles and travels a lot for work and pleasure. And I can tell you from my firsthand experiences that yes, we are absolutely a fatter nation than most. I am not kidding that as soon as you board an international flight bound for the U.S. after being overseas for a while, you will absolutely be aware of the sudden increase in the number of obese people on the plane. I see it every single time. And I'm heading overseas again this Friday. I'll let you know on my return in a few weeks if I see the same again.


I agree that the BMI classifications are out of whack and seem to make little sense. I'm talking about overly large, out of shape looking people. The kind of people that you hope won't be in the seat next to you because you'll be crowded by them.

Again, I see it all the time in my national and international travels. Have you been overseas much?

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

Yeah, I agree with that. I just find the "Obama is the same as Bush" position to be a bit rhetorical and frankly, lazy. That doesn't mean I don't take issue with a host of things Obama has done. It just means I don't buy the equating of the two as accurate.

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

That's fair enough. I agree on all those points.

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

hey Sean, where is your photo stream these days. you always take interesting pictures.

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

Thanks man! Great to hear that you enjoy them.

You can browse through all the collections here: http://www.tabblo.com/studio/view/tabblos/grandbrother/

But here's the direct link to the latest - some shots I got in Sanjay Gandhi National Park in India a month or so back. Most of them were taken in and around a network of 2000 year old man made caves that served as buddhist temples and homes: http://www.tabblo.com/studio/stories/view/1823130/

My understanding is that the caves were all cut out of the side of the hills using nothing more than hammers and chisels - and there are over 100 of them! Absolutely amazing. Enjoy, and thanks again!

Re: Important Message About Sarah Palin
 

Romney and Bachmann are neck and neck in a new poll.