Shuck and Jive


Thursday, October 02, 2008

VP on TV



If Sarah takes a dive tonight, Bullwinkle has promised to save her.


Did you check this article by Matt Taibbi of the Rolling Stone?

Sarah Palin is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the modern United States. As a representative of our political system, she's a new low in reptilian villainy, the ultimate cynical masterwork of puppeteers like Karl Rove. But more than that, she is a horrifying symbol of how little we ask for in return for the total surrender of our political power....

....Right-wingers of the Bush-Rove ilk have had a tough time finding a human face to put on their failed, inhuman, mean-as-hell policies. But it was hard not to recognize the genius of wedding that faltering brand of institutionalized greed to the image of the suburban American supermom. It's the perfect cover, for there is almost nothing in the world meaner than this species of provincial tyrant. Palin herself burned this political symbiosis into the pages of history with her seminal crack about the "difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull: lipstick," blurring once and for all the lines between meanness on the grand political scale as understood by the Roves and Bushes of the world, and meanness of the small-town variety as understood by pretty much anyone who has ever sat around in his ranch-house den dreaming of a fourth plasma-screen TV or an extra set of KC HiLites for his truck, while some ghetto family a few miles away shares a husk of government cheese.

9 comments:

  1. Dang! That made me wince more than laugh. I could laugh about it more if the threat weren't so REAL!
    Have fun watching the train wreck as it happens. I'll catch some excerpts on C-Span, later - as much as I can stomach, anyway.

    I'm a little concerned that by this time next week she will have been replaced, and that the general response will be something like "Thank God McCain dumped her! Leiberman doesn't look that bad, after all." Ish.

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  2. Wow!

    Promoting these hateful statements...reads like hate speech to me.

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  3. Somehow I doubt you even believe in the concept of "hate speech", adel.

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  4. Alan,

    As a 1st generation Arab American pastor, who received death threats after Desert Storm and closed doors at over 98% of churches I have applied to, I think I understand discrimination and hate speech a little more intimately than you do. I have not questioned your motivations and I would appreciate if you do not question mine. Even from that experience I do not look at so-called hate-crimes in the same way you do...as a means to force, punish and further certain political agendas.

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  5. "Republican" is not considered a protected class under most hate crime law. Sorry, Adel.

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  6. Adel. I'm frankly not that interested in a playground contest comparing the size of our hate speech cred. Suffice it to say that as a gay man I know more than a little about it myself, buddy.

    Unfortunately, you are unable to properly interpret my previous comment, as I didn't "question your motivations" only your understanding of so-called "hate speech." And given that you're unable to properly interpret my simple comment, I wonder even more about your ability to interpret the original writing in question as well. You didn't provide any evidence that anything in the original piece was "hate speech" nor did you suggest that you even have a particular definition in mind regarding "hate speech."

    And, given your particularly conservative point of view on most topics -- a point of view that in general tends to mock the very notion of "hate speech" -- I don't think it's unreasonable to question what you mean by "hate speech" and why you believe that Taibbi's statements constitute hate speech.

    You wrote: "I do not look at so-called hate-crimes in the same way you do...as a means to force, punish and further certain political agendas."

    Oh I do, eh? And your evidence for that is what, exactly? ROFL. Hey Adel, "I have not questioned your motivations and I would appreciate if you do not question mine." Practice what you preach. This has become an unfortunate habit for you, adel, this habit of criticizing something then hypocritically doing that exact same thing in the very same comment. This is at least the 3rd time you've done it. If I might provide a little free and friendly advice, I'd suggest re-reading your own comments before posting them to screen out such contradictions.

    So, back to my point, which you still haven't commented upon, and this time I'll be clearer by asking it as a question: what about this constitutes hate speech?

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  7. BTW, just to clarify, there IS a huge difference between hate crimes laws and "hate speech."

    I know that some folks like to blur the very clear distinction for their political purposes, not saying that Adel did that. Perhaps he just mistyped.

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  8. I agree with Adel. Shame on such hatefull comments!

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  9. And again, what's hateful?

    Since when it is hateful to call someone's actions cynical?

    I guess to you folks hateful means anything you don't agree with.

    Frankly, I find it hard to see where the author has done anything but criticize the cynicism of the far right. He hasn't called anyone names. He hasn't called for violence against anyone. He hasn't insulted anyone. He's simply criticized their policies.

    Do you believe that criticizing policies with which you disagree is hateful?

    Just repeating the word over and over it doesn't make it so.

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