Thursday, September 4, 2008

Sarah Palin

It is difficult for me to put the extent of my sadness and disgust at Palin's candidacy into words. To borrow a phrase from my friend Rachel, then, “she represents a fascist platform, quite literally.”

It's not her stances on issues like abortion & gay marriage, global warming, or drilling & endangered species-hating that worry me, though her policies are a step backwards even from the current sad state of Presidential opinion. What worries me is her history of injecting her warped sense of "Christian" morals into politics and executive decisions:


As mayor, she threatened to fire Wasilla’s librarian for refusing to ban books that contained “inappropriate language:”
Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor.

Although she has not said whether her beliefs preclude an acceptance of scientific theories such as evolution, her remarks imply that she’s so out of touch with reality that she thinks creationism is a “theory,” and would like it to be a part of American education:

"Teach both. You know, don't be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important, and it's so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both."...
"It's OK to let kids know that there are theories out there."

And if the following video is any evidence, she believes that prayer and fundamentalist christianity are, and should be, the driving force behind American progress and policy. Skip ahead to 3:50 when she calls the war in Iraq is “a task from God:”




Maybe that sort of thing flies in “the bible belt of Alaska,” I wouldn’t know. But the fact that she could be the president-after-next – that she could have any influence at all on the state of the nation – is abhorrent. It’s terrifying.

And another thing: how dare they pretend that bigotry and fundamentalism are the ideal, “traditional” American values? How dare they?

4 comments:

  1. I'm really hoping that after the novelty of Palin wears off that people will begin to really look at her stances on the issues and realize just how extremely conservative she is. (This is a dream of mine that almost certainly wont happen, but nonetheless...) The reality is that both she and McCain are not the traditional "move toward the center" candidates that both major parties usually run and I think that that'll hurt their chances with moderate Republicans in this election. That is, if their policies and histories ever become a talking point in this media circus.

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  2. Personally, I liked the attacks on community organizers throughout the speech. Is there a more nonsensical target that she could have picked?

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  3. @Sam: Agreed. Her radical conservatism seriously terrifies everyone I know, but everyone I know already knows about it. How the hell do we get the word out?

    @JJ: Did you see Obama's response, by the way? It was pretty hilarious, along the lines of, "I don't really understand why they're attacking my past as a community organizer. I mean, aside from it being a good way to get in touch with real Americans, it was something that I did for a few years after college. It's not like I just went from being a community organizer to running for president. They're skipping over the last twenty years of my life."

    @nimsofa: Yeah, she does seem to really hate Polar Bears. It'd be almost funny, except that it's awful. From Wired:

    "In fact, the number of polar bears has risen dramatically over the past 30 years," [Palin] said. "Our fear (is) that extreme environmentalists will use this tool, the ESA, to eventually curtail or halt the North Slope production of very rich resources that America needs."

    But biologists who have studied polar bear populations counter that the facts simply do not support Palin's assertion that polar bear populations are on the rise.

    "Polar bear populations have not been increasing for the past 30 years, and that's a well-known fact," said Ian Stirling, an emeritus scientist with Canada's Department of the Environment and an adjunct professor at the University of Alberta in an interview. Stirling has studied polar bears for 37 years -- the longest of anyone.


    But fuck, what are FACTS to stand in the way of God's work?

    Damnit.

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