Editorial
Palin and Republicans: National Socialists?
by Diane V. McLoughlin, October 27, 2008
One could argue about Palin's lack of experience. I have.
But I am having second thoughts. Alaskan governor Sarah Palin has experience. From her
experience, perhaps we can deduce what kind of person and what kind of political leader she
might be.
This, in turn, might give us a clue as to the direction being forged within the Republican Party, a
party which embraced her for position of Vice President. Palin would lead the nation as President
should John McCain befall some calamity such as succumbing to melanoma, a malady he has
been treated successfully for in the past but which can sometimes recur.
Sarah Palin does not respect the core principles of the Constitution.
She demonstrates no compunction for tearing apart an opponents' character with lies and
innuendo if it suits her, or her party's, ambitions.
Palin does not concern herself with what happens to people accused of terror who may be
innocent. Her heart appears filled with scorn for people who may think differently than her. She
speaks of such people as potential threats to the nation, coloring swaths of America in black or
white with a broad brush - there are good, pro-America people, according to Palin. That must
mean that she believes there are unpatriotic bad Americans. If that is so, what would she do
about them if she could?
She had six years as mayor of a backwater village - no offense intended, I live in a backwater
village myself. Is it enough to prepare one for national leadership? Palin certainly seems to have
every faith in herself. This fearlessness, when one ought to feel humbled at the daunting task
before her, does not come across as self-confidence; it smacks of a superiority complex almost
pathological in degree.
Wasilla is known in some circles as the meth capital of Alaska. During her tenure Mayor Palin
tried to feel her way around the town librarian on the issue of banning books. Deal with drug
problems, or book problems? Could this be a clue to her character? After the librarian flat-out
said no way, Palin fired her and then reversed herself after the librarian swore an oath of loyalty to
her.
Palin sells herself as a fiscal conservative who is successful at watching over the public purse.
This is one of her more impressive embellishments. Palin left the village of Wasilla deep in the red
over a pork barrel sports complex; a gold-plated complex worth 14.5 million dollars for a village
of seven thousand people; built, one hastens to add, on land that did not belong to the village,
where the owner was unwilling to sell, and they went ahead and built it anyway thinking they could
bull their way to a conclusion on it - thus adding to the cost in legal fees and losing. Wow!
Fascist leanings were revealing themselves early in her career as she forced top administrators (for
a mom and pop village of seven thousand) to sign gag agreements that anything they wanted to
say to the public had to be vetted through Palin, first.
During Palin's time as mayor, victims had to pay for their own rape kits for the police to get
evidence to pursue rape cases, at approximately a $1,000 a kit. It was the police chief's idea, a
bad idea based on budgetary constraints. However. The buck stopped at her door. It happened
under her watch.
Running for governor, contrary to one of the other whoppers Palin has been hawking on the
campaign trail, Palin sold herself to voters in part with the fact that she supported the bridge to
nowhere. She was for it. When the federal government turned the bridge down, the feds still
allowed Alaska to keep the money to use for other state projects instead. I don't care about the
bridge. I don't care about the money. I care about the fact that Palin lied about it. Over, and
over, and over again.
Palin hired a lobbyist to send to Washington to garner pork for the state. In fact, per capita,
Alaska gets more pork per person than any other state in the entire union. Meaning? More lies
and misrepresentations.
She is knee-deep in an ethics scandal in her state where she has been found guilty by a by-
partisan committee comprising both democrat and republican Alaskan representatives, of abusing
the powers of her office to try to get her former brother-in-law, a state trooper, fired. Yet Palin
can still look in the camera with a straight face and declare that she was found innocent of all the
accusations against her. Is her former brother-in-law a bad guy? May be. Maybe not. But the
public safety commissioner responsible for the brother-in-law's employment did not find grounds
to get rid of him. Palin fired the public safety commissioner which, according to the letter of the
law, she was entitled to do. But the ethics panel found her guilty of abuse of office.
And, anyway, how is firing the brother-in-law going to help him be a better Dad to Palin's sister's
kids?
On the environment, every time the needs of oil and gas bump up against environmental or wildlife
concerns it seems that oil and gas win out every time. Palin has sued the federal government over
their designating polar bears a threatened or endangered species, and she protests protective
status for a pod of whales off Alaska's coast.
She takes the credit for oil and gas planning that was largely in place, the hard work done by
others, before she ever took office.
Palin has claimed that she has foreign policy experience because you can practically see Russia
from Alaska's shores.
She can't tell you what publications she reads that inform her on current events.
On the issue of religion, as a rule I believe that a persons' personal beliefs ought to be off limits,
unless!, their beliefs can in some way lead the believer to cause injury to people or threaten the
security of the country.
Palin believes in the Rapture and End of Days prophesy. Thus, should she ever become
Commander-in-Chief and we are faced with a national security crisis, the question arises would
Palin, like George W. Bush before, believe she is doing God's will? Would she be tempted to
'help' bring about Armageddon?, - a scenario, if memory serves, the biblical prophesy predicts
would herald the total destruction of a third of the Earth. Would Palin be tempted? Could her ego
resist the notion she might help usher in the Second Coming of Christ? Believe it or not, this is an
issue of concern in this campaign.
At her acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, Palin spoke derisively of those
who believe that terrorists should have any rights; that terrorists want to do great harm to
America. What nobody seems to have understood from her remarks is that, by her own
admission, she really believes that some people should have no rights at all.
Not the right to know the charges against you, the right to see the evidence being used against
you, the right to be brought before a judge to argue your innocence, the right to defend yourself,
the right to be innocent until proven guilty, the right to be protected against unreasonable seizure
or limitless detention. No rights.
This is not a hypothetical problem. Under Republican stewardship, untold numbers of people
around the world are disappeared into American black-op prisons, besides Guantanamo Bay, the
one prison we know about. This has been going on for years.
And of course, there's just one problem. How do we know somebody is a terrorist if we never
allow them their day in court? When the odd detainee gets a rare day before a judge or military
tribunal, what happens? Almost invariably we learn that there is no evidence against them and
they are ordered released - after, of course, we have thoroughly destroyed their lives and made
more enemies for ourselves.
It is interesting to note that Palin appears to have let slip, however, that there are times when she
herself may believe that the use of violence to gain political objectives is not out of the question.
It was put to her by NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, whether or not abortion clinic
bombers were terrorists. Palin stuttered that harming innocent Americans or facilities was
unacceptable, but:
"I don't know if you're going to use the word 'terrorist' there", she said.
The question comes against the backdrop of Palin constantly accusing Barack Obama of palling
around with 'domestic terrorist' William Ayers. Ayers was a member of the Weatherman, a
radical 60's antiwar group. They targeted federal public buildings, usually giving written warning
ahead of time, to protest American foreign invasion of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. (Obama
was eight years old at the time.) 58,159 American troops died in the Vietnam War. Unarmed
and peaceful student antiwar protesters were murdered by the Ohio National Guard at one of the
most traumatizing incidents of student protest, at Kent State University.
What Ayers did was wrong, but it was driven by the extremity of the times. People were dying.
Yet, in Palin's mind Ayers, today a respected university professor who devotes himself to causes
designed to lift up the underprivileged, who received a Citizen of the Year award from the City of
Chicago for his good works - is reduced to a comic book villain known as the domestic terrorist.
But abortion clinic bombers being categorized as domestic terrorists? Palin refuses to go there.
Very interesting.
So. Combing through what we know, what are the things that disturb me the most?
- Considering the fact that a million Americans are now on no-fly 'watch' lists, a list that
grows by 75,000 people a month. Peace activists take note: an airline employee is quoted
as saying, "Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying
because of that."
- that the Bush regime has watered down the Posse Comitatus Act prohibiting the
deployment of American military forces on domestic soil;
- considering that habeas corpus rights have been rescinded;
- that we no longer have privacy rights and are spied on down to the books we sign out of
the library;
- that we spout off meaningless patriotic slogans at home while bombing countries back to
the Stone Age abroad even after we learn we have no reason to do it;
- that we do this while the White House tries to prevent the publication of pictures of
American service people coming home in coffins;
- that anyone who has anything to say about it finds their patriotism comes into question;
- that the government now ignores international agreements on conduct, agreements such as
the Geneva Conventions or the Nuremburg Principles, principles the United States helped
formulate once upon a time and which by our flouting puts our own troops at risk;
- that the ghost of McCarthyism is awakening in America where types like Palin, McCain or
Rep. Michele Bachmann now feel free to question Americans' loyalty out loud when they
don't agree...
What disturbs me the most? The short answer?
All of it.
Who do I think is the most qualified to lead the nation? Independent candidate Ralph Nader.
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