Editorial
Palin and Republicans: National Socialists?
by Diane V. McLoughlin, October 27, 2008
One could argue about Palin's lack of experience for position of President of the United States. I have.
But I am having second thoughts. Alaskan governor Sarah Palin has experience of a kind. 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 to be 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 prospect of leading the most powerful
country in the entire world - 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's views on the issue of banning books. Deal with drug problems?
Or deal with book problems? Could this be a clue to her character? After the librarian flat-out said no
way was she banning any books, Palin fired her and then reversed herself, after getting the librarian to
swear 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, 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; 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 gather evidence
to investigate 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 actually supported the bridge to nowhere.
She was for it although she has been denying it on the campaign trail. 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
when she claims to be against it.
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? Maybe. 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 then fired
the public safety commissioner which, according to the letter of the law, she was entitled to do.
Nevertheless, the ethics panel found her guilty of abuse of office.
And 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.
On the other hand, 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 faced 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?, - the
biblical prophesy predicting the total destruction of a third of the Earth as heralding the Second Coming of
Christ. Would Palin be tempted? Could her ego resist the notion she might help usher in the Second
Coming? Believe it or not, End Times prophesy is an issue of concern not just here, but for different
faiths abroad, as well.
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 and are not
entitled to legal due process. 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 disappearing into American black-op prisons in addition to 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.
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, and 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 right 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 we 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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