In a speech yesterday to U.S. troops departing for Iraq, Alaska Governor and GOP VP nominee Sarah Palin declared that the soldiers would “defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans.â€
Even George W. Bush finally admitted that this justification for attacking Iraq was a fraud.
But apparently it is still sufficient to justify occupying and oppressing Iraqis. (Palin’s son was among the soldiers deploying).
Is Palin a liar or a fool?
In the same way that McCain’s convention acceptance speech made Bob Dole look good, Palin’s interview last night with ABC’s Charles Gibson made former VP Dan Quayle look like a rocket scientist.
Why have so many conservatives – and some libertarians – rushed so fast to idealize this career politician?
It is truly a wonder, and a testament to the potency of the propaganda system, that lies such as this one have any sort of staying power. One thinks that America is unique among states for the traction its official lies have in both the population and popular culture. Matt Damon observed that the present round of Republican electioneering has all the features of a bad Disney production: a hockey mom assuming the second most powerful office in the country to defend against a nebulous, invisible external menace without cause, internal structure, or process. Given the paucity of Palin’s intellectual credentials I’d certainly surmise that what we have on our hands is notmerely a fool, and an extraordinarily dangerous one at that, but a living caricature, a sort of personification of all America’s cultural defects, paranoias, and neuroses. Let us hope that Obama, with his slightly less cartoonish aspect and slightly more conciliatory diplomatic posture, triumphes in this round.
Also, in before liberal hawks, Democratic betrayal, etc. I’m aware of these problems, but I wholeheartedly echo Paul Craig Roberts’ conclusion that a GOP defeat is absolutely imperative at this stage. Would anyone hear dispute the contention that Obama, for all his establishment accolades, is the less belligerent of the two?
Kenneth….Hope all is well. The lesser of two evils is still evil! The only real positive change will have to come from a third party candidate. And unfortunately, the majority of sheep in our great country are not smart enough to recognize this!
Ultimately, you are right. Without wide ranging reforms imposed by an increasingly hostile population or a revolution, nothing good can be expected from the State. And yet still we allow ourselves to fall into the high-level equilibrium trap of supporting the less terrible of two fundamentally identical candidates. Living as I do in Canada I’m not well situated to study the American mentality, so perhaps I can pose you the question: why do Americans allow their politicos to treat them like this? Is it simple idiocy? Or something altogether more complicated?
Hi an interesting idea that the majority of people are thickoes–not a new concept why do you think the world is (as shakespear wrote “as you like it”) keeps the status quo in the powerful hands of the shakers and movers. If the world was run by the majority of common decent people of the world not a lot would have changed from the rural environment of the romantic past. The people who we all should vote in—- yet only 30/40% do, are not representative of the rest of the world. This in-balance is the driving force that as made the rich countries what the are and the semi-free’dom we all cherish. Your voice is only one in a vast liberary discontents over the centuries.
Revolutions from war to religion as made a difference but will it change the fundemental way humanity is? I was born and live in the united kindom which is a contradiction in term. I hope that life will improve for all but I’m not holding my breath no matter who preaches salvation
Wow! This drivel might have been acceptable in 2003 thanks to the Media reading from the neo-con script but now? Attacking Iraq because of 9/11 made as much sense as attacking Korea after Pearl Harbour. American politicians are truly insane.
“Is Palin a liar or a fool?”
Who says they are mutually exclusive?
She is both.
Sarah (“Blood an’ Guts”) Palin is, like Mad Bomber McInsane, an Israel Lobby-controlled, warmongering scumbag.
Palin’s son is shipping out. If and when he comes home inside a box, or if he’s hobbling around on store-bought legs, I hope he thanks his mother and the neocons.
I am sure they will make sure he has a relatively easy time over there and stays out of harms way. Thats probably part of the deal they cut when she was selected.
Lots of folks are quick to pick up on and demonize these remarks. Read what she said exactly and you’ll see she was telling the truth. Our troops going into Iraq ARE fighting Al Qaeda, the ones responsible for the 2001 attacks.
But the overall truth remains, and is one that she and her grandpa – er, excuse me, running mate – would never, ever admit: that the only reason Al Qaeda is in Iraq in the first place is because we invaded, overthrew a legitimate government, and pressed forward with a naive and badly thought-out plan to restore order and “bring democracy.”
So, what I’m saying is…she’s telling the truth, but the reason for this truth will never be brought up. And I certainly believe Palin’s positively drowning in the neocon Koolaid. She’s unsalvageable, and her total immersion into the lies and delusion leads me to believe she was far from the libertarian-leaning semi-savior she’s made out to be so often.
Why do so many conservatives and libertarians support Sarah Palin? Cause she’s the most libertarian candidate to appear on a major party ticket for President/VP since Goldwater.
Congrats to Gov. Palin for such a wonderful send-off to our Troops. They are most certainly fighting Islamo-Fascists. Too bad our moderate centrist President Bush doesn’t recognize that, and even McCain shies away from calling them Radical Muslims. Thankfully, it looks like we might finally have a true blue libertarian in the Administration in Sarah Palin who recognizes that this threat to our liberties from these Islamic Radicals is real.
"Administration in Sarah Palin who recognizes that this threat to our liberties from these Islamic Radicals is real."
Maybe she should clue in to the fact that US government has done all the threatening to US liberties to this point. Osama and boys pulled off 9/11, they did nothing to infringe upon American's liberties in the past, in the present and most certainly into the future. Terror attacks don't remove liberties – actions of domestic governments do.
You have to admire the one-way thought processes of the useful idiots. "fighting Islamo-Fascists" Do you even know what a fascist is, or do you just repeat what you heard from other rightwing blowhards?
To be more “libertarian” than any duopoly-ticket candidate since Goldwater is hardly an accolade.
And Bush is a moderate centrist? Oh my goodness.
Huh. Never knew that insisting that rape victims bear their assailant’s child to term is a libertarian position.
Now I know.
What are you smoking friend?
It looks like Dumbdero has crawled out from the bottle beneath the rock to tell us all how Libertarian someone is.
Like when he crawled out to tell us all how Libertarian Rudy Giuliani is…
DUMBDERO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Palin isn’t a fool but she thinks most Americans are.
Now which is it? Is she inexperienced with only half a term as governor and a few years as a small town mayor or is she a “career politician”? Here, would you like to have your cake and eat it, too?
You can be both a career politician and at the same time a two-bit hack.
I hate to say it, but the ladies over at The View almost gave McCain a tougher grilling than Gibson gave Palin. Barbara Walters came out of her crypt and asked McCain some tough questions, such as, “Be specific about what kinds of reforms you and Sarah Palin are planning?” (I’m paraphrasing Walter’s question)
Given her much-vaunted neutrality, Walters must truly be worried about a McCain/ Palin ticket to grill McCain like she did.
Maybe even the main stream media presstitutes are waking-up to the fact that if we provoke Russia, we may just end-up with a mushroom cloud over a U.S. city, and Barbara Walters and Charlie Gibson and their loved ones will be as dead as the rest of us.
The View with McCain was aired today and will probably be up on Youtube later, but in any case I think that you can also find it at at the ABC website.
Damn straight. That’s the main thing I worry about with McThug in control.
That being the case, as my dad put it, it’s outrageous that the Establishment ever let someone as crazy as McThug this close to the presidency.
Remember, Palin believes in the Rapture. She doesn’t plan on going through nuclear disaster, etc.
Lester Ness
Kunming
China
Libertarians in Alaska have been supporting Palin for years. In fact, in the 2006 election Palin was painted by opponents as the libertarian “too moderate on social issues” in the GOP primary race against Murkowski. She also attended a couple meetings of the Libertarian Party in Anchorage that year seeking their support. They gave it to her.
The last 3 days of the election, Alaska Libertarian Party Chairman Jason Dowell, stopped his SUV in the middle of a busy Anchorage street during rush hour, and symbolically got out, grabbed a Palin sign, and began waving it RIGHT ALONG SIDE OF SARAH PALIN HERSELF. Sarah was so overjoyed that she started screaming to her campaign manager across the street: “The Libertarians are here… the Libertarians are here, and they’re supporting my campaign!”
That very day, Billy Toien, Sarah’s opponent for Governor, told all his supporters that they should “vote for Sarah” and not him. During the debates Sarah and Billy agreed on so many issues, that it was difficult to tell them apart.
On election night at the downtown Egan Center in Anchorage, Sarah and her followers marched up to the podium when it was clear she had won.
One of the very FIRST! groups she thanked for her victory was the LIBERTARIAN PARTY OF ALASKA!!!
Now, the LP has been around for 37 years. Has there EVER been a Presidential or VP candidate on a major party ticket that has had such close ties to the Libertarian Party?
What is happening with Sarah Palin on the McCain ticket is utterly amazing. We Libertarians should be super, super proud, and screaming from the rooftops our joy in a libertarian-leaning GOPer who has friendly relations with the Libertarian Party, being chosen for Vice-President.
If anyone wants to get a good laugh, just google dondero.
Seriously, is this satire?
http://www.ericdondero.com/
Hey Dumbdero, Jack Daniels called. He has been kidnapped by Islamofascists and desperately needs your help killing their friends and family.
hit & run slow today or something?
What is Libertarian about provoking Russia by advocating that Georgia and the Ukraine become members of NATO, and vowing to defend them?
What is Libertarian about raising taxes (yes, Palin did)?
What is Libertarian about leaving your tiny town in tens of millions of dollars in debt?
What is Libertarian about being so pro-Israel that you have an Israeli flag flying in your office?
Sarah Palin is an imperialist, pro-taxes, pro-Israel and anti-small government. What is Libertarian about that?
She is a Dondero Libertarian
She shouldn’t confuse Al Qaeda in Iraq and the one hiding in Pakistan that committed the terror attacks. It’s dishonest.
“Is Palin a liar or a fool?”
Fool
“Why have so many conservatives – and some libertarians – rushed so fast to idealize this career politician?”
Many of them are fools, too.
Lester Ness
Kunming
China
Neither. She’s an ambitious politician pandering to the flag-waving knaves for votes.
Sarah Palin has no ideas. She just wants power. She doesn’t think things through, but relies on emotion and intuition That she’s sought power with the help of the Reptile team instead of the Demonic is inconsequential. If someone shoots you, it doesn’t matter much if they’re right-handed or left-handed.
Lester Ness
Kunming
China
I would venture to say that Governor Palin really despises Muslims. Freaking vindictive, without merit.
God’s will is for Palin to bring Jesus back to Earth and mortals can’t stop the power of lipstick!
Probably true, I’m sorry to say!
Lester Ness
Kunming
China
Since we’re bringing up the Romans, may I recommend to everyone Ammianus Marcellinus, _Res Gestae_? Full of religious fanatic emperors, eunuch advisers, sinister bureaucrats like Paul the Chain, and (of course) futile invasions of Iraq and unwinnable wars with Iran. It’s the main source for Gore Vidal’s excellent novel _Julian_.
Lester Ness
Kunming
China
Ammianus Marcellinus is well worth close reading, along with Libanius (especially his letters, which however, are difficult going). Vidal’s Julian is one of the best historical novels ever written, quite of the same class as Grant’s I, Claudius.
Burckhardt’s work on Constantine is the classic, but an American, Ramsay MacMullen, has also written an excellent treatment.
You might particularly enjoy tracking down a short but brilliant article by the same MacMullen titled “Roman Bureaucratese”.
Thanks for the suggested reading list, Eugene. Will read JULIAN by Gore Vidal.
I have a column, “AQI Is Not al-Qaida, al-Qaida Is Not in Iraq”, here:
http://www.nolanchart.com/article3968.html
You realize, Dan Clore, that “la cosa nostra” was, as a name, invented by the FBI and its informer, Joe Valachi. The fact that odd palookas soon adopted it for whatever they thought they were up to is not particularly pertinent.
Likewise Marx coined “Capitalist”, which had nothing to do with either free enterprise or liberty, and soon enough odd palookas enthusiastically adopted that name for what they were, which is what is now rightly called “Corporate Fascist”, especially in the US.
I am not satisfied that “Al Qaeda” is anything but like invention, adopted by yet other paloookas in Iraq, for example, doing the copycat “terrorist” schtick, perhaps even under the direction of secret services from the other side.
This would not be the first.
Bin Laden, when working with the CIA in Afghanistan, had a small picked group of Arabs around him. That is minutely documented.
What did they call themselves? The Afghans called them, somewhat contemptuously, “the Arabs”.
Who is Bin Laden now? Is he the same Bin Laden that was in Afghanistan plus a portable kidney dialysis machine? Or was that mythical too?
Did he dye his beard black? Does he wear his wedding ring on his left or right hand? Has his voice change? Does he have a Mossad bodyguard? Does he send Christmas cards to his old CIA handlers?
I have no idea. Given the nature and reliability of American intelligence under Bush and Cheney, does anyone else?
Here is another item the Russian Federation, with its newly minted independent media and press, and its excelsior intelligence gathering, might be able to help the rest of the “Free World” out with.
Whether said “Free World” any longer includes the US is touch and go at the moment as far as I am concerned.
CMK – Pulllease — Okay, you are a person with probably a normal psyche. That’s why you want things in the world to be simple. It just feels better that way. The other way, you rightly contend, lies madness. But perhaps in a mad world, the mad understand it a little better. Palin is the soothing hockey mom laying the balm of an icepack onto all our terrors.
Let me introduce you to someone who appears absolutely nuts to me whenever he talks to Wolf Blitzer, the ex-boyfriend of that flipping off the wall pregnant gal (probably more peaceful now), Lara Logan. He is Michael Wae. You’ll know him by his busted nose and Aussie accent (or maybe, like Lara, he is South African). Anyway, this is what he told Wolfie: “Oh… yeah … it isn’t exactly the surge working. It’s like … let me get some more air .. we’re paying off the Sunnis and al-Qaeda-in-Iraq. Yeah, paying them off so we get info and assassinate their leaders.”
And we have to keep paying them. But were we not doing that before? Anyone remember how the jihadis came to help out in Kosovo? No?
See, Sarah Palin can rest secure because she never has to have nightmares like Michael Ware (or his ex-love, Lara). They’re like that character in “JFK” who peached about “Operation Mongoose” and kept saying “Switching sides, switching sides… it’s an enigma within a riddle — la, la, la.”
Another word for it? The Great Game. It has been going on in that part of the world for centuries, and the West somehow got drawn into that (contemporary reference) Black Hole.
Now if we don’t just cut the rigging we’ll never sail free again.
But Palin is there, noble sacrificer, to throw more oil on the sacred fires. She’s our not-so-virgin Vestal.
And to some people, she is anodyne. To me? She is (not unlike Biden) the ominous sign that more of our lads and lassies will be sacrificed to the war gods.
Whatever Sarah Palin did as a governor is kind of remote now .. she has joined the neo-con, big government ways of the Washington establishment full bore. Whether she is naive and star struck I don’t know, but she is starting the game of lies and scripted sayings by the money behind McCain. By the end of the election cycle she will just as corrupt as the rest of them.
Hmmn? Sarah Palin’s past is “irrelevant now?” Really? So, if we apply that standard to every politician, anyone who has ever been a member of the Libertarian Party, or attended a Libertarian Party convention/meeting, or assisted the LP in any way, that should all be disregarded, ‘eh? One’s past associations with the Libertarian Party don’t mean anything for someone running for office now, huh?
I’m sorry, but there aren’t a great many politicians in the US who have gone out of their way to associate themselves with the Libertarian Party. Sarah Palin has. And for that, she should be congratulated. Pretty disgusting that some so-called libertarians here, believe her past associations with the LP are either all of a sudden “irrelevant” or “not important.”
“Pretty disgusting that some so-called libertarians here, believe her past associations with the LP are either all of a sudden “irrelevant†or “not important.—
Perhaps they recognise the vapid Jesus whore’s “pro life” draconia as profoundly antilibertarian.
Since Sarah Palin has recanted of her libertarianism by embracing the statism of war (i.e. welfare to corporations), her past is, indeed, irrelevant–unless one wishes to use it as an object lesson in betrayal of principle. Dondero seems willing to sell-out any principle if only it can be traded for some wisp of fame or association with the “rich and famous.” When it was a gold-backed philosophy, libertarianism used to depend upon its adherence to Rothbard’s nonaggression axiom and the self-ownership principle. Now that it has been traded in for the half-hearted observance of the Paulians and–much, much, worse–the avowed statism of the Creature from Alaska, it is apparently as free-floating as the dollar and, in that guise, just as worthless. For the past decade, the intellectual aspect of the LP has been suborned by the knuckle-draggers of the right, and Dondero is at the front of that mob, drooling from his lips and clutching his pitchfork–perhaps the only two things a fake libertarian can do simultaneously. Ciao.
Actually, the statist position is Anti-War. Palin is in staunch opposition to Islamo-Fascism. The Pro-Islamo-Fascist position, which is in line with the Anti-War position, is Fascist.
Islamo-Fascists want to force our wives/girlfriends to wear ugly black burqas from head to toe, outlaw all free speech especially that which is critical of Muhammed, ban booze and gambling, stone prostitutes in town squares, kick our dogs, cut off the genitals of our gay friends, and jail our marijuana-smoking buddies for life.
Rothbard was not a “libertarian” but rather a leftwing Anarchist who infiltrated our libertarian movement. Unwelcomed as a matter of fact.
Funny how some are now painting Sarah Palin as a “rabid Pro-Lifer” when in 2006 during the GOP primaries against Murkowski the whisper campaign spread in the Alaska GOP about her was that she was a “Pro-Choicer libertarian.”
How is Sarah,”Iraq war is a task from God” Palin a libertarian again? How does a war completely based on lies make us free? How is someone that supports the recent passage of the FISA bill even remotely considered a libertarian? She obviously forgot all that she ever learned as a so called libertarian.
I think you are taking her words out of context. Seems she was talking more about the war on terror not just Iraq. Several terrorists plots have been foiled since the US took action so I don’t think the US military efforts are a total loss. And yes it can be hard to make a decent speech when you have members of Code Pink rushing the stage! I don’t see any right wing groups rushing stages at Democrat events! If the Democrats had voted for military and police added to hate crime protection we would not be seeing all of this nonsense. They voted against adding them because they knew that wackos like Code Pink are their best weapon in gaining votes. Same goes for them voting against adding the elderly to hate crime protection. Do you think Obama’s camp would be able to poke at McCain’s age if elderly had been added to the proection? Noppers. Historically Republicans have older candidates so it makes sense that the Democrats would not want to vote something that could help protect millions just because they don’t want one of there common political ploys taken from them. What about antiwar protests and antiwar art in this country? I just comment here and you should probably have a read. http://www.myartspace.com/blog/2008/09/protest-art-your-thoughts.html
I am not a young man, but never in my lifetime have I seen anything as reminiscent of Hoover’s Great Depression as America today–banks failing and hundreds of thousands of Americans losing their homes. For the first time in my lifetime, people are worried about whether the money they have in the bank is safe.
This nation cannot afford four more years of Republican rule. And there’s one big reason.
Forget personalities, inexperience. racism, sexism, and war hero talk. It’s the ideas that the candidates and the parties cherish that really matter.
The same ideas that produced the Hoover Depression are alive and well in today’s Republican party–no taxes for the rich, subsidies for big corporations, no government regulation by the federal government, and the supremacy of states rights.
Change the name from Hoover to McCain to Palin on the economy, and the answers they give are interchangeable.
I’ve shortened my comments here because I know I’m blogging, but if you want to see more on this subject, go to a great website I found with the url http://www.howtotalkback.
I personally heard Rush Limbaugh say that it was his goal to undo everything that FDR did.
Now it’s no secret that nobody has more influence over Republican thought than Rush. And it’s no secret what Rush believes: government is bad and federal regulation is a plague.
But I wonder if Rush realizes that the FDIC–a program of the federal government put in place by FDR–is the main thing right now that’s keeping America from an economic collapse.
One of my friends asked me why I wasn’t voting Republican. “Don’t you want to keep more of your money?”
My answer? If Republicans continue to rule, and they follow the Hoover, McCain, Palin script, AND THE BANKS FAIL, neither she nor I will have any money to keep.
What we need is a President who sounds like FDR, not a Hoover sound-alike.
–Will C. Justice
The money is safe in the sense that should you ask for it the banks simply borrow from the Federal Reserve to pay you. The problem–though it is safe as “currency” it is decreasing in value as a set “denominated unit of exchange”.
So there will be no repeat of 1929. It might well be much worse. More like Weimar. Everyone will have enormous amounts of money, but it won’t be worth much.
Social spending and welfare had little or nothing to do with the collapse. The war in Iraq was the precipitating event.
Add this little tidbit: on September 8, Brazil and Argentina signed an agreement to stop using dollars in their bilateral trade.
Adios, USD.
Bernanke helped make this worse by lowering interest rates initially when sub-prime collapsed.
He did that to save the banks and the financial institutions that were key in causing the collapse.
Like Greenspan, he was so disconnected from ANY idea of the real state of the economy, and especially the effects of the increase of the price of oil, he actually seemed to think that lowering interests rates would increase demand in real estate as well.
As I have been saying for some time, one measure that should be undertaken immediately is the nationalization of oil in order to disattach the price of oil on the international market from the currency.
But this will cure nothing– 66 percent of US oil is imported. At most it will give a little breathing space.
The other measure that should be taken is to raise interest rates appreciably and very quickly. The trouble with that is that things are so far gone it may not help that much in the short-term, and there may be no long term.
The incompetents boldly saunter forward swashing their paper swords.
Now that the American public has been
throughly brainwashed about 9-11 and
Iraq, why not invite one of them to
be V.P.?
Do people think she was selected for
her grasp on the facts? If so, this
interview should dispell that hope.
The best description of Palin I have read yet comes
from Will Grigg when he described her as a “stalking horse.”
The neocons are not just hiding from us, they are
literally stalking us and the intent is deadly.
One Eugene Costa wrote:
“As I have been saying for some time, one measure that should be undertaken immediately is the nationalization of oil in order to disattach the price of oil on the international market from the currency.”
That’s about as disturbing a statement as I have read in a long time. It’s bad enough that the U.S. imperium has in effect nationalized the mortgage market. For further such actions to take place would surely place us in the same philosophical arena as Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany.
To drag this back to Palin, one must dispassionately observer her record and her actions since joining the McCain ticket. Palin is most definitely not libertarian in any manner. That may have been somewhat hidden by her obscurity before she became a national politician, but both her actions in Alaska and her pronouncements WRT the Georgia/Ossetia/Russia events and elsewhere indicate that she is no libertarian. Not even close. It is going to be a disaster, regardless of who gets into office in 2009, but McCain/Palin is more of the same old imperial, loss of liberties, massive debts, psychotic posturing from the religious reich that Bush made famous.
You folks might want to have a look at Chalmers Johnson’s Blowback trilogy by the way.