To Remember When Palin Makes Her First Primary Visit

Sarah Palin is the Voice of the GOP (4.00 / 2)

Every minute that passes without Steele, Romney, McCain; Sununu, Gregg, Sununu, Bradley, Ayotte; challenging her - that minute lets her role as spokesman firm up.

Silence is not always consent. But when your party's Vice Presidential nominee, touted as your leading light, speaks hallucinogenic babble wildly provocative claims and you don't object, it is.

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by: elwood @ Sun Aug 09, 2009 at 17:42:52 PM CDT

that's the way fascists roll n/t (0.00 / 0)

If the kids can't bop to it, it's bombsville.

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by: JonnyBBad @ Sun Aug 09, 2009 at 17:44:23 PM CDT

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Please expand n/t (0.00 / 0)

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by: elwood @ Sun Aug 09, 2009 at 18:34:34 PM CDT

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We knew she was against to Iran. (0.00 / 0)

Who knew she was against talking to Republicans?

--
New Hampshire's stimulus: a train to Boston.
Visit NHBTI.org to learn about the NH Capitol Corridor project.

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by: Douglas E. Lindner @ Sun Aug 09, 2009 at 17:53:03 PM CDT

Sarah Palin (4.00 / 7)

I hate ever to agree with Sarah Palin, but I wouldn't want to speak to Jeb Bradley or John Sununu (Dad or Junior)either.

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by: Lenore Patton @ Sun Aug 09, 2009 at 18:16:51 PM CDT

Exactly! (0.00 / 0)

Even Palin benefits from the broken clock being right twice a day.

"When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on."  Franklin D. Roosevelt    

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by: Kathy Sullivan 2 @ Sun Aug 09, 2009 at 18:52:33 PM CDT

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Even a blind (4.00 / 1)

nut finds a squirrel once in a while.

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by: cmnh @ Sun Aug 09, 2009 at 19:21:57 PM CDT

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I'll probably feel a whole lot better (0.00 / 0)

to sarah

...when you're gone

If the kids can't bop to it, it's bombsville.

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by: JonnyBBad @ Sun Aug 09, 2009 at 22:51:51 PM CDT

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people like Palin (0.00 / 0)

El really ?
In times of economic distress, demagogues make use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power. We've seen Palin be the pit bull who tries to divide and conquer by spreading fear and lies. Obama was 'the other' who she relished slimimg. Remember those rallies where people were screaming for Obama's head ?
She is the most divisive figure to emerge in years, has no trouble spouting the most inflammatory rhetoric to create division, most recently calling the Health Care Plan 'evil'.

http://www.alternet.org/politics/141819/is_the_u.s._on_the_brink_of_fascism/
 Fascism only grows in the disturbed soil of a mature democracy in crisis. Paxton suggests that the Ku Klux Klan, which formed in reaction to post-Civil War Reconstruction, may in fact be the first authentically fascist movement in modern times. Almost every major country in Europe sprouted a proto-fascist movement in the wretched years following WWI (when the Klan enjoyed a major resurgence here as well) -- but most of them stalled either at this first stage, or the next one.

   As Rick Perlstein documented in his two books on Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon, modern American conservatism was built on these same themes. From "Morning in America" to the Rapture-ready religious right to the white nationalism promoted by the GOP through various gradients of racist groups, it's easy to trace how American proto-fascism offered redemption from the upheavals of the 1960s by promising to restore the innocence of a traditional, white, Christian, male-dominated America. This vision has been so thoroughly embraced that the entire Republican party now openly defines itself along these lines. At this late stage, it's blatantly racist, sexist, repressed, exclusionary, and permanently addicted to the politics of fear and rage. Worse: it doesn't have a moment's shame about any of it. No apologies, to anyone. These same narrative threads have woven their way through every fascist movement in history.

   In the second stage, fascist movements take root, turn into real political parties, and seize their seat at the table of power. Interestingly, in every case Paxton cites, the political base came from the rural, less-educated parts of the country; and almost all of them came to power very specifically by offering themselves as informal goon squads organized to intimidate farmworkers on behalf of the large landowners. The KKK disenfranchised black sharecroppers and set itself up as the enforcement wing of Jim Crow. The Italian Squadristi and the German Brownshirts made their bones breaking up farmers' strikes. And these days, GOP-sanctioned anti-immigrant groups make life hell for Hispanic agricultural workers in the US. As violence against random Hispanics (citizens and otherwise) increases, the right-wing goon squads are getting basic training that, if the pattern holds, they may eventually use to intimidate the rest of us.

much more at link
http://www.alternet.org/politi...

If the kids can't bop to it, it's bombsville.

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by: JonnyBBad @ Mon Aug 10, 2009 at 07:28:38 AM CDT

Mencken on how to spot a demagogue (4.00 / 3)

What Mencken said this about how to recognize a demagogue. It's still true today:

The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.

On this basis, Michelle Bachman is not a demagogue-my sense is the poor delusional woman actually believes the stuff she says. Newt Gingrich and much of the GOP leadership certainly are demagogues- they know most of what they are saying is a lie. Palin I am not so sure about. She may just be a Buzz Windrip- driven by ambition and not smart or experienced enough to understand she is playing with fire.

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by: Michael Marsh @ Mon Aug 10, 2009 at 08:10:28 AM CDT

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Much agreed (0.00 / 0)

Except for Bachmann. When I see her, I think I detect glee over her eventual book deal.

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by: JimC @ Mon Aug 10, 2009 at 15:43:22 PM CDT

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