My Saturday afternoon rant having watch a clip of Palin rousing the rabble before watching a football game:
What kind of America do you want Republicans?
Do you want these economic times to tear us apart? It’s easy you know. Find your favorite scapegoat and direct all the free-floating anxiety towards your choice. Rev up the angry and frightened and give them something or someone to blame. This method is a time-proven success for dismantling stable governments.
What kind of economic system do you want?
Thirty years of your Free Market theory has brought us to the brink of a full blown depression just as the lengthy pre-1929 period of non-regulation brought us to the Great Depression.
Oh I know you will say we never achieved your beloved free and unfettered markets but that shows your system has always been unworkable. You were unable to move your designs from theory to practice and make them work. You had lots of excuses but here we are at the edge. We have had booms and bust during these last decades while you stripped away regulation. The result? The economy has come crashing down. We are close to being bankrupt as a country because your ideas are bankrupt. In the end you have had to turn back to Washington, your nemesis, hat in hand, to save you. After years of privatizing profits for a select few you are now more than happy to socialize the debt you have created. (In the Free Market world of your fantasies I would imagine football games would be played without refs and the NFL would never consider adding controls like salary caps or having a draft to distribute the players more equitably among the teams. Your free market football players would always call the plays fairly and keep to the rules. Chaos? Not possible I am sure you would say.)
What kind of political system do you want?
It is clear you would be happy with a plutocracy but does the rule of law mean anything to you other than those who rule make the law? Do you fear the massive growth of government surveillance? Do you mind the politicization of our Justice Department? Do you mind the dismantling of FEMA or the FDA? Are you happy with the giant Department of Homeland Security and its Big Brother connotation? Do you care about our crumbling infrastructure? Do you care if we are protecting our ports? Or are all these things trivial in the face of that offense against All We Hold Sacred: gay marriage? Do you want to reach an accord between the right of women to have control over the when another living entity can inhabit her body and the right of that living being to be brought to viability or is this too valuable a fundraising, crowd-rousing issue to ever resolve it?
What kind of social system do you want?
Are you planning a full retreat into walled communities when whites become the new minority within the next three or four decades or do you plan somehow to create an American version of Apartheid here before then? Are you going to build that wall along our border or are you going to make this country work for all of us, white, black, brown, Latino, Asian?
Do you want to continue letting the middle class disappear while concentrating wealth in the hands of the few? Poor people who have known nothing else are easy to keep underfoot. A large population of once-economically secure families slipping into poverty is the stuff of revolutions. During the 1950’s, the time you like to reminisce about, America was at its economic best because wealth was equitably distributed. That is one part of the 50’s I would like to see return.
What kind of leaders to you want?
If you would even tolerate a ticket with the defamatory Sarah Palin and her sound-bite depth of knowledge along with a man who graduated at the bottom of his class then I think that answers the question. If you mock an East Coast education as elitist and long for a Joe Six-pack in the White House I think we know your answer.
What kind of America do you want, Republicans?
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These are serious times. Voters need for us to provide serious answers, John
]]>The candidacy of not one but two women for the top jobs on a national ticket has been historic but with Hillary Clinton there was never any doubt of the depth and breadth of her understanding of each and every issue. Americans deserve nothing less of a vice presidential candidate in these treacherous times.
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The question about Sarah Palin is not about her character or even her experience however thin her resume, it is about the depth of her knowledge. She admits to limiting her focus to issues effecting Alaska which is fine for a governor. She may also be content with returning the now powerful role of vice president to that of limited stand-in, but the truth is, however small the chance may be of her becoming our president, we cannot afford to have someone who is not only unfamiliar with national security issues, foreign and domestic affairs, and the economy, but someone has not given even minimum thought to the consequences of actions taken in these areas. Americans do not know what Sarah Palin thinks about our critical issues therefore we cannot judge how she will act if force to take up the reins of power. And we have only two short months to vet her. The press needs to question her fully and immediately; a single vice presidential debate is not sufficient.
The candidacy of not one but two women for the top jobs on a national ticket has been historic but with Hillary Clinton there was never any doubt of the depth and breadth of her understanding of each and every issue. Americans deserve nothing less of a vice presidential candidate in these treacherous times.
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