Anger Management

[PREFACE]

[This post is, in all likelihood, too long. It's been festering for a while, and needed to get out. So if it seems like it changes gears suddenly, or tries to cover too much, that's why. It is, however, a decent view into what's been in my head the last seven days, and says things I think need saying. I may change my mind about parts of it, and have certainly failed to adequately think some of this through or explain my thoughts. But that is for later posts – and comments – to determine.]

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Regarding the lack of posts... aside form the general writer's malaise I've had for a long while now, I've had something else coming between me and the blog.

Rage.

This whole Sarah Palin thing rubs me the wrong way. I try my best to laugh about it – and trust me, there's plenty to laugh about – but whenever I try to put some serious thought into the matter, finding an article or fact, insight or thought I want to share here, I start getting a little angry. That makes me think harder about the situation, so I get even more angry. And then I start to brood, getting madder and madder, until...

Dammit, I'll huff and I'll puff, and I'll BLOW YOUR HOUSE IN.

It's one hell of a vicious circle.

McCain was bad enough – out of touch, unfamiliar with the internet, almost unquestioningly loyal to the current administration. But we're not even talking about him any more. Nope, he's let himself be overshadowed by his running mate; something that was looking pretty negative to the Democrats is now suddenly an asset to the GOP. Small wonder, when McCain is boring, prickly, and old, while Palin gets people talking.

So many reasons to be furious:

• She is woefully unqualified. See here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.


• She lies like a rug, like a dog, like a snake, like a Bush.


• All of these questions.


• The Republican party: same old hypocrisy, GOP business as usual.


• She puts he political ambition ahead of her family (a four-month-old baby with Down's syndrome, a 16-year-old pregnant unmarried daughter, plus three other children) while claiming to represent small-town family values.


• She doesn't even know what the job is!


• One week after the announcement of Palin's selection, and it's starting to look like the Dems are rolling over and taking it like they've already lost. True or not, this perception will kill us.


• She's dumb, dumb, dumb, and proud of it!

Sarah Palin is no different from our current president. She's George W. Bush with a fertile womb. She flaunts her ignorance and inexperience, claiming that this makes her "real," using the blanket of small town America to disguise her extreme right-wing agenda. This woman is the poster child for pork barrel reform, sex education, a woman's right to chose, and tighter control (and higher accountability) of corporate interests – not as a maverick champion from the Heartland, but as the worst kind of offender. She is the reason we need to fix things, along with plenty of others (I guess). Bush is currently enjoying the lowest presidential approval rating in the history of the Gallup poll, but along comes his female doppelgänger, and suddenly she's the hot new thing.

This is John McCain's trial run at executive power, and an example of the kind of decisions he'll make if elected. What a doozy of a forecast, what an ominous start.

Sarah Palin (via the empowerment of John McCain and the ratings-hungry media) has turned an already contentious election into something much, much worse. She started up the "us-versus-them" rhetoric all over again, after Barack Obama had made some genuinely positive strides towards reaching a common point of view in many Americans. Now, on the side of patriotism and family, we have the Small-Town Mavericks. In the other corner, wanting to tax us and let the terrorists rape our babies, the Big-City Elite. The genius of this is any intelligent, researched, valid criticism on the McCain/Palin Palin/McCain ticket can be dismissed as elitist attempts to undermine real American values. The better the point, the deeper the hole dug. We can't win for losing.

Chez Pazienza isn't far off when he calls this "civil war;" the tone of the campaign, at least from the Conservative side, is one of intentional disenfranchisement. Like Bush's (false) "mandate" following the 2004 election, Palin is essentially telling half of this country to bugger off, because we don't deserve a say. We flower-fucking hippy elitists don't know anything about "real" Americans, and it's time for them to finally have a say!

Because lord knows we didn't hear about this eight years ago – the liberals have been in charge all along, and man have they botched it up!

RAGE.

It's time for the liberals, the progressives, the Democrats, the Lefties, to get pissed. Not annoyed, not dissatisfied, not upset. Epic, Moses-breaks-the-ten-commandments, Valkyries-riding-down-from-Valhalla fury. We've been rationally whiny for too long now, and no sooner do we find a nominee with the power to articulate our hopes and needs but we cut him of at the knees when seven tough days (which include the RNC!) and the 24-hour news cycle scare us a little.

Take back patriotism. The Right doesn't have a monopoly on being American, unless we let them.

Cool Rationality hasn't worked. Flip the equation, not to the insanity of the extreme Right, but to Burning Rationality. Believe in people and ideas not just with your brain, but with your hearts. Channel your inner Jimmy Stewart and rail against injustice. Looking smugly down our noses hasn't seemed to have accomplished much so far.

Go out and do something, don't just read and stew. Let it out. Volunteer at a calling center, try and talk to people, give them the straight-up facts, but passionately. Show them the lengths the Republican ticket will go to screw them, and what being liberal really means.

Because we can't afford to keep letting ourselves be dragged down this path. We all, each of us, Left, Right, and Center alike, deserve better.

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[AFTERWORD]

[Yes, I can see that I linked to about eight-thousand different pages in here. I know it's a lot, and it makes it look like throwaway thoughts. The thing is, each and every one of these is worth reading. I encourage you to look at all of the videos, check out the transcripts, read the articles and op-eds. Take your time, bookmark this page, check them out over a few days. But there's a lot of good (and infuriating) information out there, and you owe it to yourself to keep informed. So follow those links!]