Pardon the brief rant, but I'm tired of the airtime these Republican wonks are getting for the excrement they're spewing. Minneapolis/St. Paul appear to have been turned into a police state, where peaceful protesters are attacked, and where legally booked concerts are harassed and shut down. But none of this should surprise us...
The Republican party, under the leadership W. has become the party of fear. Ironically, while they spew forth hateful language and issueless rhetoric trying to induce fear, they are the ones who are afraid. The outright mocking and oppression of opposing views proves that their owns beliefs are so shaky that they cannot bear anything contrary.
On this neophyte Palin, there is so much irony and hypocrisy that it should churn the stomachs of every voting American. She represents much that is wrong with this country, insomuch as she very clearly self-identifies as a soccer/hockey mom with a bad attitude who thinks the way to be heard is to dictate. Yet, for representing the party of traditional values, she does not herself have traditional values.
Of course, the Republicans say we're not supposed to question her background, lack of inexperience, or clear disconnect with the fundamentally extreme Republican platform. But again, none of us should find this surprising.
The Republicans have become the party of oppression. They trample on the Constitution when it's convenient, and laud it as written in stone and not open to interpretation (hmmm, kind of like some other "holy" document) when it suits them. The media plays nice, because they want access, failing to cover the aggression perpetrated against protesters. And they scream "sexism" when people question the background and experience of their VP candidate, while at the same time attacking the character of Barack Obama. Could they be more transparently hypocritical? They clearly don't even care any more. The party of corruption, the party of oppression, where it's unpatriotic to exercise your Constitutional rights to free speech and peaceful assembly, where we must live by Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD), where Christianity is seen as the one true religion, and that all others must be driven out, even to the extent of using violent force, where it suits them.
For the record, sexism is defined as:
1. attitudes or behavior based on traditional stereotypes of sexual roles.
2. discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities; esp., such discrimination directed against women.
The criticism from the loyal opposition of Palin as a VP does not fit these definitions. People are pointing out the apparent contradiction in the strong conservative values contrasted with the lack of embodiment of those values. In just 21 months, Palin appears to have become quite corrupt, eagerly playing vicious political games to undercut her opposition, and even going so far as to having her Wikipedia record modified to misrepresent the truth about her stances. She's a complete novice in the political arena - definitely more so than Obama, who had held Illinois State office before joining the US Senate. The snarky defensive remarks about sexism are purely designed to elicit sympathy votes from other soccer/hockey moms at a time when we should be seriously questioning why this group of people seems to feel so oppressed when they're oftentimes in the driver's seat. Self-victimization is lame, and so is this candidate.
And as if that's not enough, now there are interesting rumors (albeit from somewhat biased sources) that there are strong mafia ties to McCain and co. Not surprising, I guess, but we'll never hear about it.
