Sarah Palin: McCain's inexcusable choice

[MinM]

http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/steve_chapman/2008/...

John McCain has described national security, defense, the war in Iraq and the war on terror as "the transcendent issues, the most important issues of our day." So who did he choose for his running mate? Someone who has zero acquaintance with those issues.

The first and last question to be asked about a potential vice president is: Is he or she prepared to take over immediately as president? Barack Obama's choice of Joe Biden gave that matter the priority it deserves.

The question is even more important for McCain because he's 72 years old and has had serious health problems. The chances are considerably higher than usual that his vice president would have to step into the Oval Office without notice...

[TwilightGardener]

1. This choice...gettin' almost universal bad reviews...I could not be happier.

[Eurobabe]

2. oh don't worry, she'll have Darth Cheney to guide her

like he mentored and trained his sock puppet George W.

[Kittycat]

3. I wonder if she sold Mary Kay before becoming Mayor?

Because after watching that speech, I told my husband - She reminds me of the Mary kay women at convention (yes, my mother forced me along with her to one in Dallas). She just has that special kind of scary about her. The kind that would chase you down the street yelling to get your attention, only to say what beautiful skin you have, then try to con you in to $300 worth of make-up to cover it up and make you break out in a rash.

Maybe it's me? But all I can think of when I see her is one of those women stalking me in her pink Cadillac.

[pokercat999]

6. Mary Kaye , don't know but before mayor she was

President.....of the PTA.

[MinM]

4. Karl Rove Trashes (Sarah Palin) on Gubernatorial and Mayoral Experience

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[shrike]

5. She's actually kind of scary looking there n/t

[GliderGuider]

7. Does nobody understand what has happened here?

At least one person apparently does get it: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/29/163234/559

Sarah Palin is a Dominionist stalking horse. She is the true access point for the power-holders in your nation. Her selection is in keeping with the principles of the Powell Memo and the tenets of Disaster Capitalism, and represents the continuation of the process the power-holders pioneered through the selection of Dick Cheney. Her elevation incorporates all the lessons they have learned in the last 50 years about the vulnerabilities of the American people and how to use those frailties to position themselves at the unassailable heart of power.

Palin's choice is not a fluke, not a miscalculation and certainly not a mistake. It sends a clear and incontrovertible signal to those who can read it. For me, the message is that the corporate elite is preparing a final consolidation of their stranglehold on the American body politic. Palin was carefully chosen to be the sympathetic and malleable instrument of that consolidation.

Palin's selection scares me shitless.

[Ghost Dog]

10. Very depressing

(But then so is this).

You mean Judeo-Christian Dominionism (I had to look it up, being European) as wikipedia describes it?:

Dominion Theology

Dominion Theology is a grouping of theological systems<3> with the common belief that society should be governed exclusively by the law of God as codified in the Bible, to the exclusion of secular law, a view also known as theonomy. The most prominent modern formulation of Dominion Theology is Christian Reconstructionism, founded by R. J. Rushdoony in the 1970s. Reconstructionists themselves use the word dominionism to refer to their belief that civil government should be controlled by Christians alone and conducted according to Biblical law.<4><5> Social scientists have used the word "dominionism" to refer to adherence to Dominion Theology<3><6><7> as well as to the influence in the broader Christian Right of ideas inspired by Dominion Theology.<3> Although such influence (particularly of Reconstructionism) has been described by many authors,<8><9> full adherents to Reconstructionism are few and marginalized among conservative Christians.<8><10><11>

Dominionism as a boader movement

In the early 1990s, sociologist Sara Diamond<12><13> and journalist Frederick Clarkson<14><15> defined dominionism as a movement that, while including Dominion Theology and Reconstructionism as subsets, is much broader in scope, extending to much of the Christian Right.<16> In his 1992 study of Dominion Theology and its influence on the Christian Right, Bruce Barron writes,

In the context of American evangelical efforts to penetrate and transform public life, the distinguishing mark of a dominionist is a commitment to defining and carrying out an approach to building society that is self-consciously defined as exclusively Christian, and dependent specifically on the work of Christians, rather than based on a broader consensus.<3> (p. 14, emphasis in original)

According to Diamond, the defining concept of dominionism is "that Christians alone are Biblically mandated to occupy all secular institutions until Christ returns". In 1989, Diamond declared that this concept "has become the central unifying ideology for the Christian Right"<12> (p.138, emphasis in original). In 1995, she called it "prevalent on the Christian Right."<17> Journalist Chip Berlet added in 1998 that, although they represent different theological and political ideas, dominionists assert a Christian duty to take "control of a sinful secular society."<18>

In 2005, Clarkson enumerated the following characteristics shared by all forms of dominionism:<19>

1. Dominionists celebrate Christian nationalism, in that they believe that the United States once was, and should once again be, a Christian nation. In this way, they deny the Enlightenment roots of American democracy.
2. Dominionists promote religious supremacy, insofar as they generally do not respect the equality of other religions, or even other versions of Christianity.
3. Dominionists endorse theocratic visions, insofar as they believe that the Ten Commandments, or "biblical law," should be the foundation of American law, and that the U.S. Constitution should be seen as a vehicle for implementing Biblical principles.<19>

Other authors who stress the influence of Dominionist ideas on the Christian Right include Michelle Goldberg<20> and Kevin Phillips<21><22>

Essayist Katherine Yurica began using the term dominionism in her articles in 2004, beginning with "The Despoiling of America," (February 11, 2004),<23><24><25> Yurica has been followed in this usage by authors including journalist Chris Hedges <26><27><28> Marion Maddox,<29> James Rudin,<30> Sam Harris,<31> and the group TheocracyWatch.<32> This group of authors has applied the term to a broader spectrum of people than have Diamond, Clarkson, and Berlet.

/... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominionism

k&r.

[GliderGuider]

11. Yes, that's the beast

[Ghost Dog]

12. So that would relate to this (Feudal Society under Biblical Law):

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

The financial model has been a great success from the vantage point of the top of the economic pyramid looking down? The economy has polarized to the point where the wealthiest 10% now own 85% of the nation’s wealth. Never before have the bottom 90% been so highly indebted, so dependent on the wealthy. From their point of view, their power has exceeded that of any time in which economic statistics have been kept.

You have to realize that what they’re trying to do is to roll back the Enlightenment, roll back the moral philosophy and social values of classical political economy and its culmination in Progressive Era legislation, as well as the New Deal institutions. They’re not trying to make the economy more equal, and they’re not trying to share power. Their greed is (as Aristotle noted) infinite. So what you find to be a violation of traditional values is a re-assertion of pre-industrial, feudal values. The economy is being set back on the road to debt peonage. The Road to Serfdom is not government sponsorship of economic progress and rising living standards; it’s the dismantling of government, the dissolution of regulatory agencies, to create a new feudal-type elite.

[cosmicdot]

8. Alaska (Palin) sues over listing of polar bear as threatened

Alaska sues over listing of polar bear as threatened

The Associated Press

Published: August 5, 2008
Last Modified: August 5, 2008 at 12:54 AM

The State of Alaska sued Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne on Monday,
seeking to reverse his decision to list polar bears as a threatened
species under the Endangered Species Act.

Gov. SARAH PALIN and other Alaska elected officials fear a listing
will cripple offshore OIL AND GAS development in the Chukchi and
Beaufort seas off the state's northern border, the same waters that
provide prime habitat for the only polar bears under U.S. jurisdiction.

~snip~

http://dwb.adn.com/news/alaska/story/9938229p-9858036c....

I can't help but wonder if she was catapulted to the governorship with the help of Diebold?

"The private contractor hired to provide Alaska's electronic voting
machines is Diebold Election Systems."

re 2004: "The official vote results from the last general election are
riddled with discrepancies and impossible for the public to make sense
of, the Democrats said Monday."

http://dwb.adn.com/news/alaska/story/7386582p-7298824c....

2006 when she 'won' the governorship:

Diebold voting machine failures strike again in Alaska

By Ryan Paul | Published: August 25, 2006 - 08:48AM CT

Plagued by hardware defects, security vulnerabilities, and rapidly
diminishing credibility, voting machine manufacturer Diebold has been
dealt yet another setback as Alaskan state elections are hampered by
problems with the company's products. Assorted issues with voting
machines in seven precincts forced some election officials to manually
count and upload votes.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060825-7592.html

[Phred42]

9. Unfortunately this is playing to the Irresponsible and Brain-Dead