AlterNet: What I Learned at the Sarah Palin Rally Before They Threw Me out

[laststeamtrain]

What I Learned at the Sarah Palin Rally Before They Threw Me out
By Linda Milazzo, AlterNet
Posted on October 7, 2008, Printed on October 8, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/101903/

Last Saturday I went to Carson, California, to attend a rally for Republican Vice Presidential candidate, Sarah Palin. For those who aren't familiar with the city of Carson, it's approximately 19 miles south of downtown Los Angeles. In the 2004 Presidential election, Carson, which had a population of just under 90,000, donated three times as much money to George W. Bush than to John Kerry. This year, for the 2008 elections, residents of Carson have given slightly more to Republican candidates than to Democrats by a slim margin of $3,000. Thus the gap between Republicans and Democrats in Carson has narrowed.

<snip>

Among this raptured crowd of 20,000 was a frightening mix of Christian zealots, anti-abortion fanatics, and mostly white suburban women and men reconnecting with their high school mentality. Bright colored pom-poms were everywhere -- as if Sarah Palin were head cheerleader, the women were on her squad, and the men were the football heroes. Sarah Palin, the quintessential 4ever-school-girl had revitalized their youth and saved them from adulthood. Check out the red pom-pom "hair" on the man behind Palin. If that isn't high school, what is??

Want further proof of pom-pom Palin? Try this as an experiment. Put on an audio of a Sarah Palin speech. Close your eyes and listen. What you'll hear is the high pitched voice of a teenage girl, speaking in circular reasoning, incomplete sentences, and juvenile idioms. No sophistication. No leadership. No wisdom. Just the sound of a snarky school girl. Sarah Palin is America's greatest nightmare. Sarah Palin is George W. Bush in a dress!

<snip>

While Palin's peevishness is appalling, it pales in comparison to the dangerous ideology that she and her followers share. By unleashing Sarah Palin, John McCain has reinvigorated the anti-choice/anti-woman/anti-reproductive rights fanatics, who not long ago were at the forefront of domestic terror. Interesting that Palin insinuates Obama when referring to:

"terrorists who would target their own country"

when it's those who share her ideology who have committed heinous domestic crimes. Let us not forget the health-care workers who were murdered by anti-choice radicals who share Palin's no exceptions for abortion beliefs. Let us not forget the women and family clinics that were bombed. Let us not forget Eric Rudolph - the anti-abortion terrorist who killed two people and injured 100 others during the Atlanta Olympics in 1996. The same Eric Rudolph who bombed abortion clinics that killed even more people. The same Eric Rudolph who sadistically attacked a gay bar. Let us not forget that the Sarah Palin wing of anti-choice fanaticism victimized America for years, committing crime after heinous crime. What John McCain has unleashed on America with his choice of Sarah Palin is an outright invitation to these cults to wreak havoc all over again.

On Saturday I got a taste of this anti-choice fanaticism as Palin's zealots shouted "baby killers" at the pro-Obama activists outside. I saw it first hand with the anti-choice tirades looped again and again by one Palin follower after another. This is their mission -- their single issue cause -- and Sarah Palin has given it life. With the economy spiraling downward, the world at war, the planet over-heating, and continents dying from famine and disease, Sarah Palin's followers are driven by one issue only -- the total end of abortion.

<more>

http://www.alternet.org/election08/101903/what_i_learned_at_the_sarah_palin_rally_before_they_threw_me_out/

[fasttense]

1. Sometimes when an unruly crowd starts to get hypnotized

into a mass of thoughtless hate, shouting out the truth brings them back. But sometimes it makes the crowd turn on the person.

[dynasaw]

2. Carson's Population

about "mostly white suburban women and men reconnecting with their high school mentality:" they make up only a quarter of the city's population. Carson is ethnically diverse: one quarter each are Asians, African Americans and Samoans. It is home to the largest Samoan population in the U.S. The people who came to cheer Moose Bunny don't represent the city.

[DrZeeLit]

3. You nailed that w/ "high school mentality" -- I grew up in Gardena right next door to Carson...

And Carson is "infamous" for gang activity, poverty, education issues and economic issues.

I agree -- the attendees bused up from Orange County -- John Wayne territory. If the crowd was white, Toto, you weren't in Carson any more.