Sarah Palin: Fooling None of the People All of the Time

I'm re-printing this complete article by Deepak Chopra. Originally published in the San Fran Chronicle, I read it on Huffington Post. It's the best explanation of Palin I've read:

Last fall it seemed as if Sarah Palin would light a fuse and cause a social explosion. Behind her beauty-pageant smile lurked the shadow, the dark side of human nature. Her tactic of appealing to the worst impulses of the electorate had a long history in the Republican Party. Indeed, Palin inherited the selfish, mean-spirited values of another politician with a gleaming smile, Ronald Reagan.

When it first dawned in American politics, the shadow was shocking. Values were turned upside down. The AIDS crisis? Ignore it. They deserve what they got. The deficit? Doesn't matter as long as the rich get what they want. Huge unemployment and falling incomes among the working class? Feed them crank social issues so they have someone to hate. Palin breathes this noxious atmosphere like the clear air of Alaska and thrives on it.

Now, however, Palin brings a smile. When she quit her job as governor, it was obvious that someone had whispered in her ear, "You're fading. Soon you'll be a nobody. Grab the money while you can." And so she did, earning a hefty advance, much of which, fittingly, goes to paying off lawsuits related to her ethical violations while in office. The shadow that seemed so dangerous a year ago has been defanged, reduced to spiteful backbiting against the McCain campaign, the very people who gave Palin her spot in the limelight to begin with.

I hope the left will take a deep breath and stop treating Palin like a diabolical force. The American character has always had a large dose of orneriness in it, and the more ornery you were, the farther west you moved. Alaska has a reputation for being an icebox for malcontents. Palin came straight from the source, and countless Americans root for her. In hard times, being the bellyacher-in-chief is a valid role. Hence the rise of Glenn Beck.

But nobody is being fooled. A recent Gallup poll showed that 67% of responders don't want Palin to run for president. Fear of Palin is ill-advised on two counts. First, fear is what the shadow wants. Without it, the shadow has no power. Second, the left needs to learn how to win graciously. The current upheaval in American society, which has been an enormous threat on many fronts, called forth a president and a constituency that knows how to handle crisis. The voices of sanity are prevailing. The solutions that have emerged on all fronts -- economic, social, and international -- represent the best in the American character.

But you can't expect everyone to join the party. As long as we know that Palin is fooling nobody all of the time, the darker side can be tolerated. The shadow is always with us. Today it's on a book tour.

Hate Mongering Is Alive and Well in America

Be on alert. Let's not let this slide. Hold McCain and Palin responsible for the hate mongering that they've unleashed. This could ignite. There are darks hearts aplenty in this country--just waiting for a chance to explode. Whoever instigates American mobs into violent stupid acts of hate is the real OSAMA BIN LADEN. Let's shear the sheep's wool from this Republican Duo so the mob can see who they're following.

Jon Stewart on the Biden-Palin Man-Off

Sarah Palin, Serial Killers, and Rachel Zoe

It does intelligent women no favors to promote a woman based on her curb appeal and other superficial qualities. That Sarah Palin has self-confidence is terrific, but it's below bar and insulting to all the women who have sought an education and struggled to gain experience and know-how in their respective fields.

As Gail Collins points out in her "Talking in Points," an op-ed piece in the NY Times: "This entire election season has been a long-running saga about the rise of women in American politics. On Thursday, it all went sour. The people boosting Palin’s triumph were not celebrating because she demonstrated that she is qualified to be president if something ever happened to John McCain. They were cheering her success in covering up her lack of knowledge about the things she would have to deal with if she wound up running the country." (10/4/08)

On another note: the premiere of _Dexter_ was really good. Why am I drawn to the reflective killer who, for the first time since the show began, killed spontaneously and couldn't handle it? The show has one hell-of-a production artist. I love the colors and the quirky characters. I also liked _Californication_...good writing; a fumbly, smart, cynical-but-sexy leading man; and palpable sexual vibes with his leading lady (and quite a beauty). But my shame show that I've caught myself intrigued with is the Rachel Zoe Project...a third because I once worked as a stylist in New York, another third because I once worked as a personal assistant to celebrities and a third third because I once loved following fashion trends. But I hated that world and all the over-indulgence of hipness that never quite stood the test of quality and class and often rewarded bitchy emptiness. So, maybe I like the show because Rachel seems the quintessential product of hip, flashy, sometimes beautiful nothingness that once confused me since I saw so much of it, and "it" was always so confidently asserted that I wondered and wondered about its origins. There is knowledge involved, mind you. It's just designer field knowledge. I suppose it has its place within an arena, but it becomes a big bugger that grows and grows and doesn't know what it doesn't know, but the confidence is immense.

Come to think of it, that takes me back to Sarah Palin! Now, in fairness to Rachel Zoe, she knows her haute couture! You could learn a bit from her on vintage Chanel or De La Renta. Does Palin's field knowledge compare? You should earn your wings in your field by doing the work and learning from history. If you're going for the top, you should know more than anyone else. You should be the best. Rachel Zoe passes this test, and Sarah Palin fails miserably.

A MUST READ

Leave it to a spiritual guru to encapsulate what's really going on in America and in this election.

I'm reprinting the entire blog, but to give the author credit, please visit his website at: Chopra's blog

Obama and the Palin Effect
by Deepak Chopra

Sometimes politics has the uncanny effect of mirroring the national psyche even when nobody intended to do that. This is perfectly illustrated by the rousing effect that Gov. Sarah Palin had on the Republican convention in Minneapolis this week. On the surface, she outdoes former Vice President Dan Quayle as an unlikely choice, given her negligent parochial expertise in the complex affairs of governing. Her state of Alaska has less than 700,000 residents, which reduces the job of governor to the scale of running one-tenth of New York City. By comparison, Rudy Giuliani is a towering international figure. Palin’s pluck has been admired, and her forthrightness, but her real appeal goes deeper.

She is the reverse of Barack Obama, in essence his shadow, deriding his idealism and turning negativity into a cause for pride. In psychological terms the shadow is that part of the psyche that hides out of sight, countering our aspirations, virtue, and vision with qualities we are ashamed to face: anger, fear, revenge, violence, selfishness, and suspicion of “the other.” For millions of Americans, Obama triggers those feelings, but they don’t want to express them. He is calling for us to reach for our higher selves, and frankly, that stirs up hidden reactions of an unsavory kind. (Just to be perfectly clear, I am not making a verbal play out of the fact that Sen. Obama is black. The shadow is a metaphor widely in use before his arrival on the scene.) I recognize that psychological analysis of politics is usually not welcome by the public, but I believe such a perspective can be helpful here to understand Palin’s message. In her acceptance speech Gov. Palin sent a rousing call to those who want to celebrate their resistance to change and a higher vision

Look at what she stands for:

* Small town values — a nostaligic return to simpler times disguises a denial of America’s global role, a return to petty, small-minded parochialism.
* Ignorance of world affairs — a repudiation of the need to repair America’s image abroad.
* Family values — a code for walling out anybody who makes a claim for social justice. Such strangers, being outside the family, don’t need to be needed.
* Rigid stands on guns and abortion — a scornful repudiation that these issues can be negotiated with those who disagree.
* Patriotism — the usual fallback in a failed war.
* ”Reform” — an italicized term, since in addition to cleaning out corruption and excessive spending, one also throws out anyone who doesn’t fit your ideology.

Palin reinforces the overall message of the reactionary right, which has been in play since 1980, that social justice is liberal-radical, that minorities and immigrants, being different from “us” pure American types, can be ignored, that progressivism takes too much effort and globalism is a foreign threat. The radical right marches under the banners of “I’m all right, Jack,” and “Why change? Everything’s OK as it is.” The irony, of course, is that Gov. Palin is a woman and a reactionary at the same time. She can add mom to apple pie on her resume, while blithely reversing forty years of feminist progress. The irony is superficial; there are millions of women who stand on the side of conservatism, however obviously they are voting against their own good. The Republicans have won multiple national elections by raising shadow issues based on fear, rejection, hostility to change, and narrow-mindedness

Obama’s call for higher ideals in politics can’t be seen in a vacuum. The shadow is real; it was bound to respond. Not just conservatives possess a shadow — we all do. So what comes next is a contest between the two forces of progress and inertia. Will the shadow win again, or has its furtive appeal become exhausted? No one can predict. The best thing about Gov. Palin is that she brought this conflict to light, which makes the upcoming debate honest. It would be a shame to elect another Reagan, whose smiling persona was a stalking horse for the reactionary forces that have brought us to the demoralized state we are in. We deserve to see what we are getting, without disguise.

On Sarah Palin

Weirdly, I like her spunk; I admire her tenacity. If only the stuff that came out of her mouth showed intelligence, historical accuracy, a mind at work, a mind that has studied history, and one that didn't get manipulated by the Bush Propaganda Team on Iraq and other lies to use our soldiers' lives for profit. But, she'd make an interesting aunt or high school principal or a soccer mom, as long as she was someone else's mom. I imagine living under her roof would be HELL if one didn't follow her rules. She might also be a good friend to her girlfriends--that person who would tell you the truth (yes, your butt looks too big in that dress) or make light of some situation you were in. She was probably cruel and relentless to those she didn't like. And yet, she has a nice smile.

But as president? Even vice president? Are you kidding? To me Palin is another one of those women who love their men and their fathers no matter how wrong they are. These women are loyal. They don't question Papa.

A New York Times editorial quoted her saying in the recent Charlie Gibson interview (on ABC News) in regards to fighting terrorism: “We must do whatever it takes, and we must not blink, Charlie, in making those tough decisions of where we go and even who we target.”

I'm at a loss for when "not blinking" is a good thing. Who doesn't blink? Automatons? Hit men? I know: a soldier on a field who must kill an enemy or risk his/her unit's lives. This reminds me of a conversation I once had with a fellow graduate student and military officer who said, "In the classroom, I teach my soldiers to think and to question, but in the field, if they question me, it could be fatal. It's necessary that they don't blink."

I really like what the The Times editor said in response because it's just such a belief in non-reflection, non-thinking that made the Bush years disastrous: "This nation has suffered through eight years of an ill-prepared and unblinkingly obstinate president. One who didn’t pause to think before he started a disastrous war of choice in Iraq. One who blithely looked the other way as the Taliban and Al Qaeda regrouped in Afghanistan. One who obstinately cut taxes and undercut all efforts at regulation, unleashing today’s profound economic crisis."

The Times ended it best with:

"In a dangerous world, Americans need a president who knows that real strength requires serious thought and preparation."