No matter how you look at Ms. Beehive she reads the same backward or forward. What is it in this culture that spews out such cartoon figures? And why is it that we take these caricatures to heart, pumping formaldehyde into their veins, standing them up and having them run for office? Here is a person who believes in Creationism, believes the Iraq war is god destined, refuses to read a book on homosexuality because it might bring conflict to that “brain” of hers and yet requests it be dropped from the library. I’ve come across this type of mentality throughout the ages — Joseph Smith, Torquemada, the Catholic Index, the Inquisition, the conquistadores, Strom Thurmond, Jessie Helms, all the Bushes, Dick Cheney, fascists, all who have been relegated to the dustbin of history after wreaking untold suffering. Sorry to say, Ms. Palin does not rise to this level of grotesqueness. She is a mere upstart, the runt of the liiter and she reeks of that ambition that makes fools think they are wise. The old word is hubris and she is saturated in it. I feel that the best she really could manage is a regional dealership of Avon. Poor Palin has no real sense of her limits, the mark of someone with character and a fair knowledge of self. Heavily defended (I’d love to interview her parents), conditioned by religion and society, a true believer, she appeals to the baseness in our species. The “I am tough stance” is appalling. Nuance is beyond her. Her “philosophy” is a gallimaufry of small town crackerjack wisdom and doctrinaire religiosity. It all reflects on how poor McCain’s judgment is. What I conclude is that it is absolutely true that in America a horse’s ass can run for office. I believe it was either Caligula or Nero who brought a horse into the Roman Senate and appointed him senator. Crazy as it was, it had some merit.
Allow me a measure of fulmination, as I take after how ridiculous we can be as a people — as individual human beings. I am not into parties, or political philosophies, the religious right (no pun intended), conservatism and all that other bullshit that comes into politics. I suffer from a deformed naivete which keeps me still hoping that rationality might affect us. It will not. Just forget about that. Working with people in therapy reveals the sad situation of us all — driven by drives we are unaware of; emoting without reflecting; pushed by the waves of passion, greed, ambition and inquisitiveness. I am not jaundiced, but I am not a fool and I have rendered down what I have experienced with people, metabolized that and have savored the total distateful brew of it all. It is hard not to be cynical which some wit said is the last refuge of an idealist. That has some truth to it. Thus, I have no expectations for this culture or the American people or the species, and in so doing I need not feel disappointed. People behave in a whole host of ways. It is like trying to follow the path of a snake — good luck! Palin represents the darker forces within us. If she and McCain win, I won’t leave the country, nor will I be surprised by this nation which voted in George Bush with millions still supporting him. We are a politically correct people because, to quote Phlip Wylie, we are a “Generation of vipers.” Think on this one thing: what we did in that Iraqi prison which we want to hide forever is an indelible statement about how we train our soldiers, how we rear our children in our schools and “small towns,” how we now accept torture as an American practice, how we have lost our way significantly. The species is in need of repair — it has always been so.
In the next cycle after all this craziness we will evaluate once more how mad we were at the turn of the century under George Bush. And historians and the smart folk among us will wag our heads and wonder how it came to be. And that is the nature of the species. Hopefully Palin will return to Alaska, slay more caribou, write her memoirs, be invited to speak at the opening of Georgie Bush’s new library, have barbecue in Arizona with the McCains, speak at the 2012 convention and spend her remaining years teaching abstinence to all her illegitimate grandchildren. We can make a good case that at the present time there is no such thing as hypocrisy. We dwell in entropy.
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