What is to be made of Palin? At this point she is a series of images to me. I am being conditioned as is the way in all societies. But I am on it. She presents herself or is presented as mother, caribou shooter, fisherperson (argh!), as a “barracuda,” as representative of small town values. At this point I usually gargle with mothballs to wake up my senses. Jefferson’s hope for an agrarian society is ancient history. Farmers have long been off the farms. Conglomerates own farming. No one goes to Paducah to become enlightened. We are all city bound. So the true believers marinate themselves in this old myth. It has long since been extinguished. I’d rather have, if one must choose, the anomie of big city life than the ass sniffing nose of the PTA. All history has been the conflict between the individual and society; I’d rather work that out in a city. Palin appeals to the so-called rugged individualism of Americans, another myth.
A very small point of view is coming up now. In Arizona there are mountain roads that are fairly treacherous, although very scenic, if you are not cautious. I have observed that it would be quite easy to go off a turn and down a precipice in a second. I have ridden these roads. I have also noticed that guardrails are absent. I will now extrapolate. It is as if the state is telling you that you need to be careful, that it is up to you to be wary and that monies cannot be expended to put up guardrails –that you are on your own. The attitude I pick up in this part of the southwest is that you have to manage for yourself, take care of yourself and that social security, at its core, is anti-individualistic. Sorry. I think the state should put up guardrails and that the state has to provide for the welfare of its citizens. Test my character in other ways and not my ability to drive.Tangentially, I would think twice if not thrice before shooting a caribou;not Ms. Palin who is enriched with a great deal of testosterone. Manhood or womanhood must meet rigorous measures of sincerity in my mind than pulling a trigger. Again, all this is Americana. And the true believers suck it up and dip their minds into the gravy of nostalgia and hard-hearted if not hard-headed sentiment.
Small town America had its values, but it is not the value system, in my belief, for America as we exist in a global economy and internationally. Ms. Palin also is lacking in shame, but aren’t we all in this culture at this time? I find it disconcerting that she parades her daughter and boyfriend out on the dais as if isn’t this all loverly; no it is not. The odds against a successful teenage marriage is very high. Because her daughter couldn’t keep her legs crossed and he couldn’t keep his fly closed is now expressed as a kind of randy charm. Clearly this lady who preaches abstinence has failed in her family. Well, families are like that, imperfect and messy “regimes.” And I am also disconcerted by having her infant child up on the dais. Infants are very much more sensitive and knowing than we give them credit for. The literature is immense on that fact. Ms. Palin leave the infant at home rather than as a tool to operate your ambition engine.
I, for one, do not want a small town brain operating at the highest echelons of government. I am not charmed by small town America. And this is Ms. Palin’s “charm.” I remember being stunned by McGovern’s loss to Nixon in 1972. He still is alive and is so vastly more superior to Nixon as a man; he is an honorable human being, as I read him. After that stunning defeat, I chose not to vote for years. It took me a while to metabolize that the American people preferred old, crusty, tough and hard and nasty and tricky Dick than someone who was immeasurabvly superior. i sense that all over again with McCain and Palin. McCain running on the Hanoi Hilton ticket, but then I can’t abide motorists who have purple heart veteran on their tags, as if this is the place to be honored. Tacky.
When I look at the tube and stare at Palin’s face hidden behind those deceptive glasses, I see small town beauty queen with the gonads of a truckdriver. I see hard. I see tough. I see a rage at the world. By the time you reach her level, you are hidebound and this is her antique appeal to the true believers. She is the new woman, a terminator, indestructible. “Resistance is futile.” In fantasy I see her giving a lap dance to Dick Cheney as metal gears and shifts grind. Quick, the smelling salts. As I ask myself why such an animus to her, all I can offer is that anything as repetitive and retrograde as her persona I find eminently ridiculous. How best can I say it? She is a historical footnote, not the written page above.
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