Do you ever get the feeling that Tea Party Republicans see the phrase “Ignorance Is Bliss” as a Mission Statement?
Showing posts with label Rage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rage. Show all posts

7/31/10

Taking a Stand against Sarah Palin’s Jealous Contempt For Barack Obama

Another Great Article by Sarah Jones

Posted on July 30, 2010

Sarah Palin's Bitter Rage and Contempt


For the last, oh my Gosh, almost TWO years since Palin hit the national scene, conservatives have been salivating over the Democrats’ alleged fear of Sarah Palin. Striking “fear” into their “enemies” is part of the entire worldview of these folks. Everything is seen as a war, a power structure of over and under, best exemplified by Palin’s selling herself as a hunter and someone who just got things done in Alaska (contrary to her actual record and her quitting of her job). While I reject this worldview, it’s important to note that their largest strategic failure is not their worldview, but their misinterpretation of the Left’s outrage over Palin.

We don’t fear her. We fear for our country if she were to be anywhere near in charge of it.

The worldview of the Left is based on more egalitarian and inclusive ideals; The Left wants to negotiate with other countries, use diplomacy and strategy before force, but not INSTEAD of force, and this is nuance is so often misunderstood by the black and white world view of the Right, the Left values intelligence (and this need not come from books, but from a curiosity about the world and other cultures) and a gathering of information before making decisions.

Sarah Palin is clearly a knee-jerk responder; someone who doesn’t value listening or learning, but instead goes in guns a blazin’. Sarah also brings with her a history of anger, bitterness, and misplaced and abused power.

Sarah Palin a dictator who is too willfully ignorant to understand that her tactics are dangerous to the national security of this country. A perfect example of this was during Palin’s time as mayor of Wasilla. Palin was confronted by Wasilla City Council member Nick Carney, a now estranged former mentor of Palin’s who actually picked her to run for Mayor of Wasilla, regarding her despotic style of management. Carney, recounting Palin’s illegal and lavish expenditures on redecorating her office, recalled, “I told her it was against the law to make such a large expenditure without the council taking a vote. She (Sarah Palin) said, ‘I’m the mayor, I can do whatever I want until the courts tell me I can’t.’”

As is typical among the incompetent, Palin is a rabid back-seat driver who can’t seem to let a day go by without desperately inserting herself into the national dialogue, in a transparent attempt to both equate herself with the President and get his attention. President Obama had Palin’s number from day one, and he’s never given her the attention she so craves. He’s dismissed her with a respectful nod, rising above Palin’s crude tactics.

Palin uses drama and conflict to gin up support for herself. She isn’t actually running on ideas and can’t run on her history of governing, so she has to run on feelings. She stirs up the Tea Bagging base by getting them angry. They read her anger and rage and contempt as strength, but it really comes from weakness. It’s all Palin has.

Palin uses her contempt to mask her fear of the Press. She uses her anger to mask her envy of the President. She uses her rage to mask her disgust that a black man beat her (this is how she sees it, never mind that she was not running against Obama).

If you watch Sarah Palin’s face in any speech or TV interview, she gives herself away with a thousand micro-expressions of rage, contempt and disgust. Micro expressions such as:

Envy: Eyes staring; mouth corners turned down; nose turned in sneer; chin jutting.
Disgust: Eyes and head turned away; nostrils flared; nose twisted in sneer; mouth closed, possibly with tongue protruding; chin jutting.
Anger: Eyes wide and staring; eyebrows pulled down (especially in middle); wrinkled forehead; flared nostrils; mouth flattened or clenched teeth bared; jutting chin, red face.
Contempt: Curled lips and wrinkled nose.

Palin often manages to plaster a fake smile over her predominantly negative emotions, but this only makes her less trustworthy to the astute viewer who senses the disconnect between her emotions and her smile. When her expressions aren’t giving her away, her pointed fingers jabbing outward do. And if that fails, there are always her words.

Palin consistently uses negative emotion words, which are all indicators of a guilty conscience. Sarah invented the Death Panel lie (which was actually a confession of the very real Death Panels in Alaska wherein over 250 people died under Palin’s Medicare program waiting for care — the only state Medicare program to ever be shut down by the feds for incompetence). Sarah came out with “pallin’ around with terrorists” when in fact she was sleeping with a secessionist.

Palin uses words to incite fear, anger and rage in her followers. They connect with Sarah because of her anger, not in spite of it. In a very real sense, many of the accusations against Obama and the Democrats that we hear from Republicans right now are confessions of their own reckless crusade of deregulation. And their accusations are more often than not couched in negative emotional words like “rape” and “Hitler”.

Democrats and frankly, Independents as well as thinking Republicans, worry about Sarah Palin coming anywhere near our White House. Not only is Sarah Palin incompetent and lazy, but she’s also a demagogue so full of negative emotions she would endanger this country every time she opened her mouth. As much as George W Bush was a cause for concern given his emotional make up, I have to say that Sarah Palin makes Bush seem sane, reasonable and smart. She has the temperament of a jealous, angry Junior High “mean girl” and she is clearly incapable of rising above her own emotions.

And that’s not OK in any adult, let alone a political leader. It’s irresponsible of the Right to champion this person who has been called a “sociopathic narcissist” by her own mentors and supporters as well as being referred to as “Frightening, Dangerous, Mentally Limited” by the McCain staff, as a possible leader for this country.

So what the Right senses as fear of Palin is actually fear for our country and fear that the Conservatives will once again endanger this country by electing another Fascist-styled dictator who just so happens to also, too be a war hawk and a religious extremist. We’re not afraid of her because she’s a powerful Conservative leader or a good Christian. She is neither and the Right will not be taken seriously until they come clean about what exactly they stand for.

We’re afraid of what she does to this country because she allows her bitter, jealous contempt of our President to come before the good of this nation.

See more great articles at Politicusus

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10/9/08

MCCAINS TEMPER

This week, Brave New Films released a new video focused on McCain's temper, featuring "original interviews with former U.S. Senator from Arizona Dennis DeConcini, former Arizona Republican Party Executive Director Jon Hinz, former Arizona Republic Editor Pat Murphy, and Eleanor Apodaca, sister of a Vietnam POW/MIA soldier. All four attest to McCain's explosive anger, three of them with personal anecdotes."

Report: McCain Exploded With Rage During Gambling Outing

Nico Pitney-Huff
Oct. 9, 2008

Writing for the Daily Beast, Michael Kinsley relays a disturbing story about John McCain from Jeff Dearth, former publisher of the New Republic, when Dearth and McCain attended a magazine industry conference at a casino hotel in Puerto Rico in 2005:

McCain's game is craps. So is Jeff Dearth's. Jeff was at the table when McCain showed up and happily made room for him. Apparently there is some kind of rule or tradition in craps that everyone's hands are supposed to be above the table when the dice are about to be thrown. McCain--"very likely distracted by one of the many people who approached him that evening," Jeff says charitably--apparently was violating this rule. A small middle-aged woman at the table, apparently a "regular," reached out and pulled McCain's arm away. I'll let Jeff take over the story:

"McCain immediately turned to the woman and said between clenched teeth: 'DON'T TOUCH ME.' The woman started to explain...McCain interrupted her: 'DON'T TOUCH ME,' he repeated viciously. The woman again tried to explain. 'DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU'RE TALKING TO?' McCain continued, his voice rising and his hands now raised in the 'bring it on' position. He was red-faced. By this time all the action at the table had stopped. I was completely shocked. McCain had totally lost it, and in the space of about ten seconds. 'Sir, you must be courteous to the other players at the table,' the pit boss said to McCain. "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? ASK ANYBODY AROUND HERE WHO I AM."

This being Puerto Rico, the pit boss might not have known McCain. But the senator continued in full fury--"DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU'RE TALKING TO? DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?"--and crisis was avoided only when Jeff offered to change places and stand between McCain and the woman who had touched his arm.

Read Kinsley's full piece here.

Update: October 9, 2008

Posted: 06:50 PM ET

From
An ethics watchdog group has asked the Senate to investigate whether Sen. McCain failed to disclose gambling winnings.
An ethics watchdog group has asked the Senate to investigate whether Sen. McCain failed to disclose gambling winnings.

(CNN) – Ethics watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, commonly referred to as “CREW,” has requested that the Senate Ethics Committee investigate whether Sen. John McCain failed to disclose gambling earnings as required by federal law and the Senate’s own rules.

Click here to read CREW's request

Citing recent press reports, CREW alleges that McCain failed to disclose income earned from gambling on the personal financial disclosure forms he’s required to file as a senator. “Given Sen. McCain’s history of gambling on a regular basis over the years, it is nearly impossible to imagine that he never won over $200, the amount that triggers the reporting requirement,” CREW’s request says.

In the event the Senate Ethics Committee finds that McCain failed to disclose any gambling earnings, the watchdog group asks that the matter be turned over to the Department of Justice for a criminal investigation into whether McCain knowingly and willfully failed to disclose any winnings.

The McCain campaign has not responded yet to CNN’s request for comment about CREW’s request for an investigation.