The "cultural elites"--meaning those of us with a greater than high school reading level who are able to work, pay our bills, read a newspaper and perhaps even throw back a literary work of an accomplished author from time to time and discuss with one another its relative significance in the context of human experience--need to wake up and look around us. We are losing the culture war to a growing class of people who look just like you and me, work just like you and me but some where along the line checked out of the information age and became hoodwinked by the disinformationalists and fear mongers who profit off their cultural illiteracy and their resulting insecurity and uncertainty about who and what are unfamiliar to them: Americans of different cultures, nationalities, color and perspective (i.e., you and me and our President).
Sarah Palin can be laughed at, dismissed or ridiculed for her book tour for "Going Rogue: An American Life", by those who wish to diminish her standing or question her intellectual abilities but that would be a mistake. She represents and appeals to a slice of America that is going rogue with her. You can thank the ideologically corrupt, unprincipled bastard, William H. Kristol, Editor of The Weekly Standard and of PNAC fame for helping to elevate Ms. Palin to national prominence. Kristol, one of the architects of the Project for the New American Century, the neo-conservative think tank persuaded the McCain Campaign that John McCain, a 72 year old American Kleptocrat on one of his last missions of vein political ambition, should pick as his running mate, potentially putting a heart beat away from the Presidency, someone so clearly unprepared and unqualified for the office in Sarah Palin. For this reason alone Kristol, McCain and company should be forever discredited for such a self serving, intellectually and patriotically bankrupt ploy. Even if her book is perceived widely as "Payback to the McCain Campaign" for their effort to discredit and blame her for their loss in 2008, these folks have still not paid a big enough price for their attempt to defraud America by choosing her in the first place.
These folks attempt to compromise the security of a nation so that the Neocon's can stay in power, and now your vice presidential blow up doll, makes a few bucks off a book and we are to demonize her (Palin), rather than looking to the douchebags who attempted to rig the game, divide and destroy a nation for the higher purpose of keeping the neocons in power? Sarah Palin is not my enemy. I will not buy into that game. My eyes are focused elsewhere on her political sponsors and lackeys. Even as McCain and company have trashed Palin and otherwise attempted to distance themselves from their selection of Sarah Palin for the number two spot on the GOP ticket in 2008, to re-establish McCain's political credibility, I say, "my friend" you knew exactly what you were doing. In the eyes of this citizen, the Real John McCain will forever be remembered as a Benedict Arnold and a total douchebag who was willing to sacrifice the security of his countrymen on a shallow political ploy, because at the ripe old age of 72 years you were so drunk and corrupt with your own self importance and life long yearning for the Presidency. You took a chance that you should not have. Your hope? Hope that the vote of cultural illiterates, right wing fanatics, racists and GOP vote suppression efforts in select battle ground states could swing the election in your favor and sneak a mentally unstable geezer and a barracuda into the Oval Office. It goes without saying that you severely miscalculated Palin's cross over appeal to disaffected Hillary supporters.
McCain, his handlers and legacy builders need to stop trying to spin the corporate media with the fiction that Sarah Palin cost McCain and the Republicans the election. That old dog just won't hunt. McCain was a dead man walking, a mentally and emotionally unstable, perhaps even insane, candidate on dying political legs. His sole redeeming quality to the neocons was that he was the Republican with the most cross over appeal in what was an otherwise Democratic year. Even so it became clear that McCain would very likely lose. The Palin Experiment was foisted on a desperate Presidential aspirant willing to win ugly and divide a nation if necessary. In the process, John McCain, an empty vessel became a trojan horse, used by Kristol and the neocons, his candidacy sacrificed to elevate Palin to national prominence in a bold appeal to unsettle the electorate and soldify their brand among a key constituency of disaffected and angry rural whites and hard liners, many of whom actually voted for Hillary Clinton over Obama in the Democratic primary contests. Palin's potential success would only embolden the far right by illustrating what it was possible for the neocons to get by the American people, or at least the relatively unenlightened, in the future. Mark my words on this. Time will prove me right and sufficient circumstantial evidence already exists in the public arena from which one could deduce this from the Palin experiment.
When you elevate to national prominence and stature, individuals of limited accomplishment and distinction, from among the ranks of so called "regular citizens", it is a cynical ploy by the most powerful to hold on to power, straight out of the Nazi Party playbook. For one these folks will do whatever their sponsors wish them to do to maintain their stature. More importantly, attacks upon them can be discounted, dismissed and ridiculed as attacks by so called "elitists" on a person who is "of the people." So, when you examine Sarah Palin keep a watchful eye on her sponsors and those who use the mainstream media to support her.
America's growing cultural illiteracy is evident when people who cannot even read newspapers or books can author them and those who do not read books go out and buy them. Their prophets? Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin. The real danger in America grows by the day as increasing numbers of our citizens are dumb down susceptible to these irrational hate prophets. The hate campaign that began against then Presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama has continued virtually non-stop to undermine the legitimacy of President Obama. The same role players continue to beat the drum of hate as they did on the campaign trail, coaching significant segments of the white electorate to hate the black man, question President Obama's citizenship and his "socialist" agenda. In the past, we would have given a group of people with this mindset coloring books and crayons. Sadly, however, these folks are all grown up so now it is rather easy for the hate mongers to spoon feed them a steady diet of disinformation as a rational to keep them in their cocoon's of hatred towards that and those which is different from them--you, me and so called cultural elites, blacks, Hispanics, ethnics, urbanites and the educated classes. Truth, facts, evidence to the contrary no longer matter. The prophets do not need to worry about fact checking or the validity of their arguments because the folks that they are preaching to have already checked out of civilized society. Those of us who are able to think and engage in logical reasoning, comprehend and communicate rationally are their enemies. Our arguments matter not to them.
This has nothing to do with whether or not you agree or disagree with every aspect of President Obama's political agenda and policy proposals. Earnest liberals, conservatives, progressives, libertarians etc. can agree to disagree about selected issues and the appropriate solutions. There is always room for rational debate about the right solutions needed to move the business of America forward. But those who elevated this woman to national prominence and continue to sponsor and support this woman as a vessel of any kind must appreciate and understand that you have created a Frankenstein Monster who along with the other ministers of hate and disinformation are engaged in a shell game on this nation's conscience. While the puppeteers remain in the shadows your puppets can only divide this nation further. This citizen will forever hold you accountable, even more so than I hold Sarah Palin accountable for her effort to remain relevant, sell books and keep herself in the public eye. Palin is but a pawn in your game.