LINES OF THE DAY

". . . But the past does not exist independently from the present. Indeed, the past is only past because there is a present, just as I can point to something over there only because I am here. But nothing is inherently over there or here. In that sense, the past has no content. The past -- or more accurately, pastness -- is a position. Thus, in no way can we identify the past as past." p. 15

". . . But we may want to keep in mind that deeds and words are not as distinguishable as often we presume. History does not belong only to its narrators, professional or amateur. While some of us debate what history is or was, others take it into their own hands." p. 153

Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (1995) by Michel-Rolph Trouillot

Thursday, September 4, 2008

I Am Terrified

They have declared the issues off the table. They have declared they are running on narrative, and their narrative is Sarah Palin and her family.

Thus she and her family cannot and will not be off the table. They have made the decision to put her and her family there, with her full and enthusiastic cooperation.

Her speech was a litany of lies, that the primary media has allowed to lie. They aren't being called on.

So it is the family issues or nothing. Her motherhood allows her to be Mother of Our Nation.

One of the reasons she terrifies me is her out-and-out demagogery. How successful it was, focused to get the crowd's bloodlust up to lynching level. The booing, combined with the howling, is the matrix for group violence.

There was nothing like this at Obama's convention and speeches. People were roused, but they didn't howl and boo, they cheered.

The narrative:

The cain campaign has officially stated that this election is NOT about ISSUES. It's about narrative.

Their narrative is that here are 2 mavericks who are D.C. outsiders coming in to clean up the dem stygian mess of Big Gummit, earmarks and liberal media. They will succeed because it is Gawd's will, and the sign that this is Gawd's Will is because they have the Gawddess of Alaska running, and it is Gawd's Will that the new 'Laska Pipeline Be Built and thus it is also Gawd's Will to drilldrilldrill, especially in the ANWR. And so the Gawdess will Save America by laughing at Climate Change That Isn't Your Fault. Besides since she is a Gawddess she can clean up anything, and if it won't clean she'll shoot it with her great big gun while flashing her (Indiana Delgate Buttons stated this) her Hottest Chick legs. And moreover she's the Madonna with even a surrogate Madonna, her Daughter bearing another child, while she herself is still bearing progeny, and this makes for the happiest families in all the world, which is also, by the way, Gawd's Will, and Gawd has blessed America with His Alaska Gawdess, Who Is Just Like You And Your Family.

They are gleefully spreading the word that dems are scared of sara. Damned betcha. She scares the living daylights out of me. She already makes Thatcher look almost lamb-like, particularly since Thatcher's developed alzheimers.

We're there, in one of those states now that we've read so much about in history and fiction.
The only person out of Her People that doesn't adore SP, is probably Ann Coulter. She's been dethroned and displaced as the sexy water carrier, and by someone who has real power, not loaned power, as part of the ruling establishment, not the court jester. We thought the last 8 years were terrible and frightening and disasterous. They were the Overture to the massive tragedy of Armageddon. They really believe it.

What are we going to do about it? Rational, counter-argument, ticking off one by one the lies and refuting them with facts isn't going to do it. Rational plans to deal with the Issues of which there are so many, and telling them the plans for the economy, the health care crisis, the global environmental catastrophe, the research on the miserable failure of teen marriages, isn't going to do it. What will? How do you deal with the irrational combined drive for power and destruction?

They have aggressively followed a concerted game plan to cut off every avenue of rational thought for individuals and for us a community, as a public commons.

That is where the left has failed since the 70's. We are so offended, so frightened, so baffled by the irrational that we can't even admit or acknowledge to ourselves that this is what we're dealing with.What are we going to do? I wish I had a plan. I don't.

Facts do not play to these people. It isn't about facts or truth or information at all. No matter how often you outline and source your facts, they will still say, "Well, you know my gut tells me there is something not right, something fishy about Obama. I don't think he's really an American." These are the people who want red meat, not information, and sp is giving it to them -- on a barbeque, raw steaming hunks, in their big dark restaurants.

So we're people who live in story all the time. What is our narrative that can override this one of greed, meaness, cruelty, of drill, kill & swill?

3 comments:

Frank Partisan said...

Sarah is a young Phyllis Schafley.

OT: The cops were wild tonight. A FOX News crew got gassed.

At the Nader rally, an incredible performer Nelly McKay performed.

K. said...

Apparently, no work has started on the vaunted pipeline, nor is any planned.

Comparing narratives plays into their hands. It's the economy -- the highest unemployment rate in five years was not the best news the McCain camp could have gotten.

Foxessa said...

Everything is the fault of the dems. And Liburrels. And the media.

He wasn't there.