McCain and Sarah-Sixpack´s Movable Feast On A Ship of Fools

It´s great to hear that Christopher Hitchens, although he still behaves like an apologetic neocon, is voting for Obama and finds Sarah Palin a disgrace. He too, insulted by McCain´s endorsement of Palin and her "stirring up of the whack-job fringe of the party's right wing," was forced to concede to the better man. That said, it´s no time to assume that Obama is going to win because, after all, American culture and politics is consistently crazy and volatile. But thankfully this country has its redeeming qualities and is inhabited with enough good and smart people to make up for the racist jackasses that surface above a sometimes thin ice of civility at Republican rallies.

GOP smears come not only from Sarah-Six-Pack´s barbarian mobs but also from state representatives ignorant of American history like Minnesota Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann who would love to see the media conduct witch-hunts for liberal and leftist anti-American politicians. The only anti-American in this discussion is Michele Bachmann herself channeling Joe McCarthy channeling fascism. Although I am of no consequence in this dialogue, I suppose I am a "liberal" too, like all those other ordinary anti-Americans who served in the Vietnam campaigns and who still believe in the ideals America has tried to push forward since it first revolted against tyranny and the concept of the divine rights of kings.

People like Bachmann are a disgrace to American ideals and should be reprimanded for the ignoramuses they are as Katrina Van den Heuvel does here.

Barrack Obama understands that you can never know what will happen when it´s time for voters to pull the right lever on election day. Even if you think you´re ahead, you don´t stop. Although McCain has some serious issues neither can we be fooled for one second by Obama. But I will vote for Obama. It´s imperative he becomes president because the alternative of a 72 year-old cancer survivor and a 44 year-old programmed parrot a heartbeat away from the leadership of the so-called Free World would be unacceptable. Maybe a bipartisan effort should be made in the last remaining days to consider Sarah Palin not an option in this election. After the last eight years, there is no room for failure again. As leader of a mob of barbarians and shout-and-holler Jesus cultists, she would be just too ridiculous as a Vice President.

Who is the real Sarah Palin? Does Palin believe that history is destined to end soon? It is critical Americans know the answer to this question; to wonder if Biblical prophesy would influence her decision to launch nuclear attacks against Russia or any other "evil" power should she become president. This is no silly little side-joke about someone´s religious beliefs. Religion is not the subject here yet it pervades everything when discussing American politics and culture and every time this subject is brought up I cannot help but be appalled at how the Christian Right in America has distorted spirituality as well.

Sarah Palin and her sidekick began as a laughable sideshow and morphed into something more sinister. "In any political drama played out on the Western stage nowadays one can detect a thin layer of cowards and cynical manipulators at the top, riding on a foaming wave of citizens who, deeply motivated by moral or spiritual considerations, turn into saboteurs of their own societies and their own future." This observation I thought superbly describes what is partly wrong with America, an America slyly being run under a form of democracy that cloaks a liberal form of imperialism.

What Went Wrong?

This is a question Bernard Lewis once arrogantly asked of Islam but now applies to ourselves. The tragedy of 9/11. Colossal mistakes. Spectacular blunders. Major Media forgetting its purpose as a watchdog of the democratic process. As Alexander Cockburn notes, "it´s also the absence of a third force in American politics". Yet it´s also the era of information manipulation.

The information is out there and it is the citizen´s only way of getting at the truth. But there are two problems. One, is that it is difficult to manage so much information given how little time most of us have. Secondly, most of us rely on the Information Masters to sort, digest and synthesize relevant knowledge put out by political party machines, media, or our education system. This makes us the Information Victims because after it´s filtered, what we get are multiple truths designed to excite hatreds and become motors of change for the political-class, or the power-elite. Mainstream corporate media does not give us superior information and reflects the prejudices of its corporate masters. Historically, it´s always been like this in one form or another. The games between the literate and the illiterate are still with us. Those with superior information are empowered and those with distorted information are destined to nasty, short, and brutal lives and are none the wiser.

Video-captured, time and again, are McCain´s supporters with socially shared hallucinations trying to articulate extreme Republican talking points. I am reminded of Eric Fromm´s observation: "That millions of people share the same form of mental pathology does not make those people sane".

An Afro-American supporter shouts at a McCain rally "I'm really mad!" … and what's going to surprise you, it's not the economy. It's the socialists taking over our country."

Gee whiz! This reminds me why Mr. George Bush got twice elected; he appealed to society´s unhinged, uninformed elements. Not only is this election getting more childish, it´s getting dangerous when you have voters blaming socialists instead of greedy capitalists or using other straw-men arguments, forgetting that America was high-jacked by a small group of fascist-like neo-cons. Forgetting that John McCain is a member of Project for a New American Century (PNAC). Some maverick.

Socialist-like practices seem only acceptable for $700 billion welfare-like corporate bailouts, U.S. military personnel, and for the socialized health care system designed by the political elite and for the political elite. That makes some wonder if socialism in milder forms is not as bad as some think. Any suggestions that this be extended to the rest of America´s citizens is met with jeers from many Americans condemning socialism and equating it with pure communism. Strange, since the Jesus of the Bible himself preached a form of communism in his Sermon on the Mount and other lectures.

Solzhenitsyn once told Americans there is a "persisting blindness of superiority", the belief that Western pluralistic democracy is the best in theory and practice for all of humanity, a belief that cuts across all classes in the US. I understand that the right to vote is guaranteed regardless of education and intelligence. A foreigner who wants to become a citizen of this country must take a test. Well, maybe it would be a good idea if Americans citizens were required to start passing that same test in order to register before every election to show they understand the fundamentals of American government. At least it would be a good start on the way to superiority.

It also might help them to be suspicious of inane remarks from all politicians as in McCain´s constant, breathless and maniac refrains, "My friends, my friends". It is doubtful he is their friend. In fact, the Manchurian candidate recently made a Freudian slip and gave the game away by calling his supporters "my fellow prisoners" without batting an eyelid.

How he acts towards Obama during the debates – condescending and distainful – and whom he disrespectfully addresses as "the one" is how he would act towards you if you were Joe or Jane Six-pack approaching him in a non-election year. Be careful who you vote for. Caveat emptor. We all must have a say on this ship of state.