Sparrow for President…

Maybe in 2012?

Cannot come too soon!

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January 20, 2009

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Paranoia strikes deep…

Un-American Activities Committee

C’mon you Baby Boomers, sing along…”into your life it will creep…”  Well, to paraphrase Eldridge Cleaver, Un-American activities, or the alleging thereof, are as American as apple pie.

Now we have Representative Robin Hayes saying

“…liberals hate real Americans that work and accomplish and achieve and believe in God.”

Not to mention Michele Bachmann of Minnesota who suggested that the news media should:

“…[ investigate] the views of the people in Congress and find out: Are they pro-America or anti-America.”

Gee, how would you know?  Funny, also, that she thinks the media, that supine tool of the Liberal Elite would do a decent job of digging out the truth.

Yep, it’s getting pretty nasty as the right wing is backed into a corner with nothing to declare but its stupidity.  And just in case you thought that this is a recent phenomenon, check out this classic essay by Richard Hofstadter on the Paranoid Style in American Politics.

This really is a right-wing thing, too.  When have you heard liberals talking about how conservatives like McCain “hate America?”  We just think he’s a jerk.

Mocking God

Some choice words from Sarah Palin, chief theological spokes-person for the Republican ticket:

She expressed support for a Constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman. “I wish on a federal level that that’s where we would go because I don’t support gay marriage,” she said.

For those who claim there is no separation of church and state in the Constitution, I guess this is fine.  We might as well have amendments stipulating appropriate sexual practices, theologically acceptable rates of interest on loans, and dietary rules to be observed in all public places as well.  Maybe, just maybe, the government should back out of defining marriage entirely, even at the state level.  We could all be on a level playing field – with civil unions – and then we can get married by whatever priest, rabbi, mullah, brahmin, or witch doctor we select. 

Notice, also, how the usual “conservative” stance on states’ rights is dropped in favor of morality to be legislated from the Center when the issue is of such earth-shaking importance.

In the interview she also discussed her personal religious beliefs and said that “faith and God in general has been mocked through this campaign.”

Getting a little grandiose in her complaints here, I think.  She has certainly been mocked, but I don’t recall hearing much “God shall be mocked…” stuff at all.  Perhaps she thinks she is G-d? 

I like the “God in general” part too.  Well, at least the mockers aren’t focusing on God-trivia, like his hairdo in the Sistine frescoes, and stuff like that!

She’s a disgrace to our country.

To the left of me, to the right of me!!

Socialists, communists!  To the left of me, to the right of me!!  We’re lost!!!

Yep, earlier this election season, there was a deep-pocketed fund manager in Austin, Texas making his dissenting voice heard on the bailout package with cartoons depicting Bush and Paulson as agents of a Stalinist takeover!

In their last debate, McCain asserted that Obama wants to give us a health care system like the ones in Canada or England.  You know, those impoverished, third-world, communist tyrannies we know and love…Heavens to Betsy!  Today, in the NYTimes letters there was this gem:

I think Mr. Obama is a socialist who will change the very foundation of our nation. That may appeal to some, but the reality is that socialism does not work.

Socialist indeed!  My father wishes he were a socialist the way I wish there really were two cultures in our country now.

How deep must we go to plumb the depths of ignorance of history and politics to reach bottom in this letter writer’s mind?  Still, I’m happy to see how shaken up the credit crisis has gotten people.  At least they’re asking, “How does our country work?”

We, terrorists all!

This cover on the New Yorker magazine caused quite a (negative) stir recently.  Disgusting and reprehensible were words applied to it, I recall.  It seems, now, however, that it was pretty much on the mark.  Yes indeed, listen to Sarah Palin talk and watch McCain’s ads (“Obama, too dangerous for America!”) and this cover appears to have been strangely prescient.  “This is what we’ve come to,” it was saying, and it was right.

I guess I’m a terrorist too, or at least a sympathizer.  I occasionally attend cultural events in town at a foundation administered by a fellow who did time for some criminal political activity in the 60s.  Oh, yes, and my wife has crossed paths in the field of adult education with Cathy Wilkerson, the Weather Underground member who demolished her parents’ townhouse in Greenwich Village with a too-sensitive bomb. 

I think Obama was in grade school while this was going on.  Palin probably wasn’t born yet.

Guilt by association.  Palin & McCain, the Grand Inquisitors.