Wednesday, October 08, 2008

IN THE WAKE OF THE DEBATE...


...I found this on BuzzFlash

“Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi’s depiction of Sarah Palin at the GOP Convention as “Gidget addressing the Reichstag” is becoming more apt by the minute. Palin's attacks against Obama incited of verbal violence at a rally in Clearwater, Fla., when a Republican voter in the crowd shouted, “Kill him,” in reference to Barack Obama. At the same rally, the crowd singled out an African American on a news crew, shouting a racial epithet and yelling at him, "Sit down, boy.”

This BuzzFlash story crystalized a thought that was gnawing at me through the whole of the debate. Barack Obama articulated his vision for the nation, while McCain sniped and snipped and outright lied, and never summoned the courage to call Obama a “terrorist” to his face, but, meanwhile, the word was a mantra for the unbelievable Palin as she harranged the baying mobs at her increasingly ugly mass rallies, whipping up the bigots with all the responsibility of a drunk with a Glock, and totally risking the unleashing of the dark and disturbed Travis Bickle that lurks in the heart of America. The McCain campain will do anything to win. They do not have the scruples to hold office.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

My fingers are still crossed, but I think McPalin is toast.

Anonymous said...

Maybe we shouldn't even talk about our Travis Bickle worries. It seems like tempting fate.

ib said...

The thing is, Mick, you risk glamourising the truly ugly and faintly ridiculous situation which is the McCain/Palin smear campaign with any reference to TB.

Left to its own devices, the continually oafish joint attempt to snipe in the face of financial meltdown and hysteria will probably favour Obama.

Start painting the Republican Campaign in black and white hues and you conjure a semi Nietzchean drama where all candidacies blur in masturbatory incompetence and irrelevence."Taxi Driver", and TB by extension, is a drama of semi Nietzschean proportion. TB is inarticulate without a gun but not for nothing is his character the adopted figurehead of the blank generation.

Your comparison provokes unwarranted empathy.

Benjamin Owens said...

Obama would summon a marsh-wraith & protrude fire out from his mouth, vanquishing his foes for a pittance of EXP...

& to think of all the shit that would spill on every major news network if any yelled out "KILL WHITEY" at the opposite scene.

Anonymous said...

I bothers me that the division and bigotry to which Palin is playing will break the seals on all kind of racism, gay-bashing, and general viciousness which is always the dark undertow.

ib said...

Right. Take #2 (after recognising that my earlier comment didn't come close to saying anything much):

Having watched McCain and Obama in debate in front of an American tv audience, it is quite clear just to what degree those two candidates differ. McCain's constant reliance on sniping - coupled with his clumsy attempts to court the ordinary working family - can only work in Obama's favour.

Forget the assassination subplot to "Taxi Driver". What has irritated me from the very beginning of the campaign trail, has been the liberal assumption that everybody must vote for Obama simply because of his race ; that it might usher in a new era of equality.

Forget race. Obama is clearly the lesser of 'two evils'. McCain projects all the honesty and competence of a Richard Milhaus Nixon. His policies appear no more concrete or less ethereal than those offered up by the the Obama camp, and that has long been the weakness exploited to the Republicans' advantage.

Forget any concern as to Palin whipping up a Travis Bickle style assassination attempt. Bickle would have been just as happy to blow away either candidate. Clearly.

I am not American. I have no deciding vote. McCain is a horse's ass. It is as simple and as potentially dangerous as that. The situation would be of far greater concern - and paranoia warranted - had McCain a fraction of the deviously folk friendly charisma of an Oiver North.

Any US Presidential Race hasz its share of crooked characters. Obama stands straighter than any other candidate in a long while.

Anonymous said...

Scariest couple's costume concept I've heard of for this Halloween: Dead President McCain & President Palin

Gerin said...

These creatures think that Palin is a solution... and they are serious!? We got the same problem in our banana country.
If we swallow something we could be in a very serious bad trip thinking of these nonsense.
This is McCarthy era coming again.