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Wow. Just had a really weird experience.
Due to the significance of the 2008 US election and its potential impact for the other nations of this world, the BBC chose to run the full length of the recent Vice-Presidential Debate here in the UK.
Lemme ask you something.
Is this what you people saw.......?
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Just wonderin’....
That’s a screen-shot straight off my telly. Please join me over the flip to help me make sense of this.
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Just so you know, I’m a proud American, presently stationed here in London.
So here’s the thing:
Have you noticed how Sarah Palin, over the past several days, has been complaining about all those pesky "media filters" which she finds really annoying because the gotcha journalism hinders her ability to speak oh-so directly to the American people?
Well, as it turns out, I in fact had an opportunity to view the Veep Debate without any of these said media filters. I honestly don’t know how it happened; evidently, somewhere across the mighty expanse of the Atlantic Ocean, the transmission between the reality of American tee-vee just sorta got "lost in translation" when it was broadcast here. Dunno, technical glitch of some sort.
Now, I hate to break it to y’all, but here’s the cold hard truth: Sarah is one hundred per cent correct. I know that hurts. But these media filters are real. Take it from me, because I saw with my own eyes what this debate looked like in reality.
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"When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag, and carrying a hockey stick."
-- Sinclair Lewis
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Things started off fairly normal. The thing that initially tipped me off that I might be witnessing the pure, unadulterated reality of the debate was when Governor Palin talked about the "Drill Here, Drill Now" mantra of the Republicans:
The Democrats are promoting all sorts of alternative energy ideas. They make cynical claims that it will take over ten years to drill down to these oil reserves, but they haven’t thought it through the way I have. You all remember Edward R. Murrow? Me neither. They say he was one of those gotcha journalists, but from, like, a long time ago. Anyhoo, part of my energy plan would be to use Mr. Murrow’s petrified corpse as a man-sized drill bit. The more questions you ask me, the faster the drill spins. Look, I’ve heard that the guy is already twirling like a whirligig, so why not take advantage? How’s that for "alternative", you mocha-sippers, hmm? Ask me how many newspapers I don’t read, and watch the black gold flow.
At first it took me by surprise that she would employ such a populist strategy, to effectively use the "I’m-a-roiling-cesspool-of-stupid-with-a-beehive-and-lipstick" approach. But I quickly saw the brilliance of it, because I respect a politician who can look me in the eye and say "I’m an idiot like you". Does Obama do that? Nope. The man’s an elitist. Does Biden have the down-home anti-intellectual cache that inspires your average American to crave a beer in his company? Puh-leeze, the guy out-wonks Gore. Biden’s most scathing line of the night was "Facts matter, Gwen". Oh, they do, Joe? To whom? Dead crickets and shiraz-sippers, that’s who.
Then Palin went straight to her base:
And I’d like to take a moment right now to give a little shout-out to all the unborn children out there watching tonight, even those in precarious liberal wombs! Lemme hear ya say way-o !
This one really got the Republicans in the audience cheering. She hit it out of the park. Did Biden take an opportunity to acknowledge all the people who haven’t even been born yet? Nope. Just some talk about "policies" that need to be implemented to safeguard future generations, and indeed the future of the whole planet. Boring !
It was then that I noticed a camera shot of Palin’s trendy footwear: she was wearing her six-inch Achilles heels, though she made a point to deflect any possible accusations of fashionista elitism by admitting the stilettoes were from some Greek designer she’d never even heard of before. This was a campaign infused with the power of the people; you’d never see a warrior like John McCain caught dead in a pair of 500 dollar loafers.
The lack of media filters didn’t seem to make Joe Biden’s performance tangibly different by my observation. The only thing they didn’t seem to filter out was his teeth. Every time Joe smiled, beams of white light emanated from his horse-sized chicklets through my television, turning my living room into a momentary disco, and leaving me with a retina burn for which I will need some reliable healthcare to remedy.
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Big Brother is Watching You. And Big Sister is Hawt.
-- George Orwell
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Then Palin started doing some kind of primal scream therapy. The Fundies understood it. They really felt it; I think the unremitting waves of vacuousness have a zen-like swaddling effect on reptiles that have accidentally incarnated in the skins of homo sapiens. Then she duct-taped a half-dozen dog-whistles together, and played them like Pan’s pipes. Normally, I wouldn’t have been able to hear any of it, but due to that technical glitch that allowed me to see and hear past those gosh-darn filters, I knew that the Fundamentalist crowd was again out of their seats cheering because she was doing a virtuoso medley of Wagner, Tammy Wynette, and the hauntingly beautiful dying howl that wolves make when you blow their heads off.
Then she started flinging apple-pies into the audience like frisbees, and belting out "We Are The Champions" while dancing upon Jimmy Carter’s corpse, even though he wasn’t dead, and then she field-dressed a moose while she insisted that Karl was the least funniest of the Marx Brothers. The crowd roared to a crescendo as she began foaming at the mouth and screaming that a McCain/Palin Administration would never ever sit down and negotiate with Spain unless there was a precondition that they cut their own nuts off first.
While the barracudabots were hitting fever pitch, her staff then drove a macked-out car onto the stage, with the engine rumbling in a deeply patriotic way, and she bellowed:
Hey, America, who wants a brand new 1980 Maverick !!!
She slammed the bloody stump of the moose-head onto the front of the maverick, which remained perched there as an iconic, oozing, terrorist-hating hood ornament, and then she strutted around the stage to the now-deafening roar of the crowd, blowing kisses and whispering: "I’m winking at you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you, and you....."
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That which does not destroy me makes me more adorable.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche
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Then things got a little strange.
She launched into her piece de resistance, and the crowd instinctively knew to hush, so that she could have a "moment" with the American people:
With all due respect to our moderator, Maya Angelou, I am going to ignore her big fat public-broadcasting ass and talk to the 26 per cent of America that constitutes the for-real 100 per cent of America. The rest of y’all can listen too -– I can even tolerate fags.
Look. Why, in the name of all that’s holy, would I try to hold my own with Joe Biden on his turf? Get real. You think I’m talking about 2008? Buy a clue. I’m your girl for 2012, suckers. Lord Rove knows that we have to let the sissy-boy Democrats have their four years, during which time the economy can crater deeper and deeper. He’s already done the math. Then bye-bye to the chocolate experiment, and, incidentally, bye-bye to the cranky old geezer who’s weighing me down on this ticket! Wa-hooooooo!
But really. Look at me. You think I got here by accident? Lemme tell you something, assholes : Democracy is a form of government by which the people get what they deserve. You know that old saw in politics about a career being destroyed by waking up with "a dead girl or a live boy"...? Well, I’m the game-changer. See, for me, it’s not a career-destroyer at all; it’s a career-builder. Because I’m it. Me. I’m your beautiful dead girl, America. I’m inoculated, I’m bullet-proof, because how can you take me down if I’m the thing itself? You know how the media goes gah-gah once every few months over the latest beautiful dead white chick -– and, no, I’m not talking about these other beautiful dead girls who you will never ever see because they come home to the country they love in pine boxes that go poof into the invisible night -– I’m talking about the ones who are always brutally beaten and killed while on vacation in one of those Caribbean voodoo countries.... Yeah, the dead-flavor-of-the-month-chicks. Bingo. Have a gander at yours truly, doggonet. Just replace "generic voodoo country" with the soul of America. That’s right, you cheese-eating, Muslim-loving, surrender-monkeys. I’z in yr bed, bein’ dead.
You really think America can change? You think this thing is over? You think I’m going away? I will not be ignored. You think Sambo is your salvation? You think Hope is gonna feed your family during four years of a planned, intentional, insider-job destroyed economy, until I get to rear my ugly beautiful head again for the new feudal system that’s already taking shape?
Know this:
I’m Dick Cheney with tits and better aim.
I’m a pointy white hood with enough added frills and lipstick that "hate-lite" will flourish.
I’m the love-child of Pamela Anderson and Leo Strauss.
I’m the America-hater that you want to bring home to Mom.
I’ve got a blow-job face and a Neocon brain.
I’m the pin-up chick painted on the cockpit of your Christianist bomber.
I’m the Joan of Arc for all of Nutworld.
And I’m not going away. You think I don’t know I was supposed to be a two-bit beauty queen trash-princess who should be making baloney sandwiches in a trailer on the tundra somewhere? Hello, bitches. You put me here. I got birthed out of your idiot-box. Welcome to the era of Lipstick-Fascism. Go ahead, try to bury me in a box, whether on the outskirts of town, or in the back of your mind; it’s no matter, because I will bounce right back.
As your chocolate savior might say: This isn’t about me. This is about You.
Happy Frappucino, bitches !
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Like I said, she pretty much nailed it. Without those meddlin' media filters, she pretty much tells it like it is.
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