FBD
09-10-2011, 02:27 PM
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/10/us/10iht-currents10.html?_r=3&src=tp
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS — Let us begin by confessing that, if Sarah Palin surfaced to say something intelligent and wise and fresh about the present American condition, many of us would fail to hear it.
That is not how we’re primed to see Ms. Palin. A pugnacious Tea Partyer? Sure. A woman of the people? Yup. A Mama Grizzly? You betcha.
But something curious happened when Ms. Palin strode onto the stage last weekend at a Tea Party event in Indianola, Iowa. Along with her familiar and predictable swipes at President Barack Obama and the “far left,” she delivered a devastating indictment of the entire U.S. political establishment — left, right and center — and pointed toward a way of transcending the presently unbridgeable political divide.
The next day, the “lamestream” media, as she calls it, played into her fantasy of it by ignoring the ideas she unfurled and dwelling almost entirely on the will-she-won’t-she question of her presidential ambitions.
So here is something I never thought I would write: a column about Sarah Palin’s ideas.
There was plenty of the usual Palin schtick — words that make clear that she is not speaking to everyone but to a particular strain of American: “The working men and women of this country, you got up off your couch, you came down from the deer stand, you came out of the duck blind, you got off the John Deere, and we took to the streets, and we took to the town halls, and we ended up at the ballot box.”
But when her throat was cleared at last, Ms. Palin had something considerably more substantive to say.
She made three interlocking points. First, that the United States is now governed by a “permanent political class,” drawn from both parties, that is increasingly cut off from the concerns of regular people. Second, that these Republicans and Democrats have allied with big business to mutual advantage to create what she called “corporate crony capitalism.” Third, that the real political divide in the United States may no longer be between friends and foes of Big Government, but between friends and foes of vast, remote, unaccountable institutions (both public and private).
In supporting her first point, about the permanent political class, she attacked both parties’ tendency to talk of spending cuts while spending more and more; to stoke public anxiety about a credit downgrade, but take a vacation anyway; to arrive in Washington of modest means and then somehow ride the gravy train to fabulous wealth. She observed that 7 of the 10 wealthiest counties in the United States happen to be suburbs of the nation’s capital.
Her second point, about money in politics, helped to explain the first. The permanent class stays in power because it positions itself between two deep troughs: the money spent by the government and the money spent by big companies to secure decisions from government that help them make more money.
“Do you want to know why nothing ever really gets done?” she said, referring to politicians. “It’s because there’s nothing in it for them. They’ve got a lot of mouths to feed — a lot of corporate lobbyists and a lot of special interests that are counting on them to keep the good times and the money rolling along.”
Because her party has agitated for the wholesale deregulation of money in politics and the unshackling of lobbyists, these will be heard in some quarters as sacrilegious words.
Ms. Palin’s third point was more striking still: in contrast to the sweeping paeans to capitalism and the free market delivered by the Republican presidential candidates whose ranks she has yet to join, she sought to make a distinction between good capitalists and bad ones. The good ones, in her telling, are those small businesses that take risks and sink and swim in the churning market; the bad ones are well-connected megacorporations that live off bailouts, dodge taxes and profit terrifically while creating no jobs.
Strangely, she was saying things that liberals might like, if not for Ms. Palin’s having said them.
“This is not the capitalism of free men and free markets, of innovation and hard work and ethics, of sacrifice and of risk,” she said of the crony variety. She added: “It’s the collusion of big government and big business and big finance to the detriment of all the rest — to the little guys. It’s a slap in the face to our small business owners — the true entrepreneurs, the job creators accounting for 70 percent of the jobs in America.”
Is there a hint of a political breakthrough hiding in there?
The political conversation in the United States is paralyzed by a simplistic division of labor. Democrats protect that portion of human flourishing that is threatened by big money and enhanced by government action. Republicans protect that portion of human flourishing that is threatened by big government and enhanced by the free market.
What is seldom said is that human flourishing is a complex and delicate thing, and that we needn’t choose whether government or the market jeopardizes it more, because both can threaten it at the same time.
Ms. Palin may be hinting at a new political alignment that would pit a vigorous localism against a kind of national-global institutionalism.
On one side would be those Americans who believe in the power of vast, well-developed institutions like Goldman Sachs, the Teamsters Union, General Electric, Google and the U.S. Department of Education to make the world better. On the other side would be people who believe that power, whether public or private, becomes corrupt and unresponsive the more remote and more anonymous it becomes; they would press to live in self-contained, self-governing enclaves that bear the burden of their own prosperity.
No one knows yet whether Ms. Palin will actually run for president. But she did just get more interesting.
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As much as people really want to believe the TV's painting of her as an idiot, I've found myself agreeing with her recommendations for courses of action over the last couple years...plenty of which have been coming out before much of anyone else says "this is what I think we should do here." IMHO anybody still saying she's an idiot simply has not been paying attention to reality since 2008 and is just re-playing "which major newspapers do you read to pick up information?" in their heads.
Its starting to look like she's going to just wait until the last minute and then hop in. I suppose its relatively easy to sit back and say "this is our best course forward" than actually get up and debate this stuff - but she's been showing that her ideas are in the right place, both foreign and domestically. Curious to see how she'll do debating, because at this point I believe she'll run.
Hell, back in 08 I thought it would have been entertaining to see her tear Obama apart debating 1:1. We might just get to see it this time around - if Obama doesnt have all of the questions ahead of time, no teleprompter...good luck defending yourself now that you have a record to run on, buddy :lol:
I think I trust her more than Perry, too, since he's made a few questionable decisions before that are on a larger scale than anything questionable Palin did. Quitting the gov chair was definitely questionable, but given the crusade she was up against and having to spend craploads of time and a crapload of taxpayer money defending a thousand questionable assaults - what do you think the better choice for Alaska was, who cares about her - and then I'm in agreement, because that was certainly putting her constituents before her own ambition - and another plus, she certainly isnt beholden to the establishment Republicans.
Her voice grates a bit, but then again, since the words ring true American, that automatically makes it 10x less annoying than Obama's. :razz:
Anyway, time to see some concrete fiscal plans from her if she's going to hop in the race. Her heart and mind are set in the right direction and she's got no shortage of good ideas with regard to a course forward for the country.
Whomever wins the R nomination though...that is who will be president, no matter who it is. I really cant believe America would be that stupid as to keep driving down the embankment for another 4 years. Cant wait to see the ballot fraud this time around :lol: Obama's going to need it to win.
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS — Let us begin by confessing that, if Sarah Palin surfaced to say something intelligent and wise and fresh about the present American condition, many of us would fail to hear it.
That is not how we’re primed to see Ms. Palin. A pugnacious Tea Partyer? Sure. A woman of the people? Yup. A Mama Grizzly? You betcha.
But something curious happened when Ms. Palin strode onto the stage last weekend at a Tea Party event in Indianola, Iowa. Along with her familiar and predictable swipes at President Barack Obama and the “far left,” she delivered a devastating indictment of the entire U.S. political establishment — left, right and center — and pointed toward a way of transcending the presently unbridgeable political divide.
The next day, the “lamestream” media, as she calls it, played into her fantasy of it by ignoring the ideas she unfurled and dwelling almost entirely on the will-she-won’t-she question of her presidential ambitions.
So here is something I never thought I would write: a column about Sarah Palin’s ideas.
There was plenty of the usual Palin schtick — words that make clear that she is not speaking to everyone but to a particular strain of American: “The working men and women of this country, you got up off your couch, you came down from the deer stand, you came out of the duck blind, you got off the John Deere, and we took to the streets, and we took to the town halls, and we ended up at the ballot box.”
But when her throat was cleared at last, Ms. Palin had something considerably more substantive to say.
She made three interlocking points. First, that the United States is now governed by a “permanent political class,” drawn from both parties, that is increasingly cut off from the concerns of regular people. Second, that these Republicans and Democrats have allied with big business to mutual advantage to create what she called “corporate crony capitalism.” Third, that the real political divide in the United States may no longer be between friends and foes of Big Government, but between friends and foes of vast, remote, unaccountable institutions (both public and private).
In supporting her first point, about the permanent political class, she attacked both parties’ tendency to talk of spending cuts while spending more and more; to stoke public anxiety about a credit downgrade, but take a vacation anyway; to arrive in Washington of modest means and then somehow ride the gravy train to fabulous wealth. She observed that 7 of the 10 wealthiest counties in the United States happen to be suburbs of the nation’s capital.
Her second point, about money in politics, helped to explain the first. The permanent class stays in power because it positions itself between two deep troughs: the money spent by the government and the money spent by big companies to secure decisions from government that help them make more money.
“Do you want to know why nothing ever really gets done?” she said, referring to politicians. “It’s because there’s nothing in it for them. They’ve got a lot of mouths to feed — a lot of corporate lobbyists and a lot of special interests that are counting on them to keep the good times and the money rolling along.”
Because her party has agitated for the wholesale deregulation of money in politics and the unshackling of lobbyists, these will be heard in some quarters as sacrilegious words.
Ms. Palin’s third point was more striking still: in contrast to the sweeping paeans to capitalism and the free market delivered by the Republican presidential candidates whose ranks she has yet to join, she sought to make a distinction between good capitalists and bad ones. The good ones, in her telling, are those small businesses that take risks and sink and swim in the churning market; the bad ones are well-connected megacorporations that live off bailouts, dodge taxes and profit terrifically while creating no jobs.
Strangely, she was saying things that liberals might like, if not for Ms. Palin’s having said them.
“This is not the capitalism of free men and free markets, of innovation and hard work and ethics, of sacrifice and of risk,” she said of the crony variety. She added: “It’s the collusion of big government and big business and big finance to the detriment of all the rest — to the little guys. It’s a slap in the face to our small business owners — the true entrepreneurs, the job creators accounting for 70 percent of the jobs in America.”
Is there a hint of a political breakthrough hiding in there?
The political conversation in the United States is paralyzed by a simplistic division of labor. Democrats protect that portion of human flourishing that is threatened by big money and enhanced by government action. Republicans protect that portion of human flourishing that is threatened by big government and enhanced by the free market.
What is seldom said is that human flourishing is a complex and delicate thing, and that we needn’t choose whether government or the market jeopardizes it more, because both can threaten it at the same time.
Ms. Palin may be hinting at a new political alignment that would pit a vigorous localism against a kind of national-global institutionalism.
On one side would be those Americans who believe in the power of vast, well-developed institutions like Goldman Sachs, the Teamsters Union, General Electric, Google and the U.S. Department of Education to make the world better. On the other side would be people who believe that power, whether public or private, becomes corrupt and unresponsive the more remote and more anonymous it becomes; they would press to live in self-contained, self-governing enclaves that bear the burden of their own prosperity.
No one knows yet whether Ms. Palin will actually run for president. But she did just get more interesting.
--------------------------------------------------------------
As much as people really want to believe the TV's painting of her as an idiot, I've found myself agreeing with her recommendations for courses of action over the last couple years...plenty of which have been coming out before much of anyone else says "this is what I think we should do here." IMHO anybody still saying she's an idiot simply has not been paying attention to reality since 2008 and is just re-playing "which major newspapers do you read to pick up information?" in their heads.
Its starting to look like she's going to just wait until the last minute and then hop in. I suppose its relatively easy to sit back and say "this is our best course forward" than actually get up and debate this stuff - but she's been showing that her ideas are in the right place, both foreign and domestically. Curious to see how she'll do debating, because at this point I believe she'll run.
Hell, back in 08 I thought it would have been entertaining to see her tear Obama apart debating 1:1. We might just get to see it this time around - if Obama doesnt have all of the questions ahead of time, no teleprompter...good luck defending yourself now that you have a record to run on, buddy :lol:
I think I trust her more than Perry, too, since he's made a few questionable decisions before that are on a larger scale than anything questionable Palin did. Quitting the gov chair was definitely questionable, but given the crusade she was up against and having to spend craploads of time and a crapload of taxpayer money defending a thousand questionable assaults - what do you think the better choice for Alaska was, who cares about her - and then I'm in agreement, because that was certainly putting her constituents before her own ambition - and another plus, she certainly isnt beholden to the establishment Republicans.
Her voice grates a bit, but then again, since the words ring true American, that automatically makes it 10x less annoying than Obama's. :razz:
Anyway, time to see some concrete fiscal plans from her if she's going to hop in the race. Her heart and mind are set in the right direction and she's got no shortage of good ideas with regard to a course forward for the country.
Whomever wins the R nomination though...that is who will be president, no matter who it is. I really cant believe America would be that stupid as to keep driving down the embankment for another 4 years. Cant wait to see the ballot fraud this time around :lol: Obama's going to need it to win.