shaDEz Report This Comment Date: September 21, 2008 07:36PM
If you thought, in the wake of the nightmare of the Bush years, and the
euphoria of the Democratic Convention, that the political pendulum in the USA
was swinging to the “left”…
If you thought that the Bush regime was so widely and bitterly hated that a
repackaged version couldn’t seriously contend for the presidency…
If you thought that the Christian fundamentalist theocrats were passé…
Then you got a shocking wake up call from the Republican National
Convention.
As the RNC opened in St. Paul, it appeared in danger of being a dud, or even a
fiasco. There was the awkward issue of a widely and deeply hated incumbent
president whose name is synonymous with lies, endless war, and torture. Then
there was Hurricane Gustav, threatening to remind the world of, and perhaps even
provoke a rerun of, the hell that the people of New Orleans and the Gulf region
were put through by the arrogant neglect of the government before and after
Hurricane Katrina. On top of all this, the “Evangelical Community,” (read:
fundamentalist Christian theocrats) were threatening to sit things out,
unsatisfied with their role in a potential John McCain presidency.
But in a stunning turn-around, the Republicans came out at the RNC with big guns
blasting. The sparkplug was the selection of Sarah Palin as the vice
presidential candidate. But the whole event was a coordinated barrage of
venomous attacks on liberals, crude pandering to and promotion of
“resentment” of the white middle class, and calls for unquestioned support
for endless war. And as a defining subtext, the convention marked the insertion
of the Christian fascists much more deeply into the '08 election.
Read
on...