Sarah Palin: America's Lipstick Fascist
Sarah Palin summed up the Republican Party's turn to Fascism perfectly when she mocked Senator Obama as someone who would want to read enemies we capture "their rights".
"Terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America ... he's [Obama] worried that someone won't read them their rights."
Long before Sarah Palin's son was preparing to deploy to Iraq, my son John joined the Marine Corps, did two deployments in Afghanistan, one mission in Iraq, and fought for and defended his country and family. I was proud of his service, in spite of the fact that I believed that my son had a fool for his commander-in-chief. In my mind, John's motive (regardless of who the President was) was to defend an American way of life based on a set of principles and our Constitution that place the value of the rule of law and human rights above mere expediency.
John and I wrote a book, Keeping Faith: A Father-Son Story About Love and the United States Marine Corps, that, after my appearance on Oprah, became a bestseller and has since become a standard book many Marine Corps families read as a guide to Marine Corps boot camp, and the lives of Marine families.
I won't take a back seat to flag-waving Republicans and their "patriotism." Besides the fact that my son stood up and volunteered, Sarah Palin would not have been nominated if it were not for the abortion issue and John McCain's need to shore up the commitment of the Evangelical pro-life right wing. As John McCain and the leaders of Religious Right know (including figures such as Dr. Dobson and Pat Robertson, Rev. Hagee and their ilk) there would have been no Evangelical pro-life movement as we know it without my and my father's connecting the Republican Party to the Evangelicals.We led that movement into the pro-life camp in the 1970s and early 80s with a series of influential books and film series.
So, I know something about the Republican Party having been a lifelong Republican until recently when, disgusted with the dirty tricks perpetrated by Rove and others, I quit and registered as an independent voter. (I even worked for McCain in 2000 by going on many religious radio shows to plead his case against Bush.)
But there is a better reason for not being a Republican today: the Republican Party stands on the brink of becoming the Fascist American party. Republicans seem ready and willing to trample everything my son stood up for when he put on the uniform of United States.
The Fascist side of the Republican Party is summed up in her historic line: "He's worried that someone won't read them their rights." This snide off-the-cuff remark embodies everything that has gone wrong with America since George W. Bush became president.
In this one little aside is the American equivalent of another "little" phrase: "the final solution." Palin's is an attitude that places ideology and rabid nationalism above the law. For her, war trumps ethics. This attitude has turned America into a country that tortures prisoners, has put us on the wrong side of our Constitution, has taken the country that liberated Auschwitz and made it a place that now uses torture, intimidation and the desecration of human freedom as a means of war.
Palin and the Republican Fascists believe that we are so right, so great and so powerful that we no longer need to obey our own laws or even -- in the case of global warming -- the laws of nature. We can start wars for no reason and then claim "victory". We can torture in the name of Jesus.
Sarah Palin is a member of a theologically extreme church, one that views history as in its "final dispensation" wherein Jesus is about to return and wherein America can help this event along by spurring the apocalypse by goading Israel into a war eternal with its Arab neighbors.
So, our new Republican Fascism is actually Fascism with a twist of nutty Evangelical theology, much like German Fascism evolved with a nutty twist of bizarre superstition and stargazing on the part of Hitler and many leading Nazis who were as enamored by the occult as by politics.
We have seen the next Mussolini and she's wearing a skirt. Don't let Palin's "hockey mom" image fool you. Sarah Palin is the face of a post-democracy America, post-constitutional and post-freedom America. She is the home town "little Austrian" vice presidential candidate to a cancer-riddled old man who, chances are high, won't see the end of his first term in office if he becomes president due to illness and old age. The woman who said that we don't need to read people their rights may well be the next president.
The Fascist tactic that destroyed the democracies of old Europe was simple: mock and belittle your opponents, nibble at the edges of the rule of law, promote violence, and grasp at a weird religion of "destiny" (their version of American exceptionalism) with an "us" against "them" mentality, blame others, including the intellectual classes and the media, pit the working people against the perceived elite (Jews in Europe and today's university-educated Democratic Party leaders in America), take power based on grievance and fear and then set aside the constitution altogether based on claimed threats by outsiders.
This is the path that America is on with Palin and McCain. The election of 2008 is a choice between United States Constitution and Lipstick Fascism.
Frank Schaeffer is the author of CRAZY FOR GOD-How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back.
Read more analysis from HuffPost bloggers on Sarah Palin
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well put! the GOP became KKK-lite a long time ago. Their flag should be red, white and black not red white and blue. the only thing i don't understand is their tendency to wear cowboy hats. white hoods would be more appropriate.
I dont really understand all the attacks on Sarah Palin.
She attacked corrupt Republicans and ousted them from Office. She raised money from taxing big oil and returned it to her tax payers.
Sounds like a good Democrat to me.
But she's not. In fact she is eveything a Democrat is not. She abuses the power she has. She also left the town in $20million dollars in debt. She couldn't run a town of 6000, she needed help for crying out loud.
I've been thinking this for years regarding Bush-Cheney. McCain-Palin is the logical progression. Americans always look down on other nations that slip into dictatorship or totalitarianism of whatever brand. But we should feel superior. It takes only a few shorts steps for any nation to cross that threshhold and most nation's citizens are oblivious to it while it's happening. All you have to do is compromise a few checks and balances, suspend a few laws, create a few other restrictive laws, justify it based on some invisible but omni-present threat and you're well on your way to being the next police state. Our founding fathers understood this and tried to create an infrastructure that would protect us from ourselves as well as from external threats. What we see from the Republicans is an active campaign to dismantle these protections in order to create room for their Big Brother ideology to grow.
Six Principles of Fundamentalism
1. "Good" and "evil" are always black and white with no shades of gray.
2. "We" are on the side of "good," and "they" are on the side of "evil."
3. "We" must do whatever is necessary to defeat "them" even if we have to use "evil" tactics.
4. If you are one of "them" nothing you do can be regarded as "good."
5. If you are one of "us" nothing you say will be regarded as "evil."
6. If you are one of "us," but fail to follow these principles, you are no longer one of "us."
For many fundamentalist Christians, these principles trump the teachings of Jesus about loving your enemies, not judging others, and treating others the way you want to be treated. Applying these teachings in times of war is challenging, but our nation has aimed for a high standard.
Living by these principles requires a disconnect from reality. The disconnect enables conservative followers of the "Prince of Peace," to stay hooked up with the party that thrives on war and conflict, has turned its back on the poor, gives favors to the rich, and pretends that the polar ice cap is not melting.
Several decades ago, Frank's father, Francis Schaeffer, predicted a time when Americans would be willing to give up certain freedoms in order to preserve their own affluence and personal comfort. Sarah Palin's deeply disturbing speech is one indicator that his prediction has come true.
Once you've accepted that it's all right to torture someone, you've conceded that it's all right to torture anyone. I can think of few things more un-Christian than mistreating and abusing someone who is in your power and at your mercy.
Our enemies of the past have excused their abuses of their victims by saying they were only doing what was required for their own security. We denied the validity of this argument. And they were facing the most dangerous adversary any modern nation has ever had: the United States of America.
Sometimes the comments you read offer some very surprising clarity, or unique take, or poignancy, etc. Anyway, this comment struck me. Specifically, this part of it: "they were facing the most dangerous adversary any modern nation has ever had: the United States of America"
We need to keep on this topic, forget Palin's daughter or the bridge to nowhere lies. The country is at stake, since 4 more years of Bush fascism will become irreversible, if it isn't already. Let's keep shouting it every where we can!
Lipstick Fascism...
I love that line, and I intend to steal it and use it wherever I can.
I wish MSNBC, CNN, NPR, and Bill O'Reilly..
(comment goblin alert: hope this one doesn't show up twice)
"We have seen the next Mussolini and she's wearing a skirt. Don't let Palin's "hockey mom" image fool you. Sarah Palin is the face of a post-democracy America, post-constitutional and post-freedom America. She is the home town "little Austrian" vice presidential candidate to a cancer-riddled old man who, chances are high, won't see the end of his first term in office if he becomes president due to illness and old age. The woman who said that we don't need to read people their rights may well be the next president.
LT from Texas: Frank, Thanks for these chilling descriptives which will be promptly cited and forwarded for timely refute for these frightening times.
And for this: Palin's is an attitude that places ideology and rabid nationalism above the law. For her, war trumps ethics.
Frank, I always like your posts and this one is enlightening. This one brings once again the amnesia that American people suffer or what is called short-memory trauma. People do not want to think and this is dangerous. It seems that American people do not know History anymore. One of the reasons I have always liked Obama is that he is one of the few politicians who actually believe in education; education is key to life (you can still work at Walt-Mart and be educated) and to your soul as well, education is knowledge and knowledge is power. Republicans know this and this is why they do not give a damn about education.
I have lived in this country for 12 years and I have always found very strange the fact that people do not talk about politics at all: it is taboo. A year ago a couple of my American friends came to me asking me what I really thought of Bush; they had asked me because I was from Europe and they knew they could trust me. What struck me the most was the fact that they said they could not talk to their friends about it. I think it is really sad when you can not talk politics with your friends.
Yes, Sarah Palin is a fascist with a nice pair of legs. Someone who tries to ban books does not have my approval.
"We have seen the next Mussolini and she's wearing a skirt. Don't let Palin's "hockey mom" image fool you. Sarah Palin is the face of a post-democracy America, post-constitutional and post-freedom America. She is the home town "little Austrian" vice presidential candidate to a cancer-riddled old man who, chances are high, won't see the end of his first term in office if he becomes president due to illness and old age. The woman who said that we don't need to read people their rights may well be the next president.
'Relative' in Texas: Frank, Thanks for these chilling descriptives which will be promptly cited and forwarded for timely refute.
And for this: Palin's is an attitude that places ideology and rabid nationalism above the law. For her, war trumps ethics.
thank you.
i thought i was the only one struck by mccain wanting to go back to using the police to maintain social order.
Finally someone dared to use the F word.
If the Republicans win this time we can wave democracy good by and go and get our brown shirts in Walmart.
What a day that will be!
A brilliant piece, should be read by all!
Yes! You can't be a Republican without a brown shirt! lol!
Thank you. I too, cringed when I heard her say this with such sneering condescension. She may have a dynamic personality and other admirable qualities, but a solid grounding in U.S. History and Civics 101 does not seem to be among them. And her (and Giuliani's) put-downs of community organizers was spectacularly sophomoric.
The whole Republican platform seems to be "we don't need no stinkin' pointy-headed intellecshuals!"
Great article. Thank you.
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