Sarah Palin, utarbetade kvinnors hämnd!

From Anneli's Blog

Sarah Palin, drafted the women's revenge! To read American newspapers are pretty tough. It is hard to find someone who is really objective. I think the English media of choice is bad, so I try to actually find some new angles. A good newspaper, which I think is the Swiss' Tage Anzeiger. " It can be a little introspective, but have not necessarily always a European view of things. Here, I have done a little free translation of an analysis written by a culture critic named Naomi Wolf: The nomination of Sarah Palin as John McCain's candidate for Vice President, hit like lightning from the clear sky in the U.S.. It is important to understand Palin attraction for a certain group of voters, and we must respect the anger that is found here. Behind Palin attraction is class issue. White arbetarkvinnor has been used in the United States since the nation was formed. When rich white women or people with a first class education - such as Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright and Condolezza Rice penetrates the glass ceiling in American society, we see white arbetarkvinnor this ascent with understandable resentment. Their wealthier peers of the same sex as those employing women to do the dirtier work. Indeed, they must survive on minimum wages stagnated in typical female occupations. Election after election they are ignored by politicians. Even skin color is a factor. White women from working class often perceived coexistence between blacks and whites as hostile. They feel that the black in the class often receive government subsidies and grants, which they themselves will be refused. The more well-paying, low-wage jobs are under threat from a prosperous economy in developing countries. Then turn someone like Sarah Palin up on the big stage and is as a symbolic fantasy of revenge for many of these tired factory workers and secretaries. To a white woman can be a "heartbeat" from becoming U.S. president, seen as a huge success. Almost all women who do not come from privileged circumstances, those who have small children at home and who have long been condemned to silence, they applaud the first woman on the throne! However, declining results from surveys show that U.S. arbetarkvinnor in no way is stupid. The notice is slowly and surely, that Palin is shown up as a model of a MOTOR. The media may take pictures but they may not ask any questions! While ekonimin collapses look to the Palin policy is increasingly threatening the more it takes shape. She is surrounded now by McCain's campaign veterans from the Bush-Cheney clan, such as Karl Rove and his supporters. There are those who write her speech. She also believes that God has established a political career for her, and in terms of foreign policy, she has no more experience than traditional TV viewers. How long live John McCain? In the center is another unspoken problem. Dermatologists confirm that the people in McCain's age, treated by the same type of cancer, has a statistical survival of two to four years. So, an alarmingly long presidency of Palin may also white arbetarkvinnor to feel concern. What we learn when the Palin short-lived bubble? Well, the next time a great leader to be elected, then we should remember not to overlook women's big dreams for change. Their voices deserve sympathy. And if we overlook them, then maybe they put their votes on a substitute, who in eight years of plundering state coffers and sends additional 4000 brave young men and women, or more, into the death of a war, a war built on a lie! Created: 30.09.2008, at 06:31

Translated from Swedish by Google

Conversations with God about his Decalogue

The Tenth Commandment

“God! God! God Bless it!” It just slipped out while I was watching the news about the financial meltdown and all of the people who had lost or were likely to lose their homes, jobs – everything. I sure didn’t expect to be answered.
God: You called? What do you want me to bless?
ME: Holy Shit! Ah, oops. I mean, you scared the living Je… I mean, I didn’t expect you to answer.
GOD: Why not.
ME: Well, I haven’t heard you from you for almost two months. I’d almost forgotten you were there.
GOD: Time is such a problem for you humans.
ME: Ah, yes, it is.
GOD: Well?
ME: Oh, I was just reacting to this latest news.
GOD: What news is that?
ME: You haven’t heard? America’s financial institutions are failing left and right. And our government (left and right) is a panic to save them.
GOD: Why is this news?
ME: I see your point. It does get me thinking about your final commandment. Why do people covet?
GOD: You are a person. Why do you covet?
ME: Hmmm. I don’t think I do anymore. At least not very much. Most of the time, I am astounded at how much I have. I guess the last coveting I recall was a few years ago. I wanted a better computer and my neighbor’s wife.
GOD: Why?
ME: Well, the computer seemed so sophisticated and full of games and other diversions. It downloaded stuff and handled heavy programs like Photoshop so quickly. And my neighbor’s wife was so pretty and charming and compassionate. Very sexy also.
GOD: What happened?
ME: I eventually bought the computer and had a long talk with myself about letting go of this silly attachment to owning women.
GOD: So, you have answered the question, then?
ME: Yep, I guess I have. At least as far as these desires are concerned. But I have never wanted to own and control billions of dollars.
GOD: What’s the difference?
ME: You know, you are a strange God. Sometimes I think you visit me just to make me reflect and feel. Anyway. The difference is that while some people hold billions of dollars in their greedy little fists, there are children starving, people without a place to live or hope for tomorrow. I know the arguments. That someone has to use all that money to keep things running. That they use their wealth to improve lives in general and keep goods flowing. That without them, the world would be much worse. I just don’t believe that excuse. Sure many of them spend some portion on others – perhaps even as much as a billion or two on “charity.” It still doesn’t feel right. A billion for others, which is a drop in the bucket for the vast numbers of the poor, and a 100 billion for myself. A loaf of bread, a pencil or some medicine for them and a pacific island and a jet liner for myself. And, least I forget, a million or two I PAC money for the congressman I wish to own.
GOD: Are you sure you don’t covet this wealth?
ME: I have wealth of the only kind that means anything to me. Believe me, if I had that kind of money I would get rid of most of it.
GOD: You sound like a communist.
ME: Name-calling? From you? Call me what you like, I know that money is the biggest illusion of all. Greed is the belief that this illusion we call wealth somehow protects one from the pain of living. I can sit on my island, drinking martinis and never see the fellow in town who goes to the trash dumpster and eats what I left from last’s night dinner. And I surely can’t sit and enjoy communing with him. I am sick from the corruption of my government and the greed of these multinational finance, oil and arms merchants. I want you to damn them.
GOD: OK
ME: What?
GOD: I said, OK. Do you think I made these commandments as entertainment?
ME: I don’t see it happening.
GOD: What?
ME: Retribution. Oh, sure, some few will lose control of a company here and there. May find themselves losing power and position. But most of those will walk away with huge sums of personal wealth and will no longer even have to pretend to be doing something worthwhile.
GOD: So, you think that the only retribution possible is to lose money?
ME: It would feel like some balance to me.
GOD: What if it meant that everyone would lose so much that all would starve?
ME: I don’t want that to happen. But so many are starving now that it might just mean that we shared the pain more equitably.
GOD: Do you believe that?
ME: I am not certain. I surely do not wish life to become more difficult for those who are on the edge now. I guess my view is warped a bit by the extraordinary standard of living here in the developed countries. I have been to Calcutta and Jakarta and seen the alternative – real, widespread, wrenching poverty. I wouldn’t wish to add to that. It is difficult though. I need help here, God. How does your retribution work? Do you really punish people with hell after death? Are they reborn as worms? I have always longed for and believed that we create our own hell in this life.
GOD: Can you verify that?
ME: I know that when I have been so unbalanced as to live far from the commandments, I have suffered in my heart and sometimes in my body. When I lay awake nights wanting my neighbor’s wife and imagining having a new computer or worrying that I might lose the little money I had saved for tomorrow, I was in a kind of hell right here. I felt sick, lost and without joy. I’d like to think that these financial moguls feel such suffering equal to the vast amount of wealth they hoard. But it doesn’t make sense. Why would they covet anything when they can have whatever they want? They can even relieve themselves of the awareness of the terrible poverty around them by giving a million here or there.
GOD: So, you want to know if hell exists on earth or later?
ME: No. If you have a hell waiting for anyone, I really don’t want to know it.
GOD: Why not?
ME: It would make you like them.
GOD: How?
ME: It would make you worse than them. You created all of this, including their greedy natures. For you to create this, even as a potential, even as a test or gift of free will, then torture those who were not strong or wise enough to resist the temptation would be the act of a sadistic tyrant.
GOD: Another Job. Can you make the great whale?
ME: No. I can love it, however.
GOD: Can you love the arms merchant?
ME: (long pause) Yes. But I can also wish him to become compassionate. To follow these all of these commandment as closely as humanly possible.
GOD: If you can be thus, can I be less?
ME: I guess this is what is meant by faith, right?
GOD: Amen.

Trickle Down

Conversations with God about His Decalogue

The Ninth Commandment

Sometimes I wonder if God is in my head and/or heart all of the time. Even though so much time passes between these conversations, I often feel as if He is that quiet impulse that seems to come forward whenever I need to do something right. And thus, I have concluded that I am being somewhat self-indulgent in waiting for him to actually come back and help me think through these commandments. It seems as if he has given me the courage to go on without direct conversation, knowing that, if I go astray, he will let me know.

The fear I face in this is - that in holding a monolog, I am merely arriving at a conclusion I already am biased towards. That, in fact, I will simply be holding forth as a self-designated “expert” on what can only be known to God.

Well, then a disclaimer – I do not “know” the answers. I can only ask the questions and explore possibilities until one feels “right” to me.

In that spirit, let me consider number nine. It has always been one of my favorites. I like the sense of fairness and honesty it demands. And it is an unequivocal basis for law. Not the kind of law practiced by business lawyers and special interests but the kind of law that says all people deserve the same rights as all others. The kind of law that is applied to the rich as well as the poor, the powerful as well as the weak. The kind of law our constitution was meant to ensure.

And it seems so easy to follow, with less grey area, and more in tune with human nature. In fact, it would seem to be the most obviously essential commandment in order for any society of people to live together.

So, why is it so rarely applied?

For example, so many people are so convinced that either Saddam Hussein was so evil we had the right to invade Iraq and remove him or that he was a little bit evil but not enough to be removed, or that he was a good man and was martyred. The fact that almost all of these people are so convinced of the rightness of their judgments about the man that they will say so on the radio, in the news, in the classroom, on the bus and to their neighbor astounds me. How can they bear witness about someone they have never meet and about actions they have never observed directly? Is it not likely that only those Iraqis who suffered directly can bear witness?

I know, I know. What about evidence. Well, how many have seen the evidence first hand? And what is the nature of that evidence. For most Americans who supported the war, the evidence came from watching the Twin Towers fall and from listening to members of our government and news media who insisted that Saddam was involved. OK. We tend to trust these witnesses assuming that they have some first hand knowledge. And I suppose we must, until it becomes evident that they don’t. But must we also then bear witness ourselves as if we had such knowledge?

God damn it!

(Long anxious pause)

Sorry about that, Lord. I get so angry sometimes. I should find another way of expressing it.

Arrrg!

That’s better, if not as satisfying.

What kind of world would this be if everyone followed this commandment. Wow!

 Imagine the ramifications of a world in which people did not express certainty of judgment without direct and personal evidence. Imagine you are driving down the street and someone suddenly pulls out in front of you. You slam on the brakes and then, in reaction, you turn to your friend, riding in the passenger seat and curse the other driver, accusing him or her of trying to kill you. As they pull away, you want to chase after them and beat the crap out of them, or turn them into the police for reckless driving. When you get home, you rail to the family about the way in which some people purposely endanger others just for the thrill of it.  

How do you know?

How do you know that the driver of that other car hadn’t just learned that a member of his family lay dying in the hospital and was understandably distraught and distracted as they hurried to reach them before they died? How do you know that the other driver wasn’t running from an abusive spouse?

You don’t, do you?

False witness.

I do it all the time. So do you.

I did it when I discovered that Cheney, Bush and Powell had lied to us about evidence for the invasion of Iraq. I accused them to friends of doing it for personal wealth and personal power. I still believe that, although I have no personal proof, no direct evidence. Thus I am guilty of false witness. I guess it is a result of human frailty, just as much as asking God to damn them. However, I can’t help feeling it would be better if I didn’t do that.

It is often necessary to exercise judgment and to rightfully act against what one judges to be wrong. Thus, I will do all I properly can to see that the men who support the war are defeated. I will vote for Obama. I will make my desires to see a more democratic, liberal, constitutional representation come into being in my government. But I will not bear false witness, if I can help it. I do not know that John McCain is “in the pocket” of the multinational arms and oil merchants. I only suspect it and thus will vote against him. I do not “know” that George Bush and Dick Cheney sent our young men to die so that these same multinational arms and oil merchants could make greater profits. If I did have direct evidence, I believe the actions I would be called to perform would go beyond voting against them. Perhaps far beyond. If I had direct and irrefutable evidence, I would bear witness (and perhaps even bear arms) against them.

But I shall not bear false witness, shall not say I know for certain when I only judge from the secondary evidence presented to me.

Gosh.

I wonder if I would have expressed that if God were here responding? I wonder what he thinks about this?

Goodness! Talk about wonders – the sun just splashed though the window onto my desktop!

Vermont waterfall