What's the difference between Palin and Muslim Fundamentalists? Lipstick

[DroppinScience]

I think John McCain v. 2000 would be very disappointed with the John McCain v. 2008 model for picking Palin.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/09/09-7

Published on Tuesday, September 9, 2008 by Salon.com
What's the Difference Between Palin and Muslim Fundamentalists? Lipstick
A theocrat is a theocrat, whether Muslim or Christian.

by Juan Cole

John McCain announced that he was running for president to confront the "transcendent challenge" of the 21st century, "radical Islamic extremism," contrasting it with "stability, tolerance and democracy." But the values of his handpicked running mate, Sarah Palin, more resemble those of Muslim fundamentalists than they do those of the Founding Fathers. On censorship, the teaching of creationism in schools, reproductive rights, attributing government policy to God's will and climate change, Palin agrees with Hamas and Saudi Arabia rather than supporting tolerance and democratic precepts. What is the difference between Palin and a Muslim fundamentalist? Lipstick.

McCain pledged to work for peace based on "the transformative ideals on which we were founded." Tolerance and democracy require freedom of speech and the press, but while mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, Palin inquired of the local librarian how to go about banning books that some of her constituents thought contained inappropriate language. She tried to fire the librarian for defying her. Book banning is common to fundamentalisms around the world, and the mind-set Palin displayed did not differ from that of the Hamas minister of education in the Palestinian government who banned a book of Palestinian folk tales for its sexually explicit language. In contrast, Thomas Jefferson wrote, "Our liberty cannot be guarded but by the freedom of the press, nor that be limited without danger of losing it."

Palin argued when running for governor that creationism should be taught in public schools, at taxpayers' expense, alongside real science. Antipathy to Darwin for providing an alternative to the creation stories of the Bible and the Quran has also become a feature of Muslim fundamentalism. Saudi Arabia prohibits the study, even in universities, of evolution, Freud and Marx. Malaysia has banned a translation of "The Origin of the Species." Likewise, fundamentalists in Turkey have pressured the government to teach creationism in the public schools. McCain has praised Turkey as an anchor of democracy in the region, but Turkey's secular traditions are under severe pressure from fundamentalists in that country. McCain does them no favors by choosing a running mate who wishes to destroy the First Amendment's establishment clause, which forbids the state to give official support to any particular theology. Turkish religious activists would thereby be enabled to cite an American precedent for their own quest to put religion back at the center of Ankara's public and foreign policies.

The GOP vice-presidential pick holds that abortion should be illegal, even in cases of rape, incest or severe birth defects, making an exception only if the life of the mother is in danger. She calls abortion an "atrocity" and pledges to reshape the judiciary to fight it. Ironically, Palin's views on the matter are to the right of those in the Muslim country of Tunisia, which allows abortion in the first trimester for a wide range of reasons. Classical Muslim jurisprudents differed among one another on the issue of abortion, but many permitted it before the "quickening" of the fetus, i.e. until the end of the fourth month. Contemporary Muslim fundamentalists, however, generally oppose abortion.

Palin's stance is even stricter than that of the Parliament of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In 2005, the legislature in Tehran attempted to amend the country's antiabortion statute to permit an abortion up to four months in case of a birth defect. The conservative clerical Guardianship Council, which functions as a sort of theocratic senate, however, rejected the change. Iran's law on abortion is therefore virtually identical to the one that Palin would like to see imposed on American women, and the rationale in both cases is the same, a literalist religious impulse that resists any compromise with the realities of biology and of women's lives. Saudi Arabia's restrictive law on abortion likewise disallows it in the case or rape or incest, or of fetal impairment, which is also Gov. Palin's position.

Theocrats confuse God's will with their own mortal policies. Just as Muslim fundamentalists believe that God has given them the vast oil and gas resources in their regions, so Palin asks church workers in Alaska to pray for a $30 billion pipeline in the state because "God's will has to get done." Likewise, Palin maintained that her task as governor would be impeded "if the people of Alaska's heart isn't right with God." Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei of Iran expresses much the same sentiment when he says "the only way to attain prosperity and progress is to rely on Islam."

Not only does Palin not believe global warming is "man-made," she favors massive new drilling to spew more carbon into the atmosphere. Both as a fatalist who has surrendered to God's inscrutable will and as a politician from an oil-rich region, she thereby echoes Saudi Arabia. Riyadh has been found to have exercised inappropriate influence in watering down a report in 2007 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Neither Christians nor Muslims necessarily share the beliefs detailed above. Many believers in both traditions uphold freedom of speech and the press. Indeed, in a recent poll, over 90 percent of Egyptians and Iranians said that they would build freedom of expression into any constitution they designed. Many believers find ways of reconciling the scientific theory of evolution with faith in God, not finding it necessary to believe that the world was created suddenly only 6,000 ago. Some medieval Muslim thinkers asserted that the world had existed from eternity, and others spoke of cycles of hundreds of thousands or millions of years. Mystical Muslim poets spoke of humankind traversing the stages of mineral, plant and animal. Modern Islamic fundamentalists have attempted to narrow this great, diverse tradition.

The classical Islamic legal tradition generally permitted, while frowning on, contraception and abortion, and complete opposition to them is mostly a feature of modern fundamentalist thinking. Many believers in both Islam and Christianity would see it as hubris to tie God to specific government policies or to a particular political party. As for global warming, green theology, in which Christians and Muslims appeal to Scripture in fighting global warming, is an increasing tendency in both traditions.

Palin has a right to her religious beliefs, as do fundamentalist Muslims who agree with her on so many issues of social policy. None of them has a right, however, to impose their beliefs on others by capturing and deploying the executive power of the state. The most noxious belief that Palin shares with Muslim fundamentalists is her conviction that faith is not a private affair of individuals but rather a moral imperative that believers should import into statecraft wherever they have the opportunity to do so. That is the point of her pledge to shape the judiciary. Such a theocratic impulse is incompatible with the Founding Fathers' commitment to tolerance and democracy, which is why they forbade the government to "establish" or officially support any particular religion or denomination.

McCain once excoriated the Rev. Jerry Falwell and his ilk as "agents of intolerance." That he took such a position gave his opposition to similar intolerance in Islam credibility. In light of his more recent disgraceful kowtowing to the Christian right, McCain's animus against fundamentalist Muslims no longer looks consistent. It looks bigoted and invidious. You can't say you are waging a war on religious extremism if you are trying to put a religious extremist a heartbeat away from the presidency.
Copyright ©2008 Salon Media Group, Inc.

Salon contributor Juan Cole is a professor of modern Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan and the author of "Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East."

[QueenAdrock]

You know, it's really strange how Palin and McCain differ on the issues. You're supposed to pick a running mate that compliments you, not contradicts you. Someone that reaches out to the voting base that you want to get while still adhering to the same message that you do. Sex education, ANWAR, Global warming, etc. -- they don't agree on any of that. Just seems strange that you'd pick someone that doesn't see eye to eye with you on a number of issues with you, especially if they're supposed to take over if something happens to you.

Seems to me like he picked her simply as a political move to get him into office (since she reaches out to the base that he doesn't appeal to), rather than actually believing she's the best person to be his VP. Some "maverick."

[DroppinScience]

Well, for better or for worse, it's called "balancing the ticket." Where the President and Vice-Presidential picks reach out to two different bases. Kennedy picked Johnson to get Southern votes. Reagan picked Bush (who openly ridiculed him during the primaries for Reagan's "voodoo economics"). I don't know whether they were so much ideological opposites, but they were certainly political rivals.

Palin is just picked so McCain can distance himself from his "damaging" anti-evangelical remarks he made in 2000. He just wants to prove to the base that he's no longer the man he was 8 years ago while still trying to convince Independents and others that he's still a maverick. I dunno, he seems to have convinced RobMoney, but I don't know about others.

[QueenAdrock]

I understand about balancing the ticket, but he picked someone who is pretty goddamn far to the right, when he's trying to say he's "different" than Bush and those on the far right. That's just being hypocritical. He wants to "reach across the aisle" by picking HER? Both Obama and Biden are centrists, for the most part. McCain is right of center, and Palin is "bat-shit insane conservative." It's just strange to see McCain say "Oh, yeah, I'm sick of the past 8 years of Bush, we need change and reform in Washington," and then sticks someone on his ticket who says that Iraq is a "Holy War." I mean, if that doesn't stink to high hell of the Bush administration, I don't know what does.

I guess he's just banking on the fact that he thinks America is too stupid to see that picking Palin is not reaching across any aisle, nor does she represent any change from what we've seen in the past 8 years. They just figure if they say it enough and people just see this pretty little woman smiling and nodding, that it must be true. I just hope people actually look at her record and what she stands for, then they'll see they'll be voting in another extremist conservative.

[travesty]

Obama's a centrist? That's more than a bit of a stretch. I'll let you slide with Biden, but Obama is no centrist on any scale.

[QueenAdrock]

He's not against the death penalty. He's not for removing troops from the middle east, he just wants to reposition them. He's for "clean" coal energy and nuclear energy. Those are just a few of the things that he doesn't mesh with the left on. What's so radical about him to NOT make him centrist? People like Cynthia McKinney and the Green party are considered "left wing," I consider the Democrats to largely be centrist.

[saz]

Obama's a centrist? That's more than a bit of a stretch. I'll let you slide with Biden, but Obama is no centrist on any scale.


Corporate America Hearts Obama

By Chris Hedges, Posted April 30, 2008


Barack Obama's campaign message, filled with lofty promises of change and hope, is also filled with repeated reassurances to the corporate elite. Pick up a copy of Obama's book "The Audacity of Hope." The subtext is clear. It is a steady reminder to corporate America, a reminder bolstered by Obama's voting record, that corporations would have nothing to fear from an Obama presidency.

"Of course," he writes, "there are those within the Democratic Party who tend toward similar zealotry. But those who do have never come close to possessing the power of a Rove or a DeLay, the power to take over the party, fill it with loyalists, and enshrine some of their more radical ideas into law. The prevalence of regional, ethnic, and economic differences within the party, the electoral map and the structure of the Senate, the need to raise money from economic elites to finance elections -- all these things tend to prevent Democrats in office from straying too far from the center. In fact, I know very few elected Democrats who neatly fit the liberal caricature; the last I checked, John Kerry believes in maintaining the superiority of the U.S. military, Hillary Clinton believes in the virtues of capitalism, and just about every member of the Congressional Black Caucus believes Jesus Christ died for his or her sins."

He praises the "recognizably progressive" Bill Clinton, whose disastrous welfare reform (http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060829_robert_scheer_clinton_welfare/) he lauds, for showing that "government spending and regulation could, if properly designed, serve as vital ingredients and not inhibitors to economic growth, and how markets and fiscal discipline could help promote social justice. He recognized that not only societal responsibility but personal responsibility was needed to combat poverty." Obama excoriates "those who still champion the old-time religion, defending every New Deal and Great Society program from Republican encroachment, achieving ratings of 100 percent from the liberal interest groups. But these efforts seem exhausted, a constant game of defense, bereft of energy and new ideas needed to address the changing circumstances of globalization or a stubbornly isolated inner city."

The same Beltway lobbyists, corporate donors and public relations firms, the same weapons manufacturers, defense contractors, nuclear power companies and Wall Street interests that give Clinton and John McCain money, give Obama money. They happen, in fact, to give Obama more. And the corporate state, which is carrying out a coup d'état in slow motion, believes it will prosper in Obama's hands. If not, he would not be a viable candidate.

There have been some important investigations into Obama's links with major corporations, including Ken Silverstein's November 2006 (http://www.harpers.org/archive/2006/11/0081275) article "Barack Obama Inc: The Birth of a Washington Machine" in Harper's magazine. Newsweek has also detailed many of Obama's major corporate contributors. Obama's Leadership PAC includes John Gorman of Texas-based Tejas Securities, a major supporter of Senate Democrats as well as the Bush presidential campaigns. It includes Winston & Strawn, the Chicago-based law and lobbying firm. It also includes the corporate law firms Kirkland & Ellis, and Skadden, Arps, where four attorneys are fundraisers for Obama as well as donors. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Henry Crown and Co., an investment firm that has stakes in industries ranging from telecommunications to defense, are all funding the Illinois senator.

Individual contributors to Obama come from major lobbyist groups such as those of Jeffrey Peck (whose clients include MasterCard, the Business Roundtable and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce) and Rich Tarplin (Chevron, the American Petroleum Institute and the National Association of Manufacturers). Exelon, a leading nuclear plant operator, based in Illinois, is a long-time donor to the Obama campaign. Exelon executives and employees have contributed at least $227,000 to Obama's campaigns for the United States Senate and for president. Two top Exelon officials, Frank M. Clark, executive vice president, and John W. Rogers Jr., a director, are among his largest fundraisers. Obama has also accepted more than $213,000 from individuals (and their spouses) who work for companies in the oil and gas industry, and two of Obama's bundlers are senior oil company executives who have raised between $50,000 and $100,000. I could go on, but you get the point.


Obama, as you will see if you examine his voting record, has repeatedly rewarded those who reward him:


• As a senator he has promoted nuclear energy as "green." He has been lauded by the nuclear power industry, which is determined to resume building nuclear power plants across the country.

• He has voted to continue to fund the Iraq war. He opposed Rep. John Murtha's call for immediate withdrawal.

• He refused to join the 13 senators who voted against confirming Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state.

• He voted in July 2005 to reauthorize the Patriot Act.

• He did not support an amendment that was part of a bankruptcy bill that would have capped credit card interest rates at 30 percent.

• He opposed a bill that would have reformed the notorious Mining Law of 1872.

• He did not support the single-payer health care bill HR 676, sponsored by Reps. Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers.

• He supports the death penalty.

• He worked tirelessly in the Senate in 2005 to pass a class-action "reform" bill that was part of a large lobbying effort by financial firms, which make up Obama's second-biggest single bloc of donors. The law, with the Orwellian title the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA), would effectively shut down state courts as a venue to hear most class-action lawsuits. This has long been a cherished goal of large corporations as well as the Bush administration. It effectively denies redress in many of the courts where these cases have a chance of defying powerful corporate challenges. It moves these cases into corporate-friendly federal courts dominated by Republican judges. Even Hillary Clinton voted against this naked effort to allow corporations to carry out flagrant discrimination, consumer fraud and wage-and-hour violations.

• Obama likes to paint himself as an opponent of the war. He reminds voters of his one -- and only one -- speech opposing it. But he swiftly changed his mind. Obama told the Chicago Tribune on July 27, 2004, that "there's not that much difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage. The difference, in my mind, is who's in a position to execute." Obama added that he "now believes U.S. forces must remain to stabilize the war-ravaged nation, a policy not dissimilar to the current approach of the Bush administration." Obama wants to leave an estimated 50,000 troops in Iraq to protect our superbases and the Green Zone, our imperial city, to fight terrorism, and to train Iraqi forces.

• Obama's policy director is Karen Kornbluh, who as a senior aide to Robert Rubin, the head of the Treasury Department during the Clinton administration, pushed through NAFTA and other free-trade policies that unleashed the assault on organized labor and devastated the country's manufacturing sector. And Obama's senior economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, who teaches economics at the University of Chicago, privately assured Canada's consul general in Chicago in February that Obama's NAFTA-bashing "should be viewed as more about political positioning than a clear articulation of policy plans," according to a leaked memo of the meeting.

• Most of Obama's senior advisers, including Penny Pritzker, a member of one of America's richest families and the current finance chair of the campaign, have a long history of oiling the government apparatus for corporate interests and personal enrichment. Pritzker was the chair of Superior Bank of Chicago. The bank collapsed in 2001 with over $1 billion in insured and uninsured deposits, and 1,406 people lost nearly all their savings. The bank owners, who fabricated profit reports, made much of their money promoting risky subprime home mortgages. Those around Obama are as wedded to corporate interests as those around Clinton and McCain.

link (http://www.alternet.org/election08/83890/?page=2)

[travesty]

I'll agree with you on this. But within the "democrats", not so centered.

[HAL 9000]

During the primary process, the Republicans had plenty of opportunities to nominate batshit crazy fundamentalists but did not. Although Romney got quite far, he was still quite a long way from winning. I wonder if the Republicans are stuck in the past a bit by appealing to their lunatic religious base like this – I am not so sure that base is there in the numbers that they need anymore. Sure all candidates have to be Christian to have a chance but it seems to me like the US is starting to get a little less keen on the real fundies. I guess we will see...

[rirv]

It's like a choice between Pepsi and Coke when all you want is a double gin and tonic.