Why Bush/Cheney, for all their evil, don't scare me nearly as much as McCain/Palin.

[BreweryYardRat]

Bush and Cheney are evil. That's undeniable. They're greedy, incompetent bastards who got 3,000 American citizens killed on 9/11 through sheer goddamned negligence, a unknown (but somewhere in 4 digits) number of people killed in Hurricane Katrina and now Ike through neglect and cronyism in FEMA, and gotten 4158 US troops, 314 coalition troops, and approximately ONE MILLION Iraqis killed through pure greed in order to reward their cronies in the military-industrial complex and attempt to reward their cronies in Big Oil. (They've also been getting rich off US, coalition, and civilian blood over in Afghanistan, but that one wasn't started purely for profit.) They've also raped the economy, spat on the law, shat on the Constitution, and wiped their ass with the truth an uncountable number of times.

But despite that, they still don't scare me as much as the McCain/Palin ticket.

Why? Bush/Cheney are a sort of petty, corporate, evil. For the vast, VAST majority of people in the US, we can express dissent or just be different without worrying about getting beaten/killed for it. (Police abuse of power at the RNC, against minorities, and in drug raids/taserings is horrible, but it's still not a truly widespread phenomenon. Even the abuse of minorities, which is pretty damned common, isn't happening every time, or even most times, a cop sees someone different.) Why do we still have a reasonable degree of freedom? Because killing the people who work for you, or provoking them into armed revolt against your abuse of power, isn't sound business practice even by THEIR shaky grasp of the term. Bush, Cheney, and their cronies are treating the US government like one of their own sleazy business deals on a grand scale -- they're looking to get obscenely rich, then sneak off to some Third World country (probably Paraguay) to live in oligarchic style and try to avoid being hunted down and charged with war crimes.

McCain and Palin are worse. Mainly Palin. The more I hear and see about her, the more scared of a McCain/Palin election theft I get. Even Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney have some shred of a moral code. Palin is nothing but pure small-minded hate, spite, and fanaticism.

McCain seems to be motivated primarily by ambition. But his motivation is basically a moot point, because I suspect the stress of the Presidency, combined with his own pre-existing conditions, would kill him fairly quickly. It's kind of sad to see his ambition driving him like this. He should have stayed home with his family to live out his remaining years in peace. And with McCain and almost any VP candidate other than Palin, we could just expect more of the same failed Republican military/economic policies, leading to another Great Depression. But the country survived the first one, and we could survive another one. It would be extremely hard, but we could do it.

But if McCain steals the election and takes office with Palin at his side, he's abruptly less likely to die from natural causes than assassination by some slobbering Dominionist(s) eager to see Palin in charge.* Whether such an assassination would have Palin's consent or not is pretty much irrelevant. Palin's personality is an ugly confluence of two traits that are nasty enough on their own: the petty, spiteful slimeball who never forgets or forgives a slight, and a frothing religious fanatic. Bush may have pretended to be a fundie in order to get the fanatic vote, but he didn't kowtow to their insane beliefs after stealing the election, and he only gave them a few sop judicial/military appointments. If she gets into the Oval Office, millions (at LEAST) of people are going to die horribly.

There are two likely possibilities for how that will happen:

1. She'll launch brutal religious-political genocide against homo/bi/transsexuals, most American subcultures (goths, punks, geeks, indies, rappers, etc...), atheists, agnostics, anyone whose religious belief is not Fundamental/Dominionist "Christian" (these people would make Christ vomit at what they're advocating in his name, by the way), and left-wingers in general. Just because we're different. The Palin government, still following the tenets of Dominionist belief and backed up by the fact that most Dominionists are also white supremacists, would also enslave all non-whites. (Physically, not the current policy of doing it economically.) Again, just because they're different.

2. She'll start a global nuclear war, whether in a suicidal game of chicken with Russia and China, or in some mad attempt to bring about the Rapture. In which case, billions of people will die horribly.

And folks, you oughta know me by now -- I've been on here since '05. I don't generally jump at shadows, and I don't scream "police state!" every time a corrupt cop abuses his/her authority. So if I'm scared...

By the way, I intend to volunteer with the Obama campaign (or my local Supervisor of Elections campaign, or my local Democratic House candidate's campaign -- depends which can best use my talents) ASAP. If I didn't have a job interview I'm trying to get set up, I'd be down at some local office tomorrow. Until that works out one way or the other, my schedule is iffy. No matter what, I will put in at least one day a week.
---
*: Should McCain/Palin steal the election, no liberal will so much as raise their voice to McCain -- we'll all be leaving the country or praying that John-boy hangs on in good enough condition to keep total control of executive powers until January 2013, when the Democratic 2012 candidate will inevitably win by so much that the election can't be stolen, and be successfully inaugurated. (Mind you, that wouldn't keep Palin from pinning it on us and using it as an excuse to launch her demonic crusade.)

[FKA MNChimpH8R]

1. This is frighteningly accurate

Palin is insane, gone beyond recapture. Bugfuck, batshit insane. This she-beast would think not twice about plunging this world into a thermonuclear holocaust. She barely has the brains to be a waitress at a Denny's in Juneau. Her world view is so simplistic that Chimpo looks like a Rhodes Scholar. She is demonstrably bugfuck crazy and fit for institutionalization and extreme sedation (lots of Thorazine six times a day) by the standards of any sane society.

She will have Grampy liquidated and install herself as the agent of change, via nuclear holocaust (to bring back Rambo Jeebus amd his happy dictatorship) within a year if she and Grampy are installed. Sarah Palin is nothing less than the realization of the Mayan prophecy of doomsday in 2012.

Boy, ain't milleniallist Pentecostalism grand?

[HillbillyBob]

3. Has anyone read any Robert A Heinlein?

Read Revolt in 2100, a book of short stories (all of his works in Future History
sort of loosely link up around what happens out past 2000)
Revolt revolves around the Theocracy of Nehemiah Scudder and the Prophets that
sound a lot like the Dominionists. A lot of his works seem to have a bit of
real prophesy to them. He also has names of companies, firms and characters that
have similar names to real people and companies. The real companies on further research
have some pretty secretive and dark connotations and connections. his IG Farben = the nazi
I G Barben , Harriman = the notorious Averell Harriman , industrialist and nazi supporter
both financial and verbal for instances.
I have attended various churches including both the radical soldiers of Krist type of Pentecostal and the more rational kind of Pentecostal, as well as the Southern and American
Baptist, Assembly of God. Methodist and several other denominations, in my search for myself
as a gay man trying to be on Christs good side. I finally decided I will live by the
Golden Rule and forget the rest of the window dressing.
The dominionist pentecostal and baptists both scare the bejebus out of me.
I am more afraid of them with their white power and fascist attitudes, afraid for me,
our culture and life on earth, than I am afraid of dying from hiv, (pos 25 years
I learned from history however inaccurate about the Inquisition , witch hunts, burnings and various tortures visited on them.
I also learned of more recent history from folks that lived through WWII and
had a relative survive Buchenwald kamp, as well as spoken to survivors of
Auschwitz who lived in South Florida in the same condo apartment building I did.
I have been trying to keep an open mind and not commit to an opinion, but find that
I do have an opinion-theory, that what we have is corporatists that donate money to rabid
Kristian groups as front to vote for the 'values' that they want to install on our society, culture and government over any objections we have to them. Those same corporatists are
of the monied clans that are in manufacturing, banking, insurance, and have way too much say
in our governments.

[ladjf]

2. "Dr. and Mrs. Stranglove"

[BreweryYardRat]

4. Worse than that by a long shot. n/t

[ladjf]

5. Agreed.