Sarah Palin Should Have Simply Said "No."

There is no time to read all the commentary about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's decision to leave her office on July 26. Clearly there is much to say about that decision; some people in fact have much to say about Gov. Palin's every move. Even after she leaves office an abundance of jokes, sarcasm, malice, and derision will be tossed her way. Members of the vituperative, vindictive set will not surrender her as easily as she has surrendered them.

Gov. Palin in the most objective sense was nearly unknown until August 29, 2008. On the day John McCain announced her as his running mate, the small-state-big-state governor was not only thrust into the limelight; her world was suddenly exposed to the glaring, and often leering and sneering, gaze of the media, the blogosphere, and the comedic and pundit classes. Any appeal to privacy; any suggestion that certain things were off-limits; all that fell away the moment she said "Yes" to John McCain.

She would have been better off saying no. That, at least to me, is what I read and hear between the lines. Had she rejected Mr. McCain's offer, the cameras would have focused elsewhere, the blogs -- some even funded by Democratic monies gathered in the lower-48 -- would have gone silent, and she could have completed (most likely) her term as governor.

Two things happened. One was that her critics, critics of all things Republican, understood that even after Sen. McCain's November loss she could and would use her experience as governor of Alaska as a springboard for higher office. And the second thing was that the governor had made -- even if only slightly -- Barack Obama look too much like the man he actually was: an inexperienced novice propped up by the media and the grand spectacle the Democratic Party created around him.

Thus, not only the Alaskan media and Democratic establishment but the entirety of the whole liberal class -- news, entertainment, and party leadership -- turned their guns her way. It wouldn't be an overstatement to describe her life since August 29, 2008 as one filled with harassment, even sexual harassment, and abuse. (Perhaps Sarah Palin has now destroyed what surely could have become a Democratic Party meme: that she only USED Alaska simply for her own inflated ambitions. Now, she has at least seized control of the narrative, which can only tick off her critics.)

I tried to pay attention at the beginning of Gov. Palin's rise to fame and infamy. I tried to follow the metaphors, if you recall, that were used to describe her. Of course, I only touched the tip of the veritable Alaskan iceberg of abusive metaphors that moved toward her destruction. She was reduced to an object, even a sex object, at which her detractors aimed their abuse: she was reduced to a target. Crude stereotypes abounded. They continue to abound.

Sarah Palin is not, nor was she ever, perfect. She may even be extremely imperfect. If I were to know her as a close friend; were I to know her deepest thoughts on life, politics, faith, beauty, I may discover that her imperfections are too great for me to tolerate. But there is no doubt, none whatsoever, that she was abused by people who should have known better. Her many imperfections do not merit hate and vitriol.† Or so I think.

In the end, Gov. Palin has made a choice I actually applaud -- barring her resignation is a flight from scandal -- for the simple reason that I think serving in the public sphere has become, in most instances, a very low calling. She may have "let down her base," as some have said, but my feeling has long been that most of the political classes in America -- especially the alleged intellectual and academic classes -- have long been rather debased. No doubt she has let them down. In that one fact, I think her recent actions are rather complimentary to her.


To dissent is patriotic.

©2009/Contratimes. All rights reserved.

†My own critics may fault me here for hurling abuse toward Barack Obama. If that charge is hurled my way, I think I can defend myself rather ably.

I Have No Idea: On Sarah Palin

We've been hearing a lot about false choices these days, especially from the man in the White House. Barack Obama seemingly loves mentioning the many "false choices" made by his predecessor's administration. And I have shown (see link above) that Mr. Obama fails to see the irony in his pop-pronouncements on false choices, since, according to his wife, his very career is built upon a patently false choice.

In keeping with Mr. Obama's penchant for criticizing false choices that are not false and for creating "true" choices that are indeed false, the Democratic Party's statement yesterday regarding Sarah Palin's sudden announcement of her resignation from her Alaska governor's seat is exemplary:

Either Sarah Palin is leaving the people of Alaska high and dry to pursue her long shot national political ambitions or she simply can’t handle the job now that her popularity has dimmed and oil revenues are down. Either way - her decision to abandon her post and the people of Alaska who elected her continues a pattern of bizarre behavior that more than anything else may explain the decision she made today. [emphasis added]

The great and logical minds of the DNC have no problem creating such a false Either/Or, in large part because such minds are neither great nor logical. If I were to advise my readers to meditate on the DNC statement as if it contained profound religious truths -- I am not and it doesn't -- I am certain that readers would have some experience approaching epiphany: The Democrats who issued this statement are incredibly stupid and vapid. And petty.

Just think: the DNC has NO IDEA -- none! -- as to why Ms. Palin has suddenly resigned. And yet, like spiritualists probing through animal scat, they've divined the reasons behind Ms. Palin's actions: She is either overly-ambitious or she is incompetent. But note what the DNC has actually said (and they don't even realize it): Her resignation is solely due to her being a fool. There is no real or even false Either/Or here. Since Ms. Palin's alleged bid for national office represents a "long shot," at least according to the DNC, she is a fool for reaching well beyond her merits. And since she is leaving office because her job has become too difficult, she was a fool to have ever thought she merited the governorship. Really, the DNC's syllogism is dizzying in its rigor:

A. Either p or p
B. p
_______
C. Therefore, p

What is amazing is that Ms. Palin's alleged "pattern of bizarre behavior," as the DNC so confidently puts it, has not been shown to be either a pattern or bizarre. But the Democrats' demonstrable fixation on and targeting of all things Palin indicate a clear pattern of bizarre behavior among Democrats who accuse her of behaving in a bizarre pattern.

____________________

WHAT IS MS. PALIN THINKING?

If this question can be asked without resorting to the cheap-shot answer -- Ms. Palin is not thinking because she can't think -- then it must be asked in humility: As of right now, no one but Ms. Palin and her husband know what she's thinking. I have no idea what's going on, do you?

I think a sane person of decent intellect and breeding, possessing even a modicum of compassion, would choose reticence and not pompous declamations upon hearing of Ms. Palin's resignation. Is it not possible that she is ill? Is it not at all possible that someone in her family is ill? Perhaps her marriage is in disrepair; perhaps the battering she has personally experienced from the media and the DNC has truly taken its toll on her children, and thus, on her. And if the latter is the case, then Ms. Palin's decision shows an immense amount of competence and gives the lie to the assertion she can't handle the office of governor. A good governor would indeed resign to protect her family from the unjust abuse that constantly comes her way.

I am not suggesting here she has not some other plans. I am not defending or promoting her ambitions (or lack thereof). My fascination, really, has always been about how her enemies -- and they are enemies -- perceive her, and how they've treated her (and her family). In fact, I will admit that Ms. Palin's decision prima facie spells doom.

But I am also quick to point out that if the media and the DNC pile on top of her and there is some sad story behind this decision; or if Ms. Palin makes some stunning announcement in the coming days about an appointment or position that is truly to her political advantage, both the media and the DNC will look incredibly foolish, weak, and, as already said, petty.

I can't help admit that when I read and hear the ridiculously over-wrought and presumptuous criticisms of Ms. Palin, I am hoping she gets the last laugh.

We'll see, of course. But in the scheme of things, at least for me, what Sarah Palin does or does not do matters little. This is not to say she is not important. It is merely an admission about what fills my life. And what does not fill it.

Bottom line: I am hoping that there is not some sort of tragedy behind her announcement. You would think that would be everyone's hope in America. Sadly, it is not.

©2009/Contratimes. All rights reserved.

Sex, Sex, Sex: Growing Hard To The Core

I recognize that I promised to continue my discussion on learning and ignorance in America, but I feel it's important to examine some of the moral issues that may be buried in the Eliot Spitzer story. Part if not all of Mr. Spitzer's story has indeed been buried by the media avalanche which is the Barack Obama/Rev. Jeremiah Wright insanity, but that will not shake my resolve to look more closely at the underbelly of American sexual obsession and addiction.

For clearly this Spitzer tale is about obsession and addiction in more places than in Mr. Spitzer's personal and public life. American AND European media, and their consumers, are also obsessed with sex, sex scandals and the like; and not a few -- whether media producer or consumer, it matters not -- are addicted to sex as commodity, often in its most salacious forms.

Let us take note of something curious. There is a rather pervasive idea that sexual sins are private matters. One never heard the end of this particular defense when President Clinton was in office. In fact, the rather glibly spoken trope that Clinton's private life was irrelevant to his role as president was rolled out even before he was elected. And Eliot Spitzer tried to remind us all, in his resignation speech, that his sin, too, was private.

I am not here to quibble with the privacy defense, other than to point out that it is rotten and foolish to the core. What I am here to note is how our culture simply does not believe this sort of thing at all. We are a prurient and voyeuristic lot, perhaps so empty of soul and spirit that we are titillated by the sights and sounds of others' titillation. Privacy be damned!

How else to explain that thoroughly inhuman evil, the sudden interest in finding the prostitute with whom Mr. Spitzer had his dalliance? How else to explain that pornographers, like Penthouse and Hustler, want to PAY this prostitute to expose her body for their probing, salacious eyes?

It's amazing that so many folks can take the high road against those men who have sinned with prostitutes, and yet are curiously silent when those same prostitutes are paraded nude through video and print so they may incite lust and lubricity among tens of thousands. It is wrong, no doubt, for Mr. Spitzer to use prostitutes; but it is, apparently, OK for the snickering masses who denounce him (and men like him) as hypocrite to later go and salivate and secrete at the sight of the same exploited prostitutes in magazines and movies. Remember tele-evangelist Jim Bakker's 'paramour,' Jessica Hahn? Sure you do. Perhaps you remember her from her Playboy pictorials and videos that followed that scandal.

And one can never forget the great fall of that other tele-evangelist, Jimmy Swaggart, who was busted frequenting a prostitute not so he could have intercourse with her, but so he could watch her in various poses in order to whet his beastly appetites. Recall the great hue and cry over this scandal; recall the righteous multitudes denouncing (rightly so) the flagrant hypocrisy of Mr. Swaggart. "How could men of such allegedly high moral standing fall to such depravity?" many of us asked.

Curiously, that was about as deep a moral question we could ask, because our culture went suddenly silent as Mr. Swaggart's prostitute posed in Penthouse, hovering over the camera to reveal to the world how she serviced Mr. Swaggart's lust (yes, I saw that issue years ago, when I visited the men's room -- there was a stack of magazines -- at a tire warehouse while waiting for my company truck to be fixed). No one seemed to care that this bit of 'journalism,' too, was a form of prostitution (as is all pornography), or that millions of men were consuming in print what had been so roundly condemned only weeks before when Mr. Swaggart was a headline.

Again, I am not a person who stands on high ground in this matter. Ever since I was shown my first Playboy when I was about to enter the 6th-grade, pornography has been a difficult temptation for me (as it is for millions and millions of men). It is, indeed, an addictive product, and pornography's peddlers know it. It is also a gross product, and it is every bit as immoral and empty as prostitution. Gratefully, I have been spared the greater temptations: I've never been to a strip club (and I pray I never will), nor have I ever sought the comforts of a prostitute. But this is more a function of God's grace, and not any function of my personal constitution.

Let me put it this way for anyone who does not get the power of the visual image for men. Please note the next time you drive down the freeway: notice the chrome, two-dimensional silhouettes of women, baring virtually NO RESEMBLANCE to any woman in three dimensions, that are affixed to mud flaps on tractor-trailer trucks. Why are those there? In part, they are there to incite lust among an invisible fraternity of men: it is code that hot babes are what all men crave. It is a reminder of sex, of copulation; it is really a subconscious trigger reminding men they are designed to fertilize (a compulsion that never really sleeps). And it is a reminder that men, too, are reduced to sex objects, susceptible to the slightest temptations.

Think, then: if mere chrome stickers are known to trigger something in the brain of a man, how much more powerful the images of women on the cover of Cosmo, or in the newest Victoria Secret catalog? (And why do you think so many TV news shows have gorgeous anchors? We all know the answer, but think what it means: men can hardly go ANYWHERE where they can get a break from being reminded of what they "really want.")

Many men know that they've been trained by peer support, and the Madison Avenue push of high couture and sexually suggestive advertising, to become visual predators, stalking women they pass with their eyes, women they might see for but a moment in passing. I have talked with enough men to know that this is indeed a real problem; I have sat in cafés, or in my car on a busy street; I have watched men in the fitness club, and I have seen how they move their eyes: I HAVE SEEN HOW THEY CAN'T HELP THEMSELVES. Some men will walk out of their way while grocery shopping to catch a glimpse of the woman they spotted at the end of aisle 3.

It is, in fact, a nightmare for many of us. And I have not even touched on the fact that the internet is in our homes allowing us access to the world's darkest imagery. (And the technology is still in its primitive form.)
___________________

How is it not a matter of broad cultural denunciation that the pornography/news/internet industries are trying to find Eliot Spitzer's prostitute so they can exploit her (of course, they'll compensate her handsomely) again, and again, and again; so that they can use her body to exploit millions of men for financial gain? And think of the motive, which is not mere profit: the idea is to show her naked wonders solely to judge them, to see if she is "worthy," to see if she is "hot" enough -- or not. This is precisely why images of Mr. Spitzer's prostitute have been shown on even the pages of the New York Times; editors and readers are responding -- and I've already heard radio comments along these lines -- to the pictures with a "would YOU spend $5000 to have sex with ... this?" The very reductionism should send us out in the streets in riotous rage.

But it won't, and it doesn't. We are too dulled, too inured, to care. We can't think of it; we just leave this all to 'privacy' and 'free speech' and 'market forces' (and, for not a few, 'boys will be boys' and even 'female empowerment' are suitable defenses).

We are fools, killing ourselves, our souls; we are grinding all that is romantic and beautiful and transcendent about sex beneath our feet, grinding it into a mundane mash of culturally permitted abuse. We denounce on Monday morning what we condone Monday night; and we do not care, really, that there are millions of men and women, men like me, women like you, who are imprisoned (or have been), or will be imprisoned, by the trappings of pornography, prostitution, and all other forms of sexual oppression.

The deep cultural hypocrisy is seemingly insurmountable. It is, in the end, like a pervasive blindness, a narcotic that has stolen our time and killed our inability to feel what is perhaps our most noble emotion: moral outrage.


'Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.'

Peace to you.

©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

An Appeal To Men: Let Us Be Slaves No Longer (Redux)

[In light of the very harrowing tale about New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's (alleged?) involvement with prostitutes, I feel compelled to replay a Contratimes essay. The Spitzer story provokes in many of us men the humbling thought that, but for the grace of God, there go many of us -- into the very pits of hell. Sexual addiction is no joke, nor is it victim-less. The pleasures of the flesh are more often than not harbingers of death.

Moreover, witness today the disgusting and prurient media interest in the prostitute involved. The world seeks to exploit her anew. Such sorrow! May God have mercy!- BG]

From February 11, 2006:

I wept last night, several times. You see, I was watching television, which is not usually my habit (particularly on a Friday night), and I found myself weeping as I watched the 2006 Winter Olympics opening ceremonies, particularly when the 9-year-old Italian girl sang the Italian national anthem; or when Pavarotti closed the show with transcendence. The pageantry and pyrotechnics were brilliant; and the Peace Dove, formed by white-clad humans scaling a vertical netted wall, was mindblowing (though the dove looked a bit hawkish, if you ask me). But I also wept when I jumped to another program, 20/20, which featured a segment by John Stossel that included film footage of the killing of African elephants. I cannot tell you how this vulgarity slays me. It is an abuse unconscionable. (I am not referring to bona fide hunting of elephants as a vital natural resource by indigenous peoples.)

I am glad for channel-changing remote controls.

__________________

But something else really tore me up last night. Something that caused me to rend my garments; to rend my heart. It is the sort of demonic reality that should set the world afire with outrage. I am referring to slave trading, sexual slave trading. I urge my readers to watch PBS's Frontline documentary Sex Slaves; and I urge you to help fight the abuse of women (and children) in a trade that is, in fact, only a few mouse clicks away from this site. In fact I urge you men, particularly, who, like me, struggle with even the casual visit to porn-sites on the WWW, to at least fight the darkness by refusing to click on a JPEG or MPEG that will cost a woman her soul. For it is all linked: prostitution, pornography, abuse: it is all part of the degradation of womanhood, of personhood, and, perhaps most of all, motherhood.

Men, lest we forget, are also victims of sexual degradation, in myriad ways. Battered women come to men in all forms: many of us are married to them, our wives having been victimized by fathers or brothers or former boyfriends (the worst culprits, usually), or the culture that begs women to throw their virtues to the wind. But we also, as men, know our own exploitation: We are told everyday in advertisements, books, magazines and porno-promos that sex is ALL we really want; that we are nothing but sex objects too, hungry with lust; that THEY know what we really, really need.

My conviction is that we men must stop the demand for the consumption of women by refusing to participate it in any form. Moreover, I believe we men must begin, perhaps in grand over-reaction, to honor women, elevating them if we must, by viewing their bodies, not as playgrounds, but as cathedrals, as sanctuaries, as temples of holy life. We must stop the tyranny, even if that tyranny turns a profit through increased ad revenue, circulation, retail sales, or web-traffic.

I confess that I am guilty. I have looked at photographs (many!) that are indeed indecent, photographs presented in ostensibly up-scale magazines like Playboy, Penthouse, or some such 'proper' website. I apologize to the women that I've exploited, unwittingly perhaps, with each mouse click. I stand ashamed.

But I will fight nonetheless for the souls of women. I cannot express to you the horrors under which many women (and children) are living right now. As one woman said, a former sex slave, she did not know "that there could be places on this earth that could be so evil. ... I kept waiting for one of my clients (pause) to help me. ..." There are women abducted and sent to foreign soil, chained in rooms, serving up to sixteen men a day, sexually, perversely, in abject decadence worse than Dante's lowest tiers of hell. Governments and legal authorities turn blind eyes towards these obscenities; men and women participate in luring and trapping vulnerable girls in schemes that are nothing short of sick.

I weep today, and I pray my tears are not for show, are not in vain. There is no hope for this planet if we do not honor women; if the womb is reduced to a commodity. I beg you to pray for me, and all earnest men, that we will fight, genuinely, for the glory of mother, daughter, sister, wife; that we will honor our wives; that we will heal our women; that we will heal ourselves, by refusing to countenance this evil any longer. Let us stop the evil; humans are not objects for sale.

Men, wake up and repent with me. We are needed.

©Bill Gnade 2006/All Rights Reserved.

[I have written a poem addressing the struggles men face with sexuality and pornography which is available here. Please note that the poem is unflinching in its use of language. I wrote the poem several years ago, and it was presented in workshop at a writers' conference at Colgate University. The leader of the workshop skipped over it for less controversial material. It's not that bad, but it is serious.]