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Changing Direction

John McCain says that Sarah Palin, in spite of all her lack
of knowledge, is still a formidable force in the Republican Party.
He should know.  He was willing to choose her to be his
Vice President, knowing very well that she was incompetent
to become President.  She was, however, "a formidable force".
She was also attractive, and admired by all those people who knew
that she and her husband danced the edge of secession from the
same country she decided she wanted to be President of.

The source of Palin's appeal still is that she galvanizes
all those feelings of anger held by people who don't think too much.
Even within the Republican Party, no serious thinking politicians
really believe that she is anything but a way to call out the dogs.
One could grow old trying to find any positive proposal
she has made for the direction of our country.  She just rallies
the pack, getting them to bark and bay and snarl and howl.

Sarah Palin, only slightly less attractive than John Boehner
and Mitch McConnel, is the pretty face of the Republican Party,
but she is simply being used.  She doesn't think about where
we are in history, what is happening in the world, or try to
formulate a strategy for going forward to what is coming. 

She bought clothes; lots of clothes. 

She is to the Republican Party what those merchants of wealth
are to the Christian Church:  God wants them to be wealthy.
Someone has written a book for her to sell; someone from
the gospel of wealth is writing it, to make Sarah wealthy. 

The Nobel Committee is going to give Barack Obama the Peace Prize,
not for demonstrably great accomplishments, but because he has said
that the directions in which we have been going are all wrong;
that we are part of a whole world that has gotten its head screwed on
crooked; that we need to do something about American arrogance,
about energy, about health and poverty, about the earth we live on.
He has said we have to try to get past religious arrogance and scorn,
past threatening to massively destroy each other with nuclear weapons
and roadside bombs and Berlin-walls whether in Palestine or in
North America.  Maybe they are going to award him the Peace Prize
just because he thinks; because it isn't just about new shoes. 

It is about changing direction.  It is about time.

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