Skip to main content

What does that say about us?

I wonder what Sarah Palin thinks about our educational system.  I wonder is she is concerned that almost twenty other nations seem to be doing a better job teaching kids to read, and do math, and think critically.  What does she think our schools really need to do?

I wonder what she thinks about industrialization; whether she has ever tried to understand what happened to the automobile and steel industries.  What does she think we might do about Detroit, or Cleveland, or Gary, Indiana?

Does Sarah Palin think that war in Iraq was a good idea?  What did it accomplish?  What does she think the end result of war in Afghanistan will be?  What does she hope it will be?

Is she in favor of a graduated income tax?  A value-added tax?  Unemployment insurance?

What does she think about Social Security?  Are there ways in which it should be changed?  

When she needed medical care, she and her family went to Whitehorse, to take advantage of Canada's socialized medical plan.  Does she believe everyone should have access to health care?  Should anyone be left out?

Sarah Palin says a lot about people's patriotism, about the right and advantage of carrying a gun, about mama grizzly bears and how fierce they are, and about loving glaciers and smoked salmon.  She obviously loves high-end department stores and hair dressers.  She didn't like being Governor of Alaska, and quit after two years.  She liked running for the Vice Presidency (or was that the Presidency?).  But what does she stand for?  If she were the President now, what would she do?

Sarah Palin isn't ever going to be our president.  She isn't really the issue here.  But she is an example of something empty that fascinates us politically.  She is a non-answer to real questions.  She cheers for Joe the Imaginary Plumber, and for good, decent, gun-loving, Bible-quoting, angry people who distrust everybody east of Eden, and who want to be elected to go there, themselves, to change everything, you know!

But change what?  To do what?  To remake the nation in what way?

She doesn't have to have memorized the names of all the Presidents, in order.  She doesn't have to know all the Articles of the Constitution by heart, or even be able to explain to Christine O'Donnell what the separation of Church and State is all about.  But she surely must have thought about something concrete having to do with us as a nation!

There is nothing there.

What does that say about us, as a nation?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Friends-- My step-father of 35 years died this morning. His name was Conrad Royksund. He was 86 years old. He was born into poverty on a farm near Puyallup, WA. He was the first member of his family to attend college and earned a PhD from the University of Chicago. He paid his way through all of that by fishing in Alaska. He spent his professional career as a college professor. I met him when I was just 3 years old and don't actually have any memories of my life befor e he was in it. He was intimidatingly smart, funny as hell, and worked his ass off. He taught me to meet people with kindness and decency until I was certain they could not be trusted. He taught me to meet ideas with carving knives until I was certain they could. I will remember him as one of the bravest, most curious, and funniest people I have ever met. He left this world with a satisfied mind. We are so grateful. Dan Hubbard
1 comment
Read more

Caliche Busters and Government Work

When I was young and both stronger and smarter than I am now, I put my might and brain to work doing nothing useful, unless it might be thought that hand/foot/eye coordination might come in handy.  Those were skills to be learned and practiced.   I found an iron bar our grandfather had shaped in his blacksmith shop.  He took old car, truck, or wagon axles, and made tools from them for digging post holes.  He sharpened one end to a tip, and the other to a blade.  Washington State, like many places, had a hard layer of soil, probably created by water and limestone, or some such materials, that made digging holes a miserable chore.  The bar chipped through the natural concrete so that a shovel could take it up.   I found Grandpa's iron bar, and since I was young and dumb and strong--or so I thought--decided to punch a hole down to hardpan and ultimate truth.  I knew how to do that.  Raise the bar vertically with both hands, and then slam in straight down.  On the second try, aimi
Post a Comment
Read more

The Sea is Rising

Let us just step back:  two hundred and fifty years ago, or so, the ships of England and Spain had drifted onto a whole new continent, as they saw it, from far north to a savagely cold south; pole to pole, as if there were such things. Millions of people already lived here, some of them still hunters and gatherers; some of them very wealthy, indeed!  Gold and silver stolen from the southern Americas funded Spanish and English dreams. There was land, lots of land, under starry skies above, rich land, and oil and coal and iron ore.  The whole western world learned how to build industries not on simple muscle power, but on steam and oil.  We farmed, too, of course.  All we needed was cheap labor--slave labor from Africa, mostly, so the ships came with slave labor.  Chinese labor built railroad beds where there had been rock cliffs. Europeans, long used to killing each other for good, religious reasons, brought their religious savagery with them.  Even when all they wanted to do w
Post a Comment
Read more