What's the Difference Between Palin and Muslim Fundamentalists? Lipstick. (Juan COLE)

[Octafish]

Leave it to those pointy-headed academics to go spreading some truth around.

What's the Difference Between Palin and Muslim Fundamentalists? Lipstick

A theocrat is a theocrat, whether Muslim or Christian.

by Juan Cole
Published on Tuesday, September 9, 2008 by Salon.com

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.

CONTINUED...

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

BTW: Lipstick?



If she thinks Obama's talking about her, he'd have said "rhymes with crazy witch."

[bryant69]

1. I guess Turnabout is fair play?

After years of accurately pointing the Sexist attacks by the right wing on Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and others, it's great to have a Republican woman we can lob sexist attacks at.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[WritersBlock]

2. She started the "lipstick" stuff. It's not sexist to use her own words against her. n/t

[bryant69]

3. i was refering more to the crazy witch part. n/t

[Octafish]

4. That's what Barbara Bush said about Geraldine Ferraro.

"I can’t say it, but it rhymes with rich."

On her husband’s opponent, Democratic vice-presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro; she later telephoned Ferraro to apologize for referring to her as a witch, NY Times 15 Oct 84

SOURCE: http://www.bartleby.com/63/95/595.html

I appreciate your opinion of sexist language, bryant69. "Bitch" is a word I don't use to describe other people, especially women. It's just we're getting our asses handed to us in the public arena and we need a bit of turnabout for fair play.

[WritersBlock]

7. ah, sorry... my bad. Misunderstood. n/t

[Webster Green]

5. Great pic of Scarah Failin. She looks bat-shit fucking crazy..(n/t)

:crazy:

[Octafish]

11. Wonder what else is locked in her padded-bra. I mean, cell.

Here she seems to be getting orders from the Bilderbergers or somebody.



She's nuts.

EXCERPT...

Bartimore: How important is drilling in Alaska to ease the burden of high oil prices on Americans?

Gov. Palin: Not only to ease the high prices of energy in America but also for national security reasons. Drilling in Alaska is going to be a matter of life and death. Up here in Alaska, we're bursting with billions of barrels of oil that are warehoused underground. We have to pump and feed our hungry markets instead of relying on the foreign sources of energy.

Freaking nutjob.

[seafan]

6. McCain is 'trying to put a religious extremist a heartbeat away from the presidency.'

Thankfully, Juan Cole is on the job.


September 9, 2008

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.

[Octafish]

12. The Brethren Get a Cistern

The Right and the Crooked Cross.

MotherJones Blog: Holy Wars: Evangelicals Attempt to Exclude Non-Believers

Imagine what she'll be like once Rev. Moon gets his concave and convex on her.

[Douglas Carpenter]

8. kik and recommended

[Octafish]

13. Friend reports lipstick has smeared the collars of the KKK, neoconfederates, NAZIs, Big Mining...

He says her tie to the Alaska Independence Party is only the tip of the Reich-wing iceberg.

I'm working on getting more on the subject in ASAFP.

Thanks for giving a damn, Douglas Carpenter!

[formercia]

9. In Pakistan, it's easy to tell who the prostitutes are:

They're the ones with lipstick on.

[Octafish]

10. Tell me about it.

From the Bartcop.com Collection



There are some seriously big prostitutes around here, too.

McCain - the Most Reprehensible of the Keating Five

[formercia]

14. He's a lot like Junior

the third generation of a family that exemplifies degenerate self-entitlement. If it had not been for his father and grandfather, he would have never made it into the Naval Academy and would have probably wound up a personal and professional failure.