[Marxism] Democrats divided over how to respond to Palin right demagogy

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

People who want to understand the mentality of the social milieu that has
produced Palin -- not necessarily the woman herself but the society into
which she is inserted -- should read John Hawkes fine novel, "Adventures in
the Alaskan Skin Trade."  "Skin trade" refers not, as one who grew up with
Call of the Wild and To Light a Fire suspected, to people living by hunting
and selling animal skins but to a house of prostitution.

This is not a book with a progressive social message, but then neither do
Dostoyevsky or Louis-Ferdinand Celine, two of my favorite authors. 

The most striking thing in the response to Palin is the fear of confronting
her on abortion rights. This reflects the evolution across the bourgeois
spectrum toward a eugenic rather than a woman's rights conception of
abortion. Abortion is to prevent the birth of of products of incest or rape,
or of Down's syndrome children or to keep teenagers from bearing young.It is
not about a woman's right to choose, since this can only be justified if
society is or should be against the transformation of the particular fetus
into a born child. 

Recognizing that Palin had a Downs' syndrome child, that her daughter is
having a child by a boyfriend (with a shotgun wedding with real shotguns in
the offing) and that these acts are not socially disapproved is crushing to
them. Seeing that these decisions are not diaapproved socially, the liberals
run from the debate over whether women -- FOR WHATEVER REASON -- should have
the right to decide to have or not have such or any other children as a
matter of CHOICE.

I am absolutely opposed to abortion as a tool for eugenics. The woman's
unconditional choice is the only acceptable standard.

The liberals' substitute for confronting Palin's political positions -- not
her personal decisions or those or her children -- on abortion is to talk
about her experience, as though the whole unsuccessful campaign against
Obama on this basis had never happened. But experience today is just
experience in screwing the common people in the interests of the rich. From
this standpoint, Obama and Palin already have TOO MUCH experience, not too
little. Their good fortune is to have less experience than their
counterparts in the other party, which, along with other factors, can give
rise to hopes

I'm not sure that any candidate but McKinney can take Palin on, and I HOPE
she does. Even Nader carries on about his vice presidential candidate having
more "experience."  Ralph, the key is to get that nobody you should be
interested in really gives a fuck.
Fred Feldman



Obama campaign perplexed over how to handle Palin. First reactions to Palin
were conflicting. Some Democrats feel Palin's impact will decline  . Focus
of campaigns should shift to debates
Ewen MacAskill in St Paul   Thursday September 04 2008 20:59 

Over the past 20 months of campaigning Barack Obama's team has built a
reputation for discipline: the inner circle decides on a message, passes it
down and everyone sticks to it. But since John McCain announced his running
mate last Friday, the Obama team has shown rare uncertainty about how to
deal with the Sarah Palin phenomenon.

"They blew it. This was not good," a prominent Democrat who preferred to
remain anonymous said Thursday, reflecting the mood of many Democrats. He
said that the anti-George Bush tide in the country will be enough to see
Obama into the White House but the presence of Palin will make it closer.

He felt Obama's team and the media had walked into a Republican mousetrap by
demonstrating class and gender prejudice against a modern woman from a
middle-class background.

The initial reaction on Friday from the Obama team was to criticise McCain
for picking someone with so little experience but a few hours later there
was a more courteous response in a joint statement from Obama and his
vice-presidential running mate, Joe Biden, welcoming as historic the
Republicans first female vice-presidential candidate.

Obama's team then joined in the hunt through her background. On top of that,
the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, Joe Biden referred to her as
"good looking", a comment that many women voters may regard as patronising,
before Thursday describing her speech as lacking in substance.

The latter is the approach that many Democrats thought the Obama team should
have taken from the start, presenting the Republicans as the tired old
party, short of ideas, and contrasting this with the Democratic programme.

Tad Devine, who was chief strategist for Democratic candidate John Kerry's
unsuccessful run for the presidency in 2004, said Thursday: "I think the
best way to respond would be to point out that she said practically nothing
about the biggest issue of our time," Devine said, listing the economy, the
Iraq war and the health service.
"I think they should refrain from anything personal."

Devine, like other Democrats, feels that the impact of Palin will quickly
diminish. "I think in the end this election will come down to McCain and
Obama, as they always do," he said.

Polls in the past have shown that vice-presidential picks have little
influence on the final outcome, even one as controversial as the Republican
Dan Quayle in 1988.

The focus should shift back to Obama and McCain on the campaign trail and,
in particular, the three presidential debates between them later this month
and next.

Vice-presidents are normally only prominent at three points in a campaign:
when chosen, their convention speech and the vice-presidential debate. When
Biden comes up against her at the debate, he has to balance a desire to show
off his experience of foreign affairs against her limited knowledge against
coming across as patronising.

The task for the Democrats is to stop her winning over women. If Hillary
Clinton had been the vice-presidential pick, that would have helped, but in
her absence, they could - if they feel they have to keep it personal - focus
on her social conservatism: anti-abortion and creationism.

Devine said he thought that it was legitimate for Obama to keep looking at
how she was appointed by McCain, with the vetting taking place only the day
before, describing this as "shoddy" and "outrageous" on the part of McCain.

He also thought that while Palin's speech would appeal to the Republican
base, it might not play well with the independents that McCain needs to win
over to secure the White House.



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