Portrait

frankenstein’s monster, sarah palin.

i am not a big fan of obama. right now, i’m in that cynical, ‘they’re all the same’ frame of mind when it comes to the united states of america. i am doubtful that one man, however charming, charismatic or different he may be, can change the result of hundreds of years of screwed up government and policy: which is exactly what i think the US of A is today. true, bush was an idiot and an asshole above and beyond any believable proportions, but let’s not be so naive to believe that if not for bush, america would have been the most awesome place on earth. america’s problem is at its core. america’s problem began the day they laid down the imperialistic, megalomaniacal policies upon which it, as a country, is built. america’s problem is that, at the end of the day, bush is the president that suits it most. and thus, mccain will be too. no matter what we say, the majority of americans will vote for the man they think is the best choice for them, the man that will follow their ideals and further their beliefs. what else should they care about? they will vote like true republicans, and you can’t blame them for it.

i don’t understand why the democrats and other liberals are appalled by mccain’s faith in palin. why are we even shocked? mccain has played his winning card. while the republicans go ape-shit over her, he can rest assured that if he wins, she will be one of the main reasons for it. while she seems repulsive to us, he couldn’t have chosen a more like-minded person; someone that most republicans will love and relate to. and worse, vote for. and since the republicans dominate the land, i think mccain has sealed the deal for himself.

but palin is not special, nor one of a kind. she is merely the voice box for millions of americans for whom she speaks; those that do not believe in evolution, or abortion or sex education. or peace. she is merely another result of the american sentiment. she is yet another creation of this great nation and its desire to control. no one is as responsible for her warped judgment, bigoted opinions and intolerant nature as much as republican america itself.

i am not a big fan of obama, and as sad as it maybe to choose the lesser evil in something as important as presidency, i hope the democratic, liberal, wonderful, broad-minded, intelligent americans will outnumber the republicans at this election.

i am not that big a fan of eve ensler either. i think the vagina monologues can be too intense and single-minded. but she has moved me, once or twice. she has made me laugh. and if nothing else, we have this in common: we think sarah palin is an incredibly twisted, sadly demented excuse for a human being. i need not say more. she says it better.

Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist and activist best known for “The Vagina Monologues”, wrote the following about Sarah Palin.

Drill, Drill, Drill

I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last

night that she was a member of a club where they rode

snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar

bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for

Polar Bears. Maybe it’s their snowy whiteness or their

bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I

have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is

the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it

is, I need the polar bears.

I don’t like raging at women. I am a Feminist and

have spent my life trying to build community, help empower

women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write

about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was

all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this

choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.

But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices

is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one

story — connected to saving the earth, ending racism,

empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our

minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.

I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the

most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this

country choose those candidates the fall-out may be so great,

the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may

never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact

that duo would have on the rest of the world.

Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have

seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the

presidency with regularity.

Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take

this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of

Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves.

She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the

arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the

pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God’s

plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the

endangered species list. The earth, in Palin’s view, is

here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are

here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken

and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As

she said herself of the Iraqi war, “It was a task from

God.”

Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does

not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open

against their will should have a right to determine whether

they have their rapist’s baby or not

She obviously does not believe in sex education or

birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing

abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.

Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From

what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library,

has a tendency to dispense with people who think

independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of

ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and

might very well be the next president of the United States.

She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the

earth.

Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom

Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40

caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the

air.

Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right,

her private right. But when God and Guns come together in

the public sector, when war is declared in God’s name,

when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the

end of separation of church and state and the undoing of

everything America has ever tried to be.

I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we

hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that

will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the

planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save

the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It

will determine whether we move towards dialogue and

diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence

through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine

whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest

our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency

and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on

education and healthcare or whether we build more and more

methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a

free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear,

fundamentalism and aggression.

If the Polar Bears don’t move you to go and do

everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider

the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC,

“Drill Drill Drill.” I think of teeth when I think

of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think

of domination. I think of military exercises that force

mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt,

ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.

Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the

ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking,

in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the

fabric of this precious thing we call life?

Eve Ensler

from left to right: david gilmour, roger waters, nick mason and rick wright.

and one by one, they all quietly leave.

following his friend and band mate syd barret, who died in july 2006, rick wright, founder member and keyboard player of the legendary pink floyd, passed away on the 15th of september 2008 at the age of 65 from cancer.

the self-taught keyboard player and pianist was a quiet component in the creative genius that was pink floyd. over the last so many years, when people fought over who or what pink floyd was, when people fought over whether it was gilmour or waters, wright’s creative input and quiet stability often went unnoticed.

to remember this great man, we must remember what they were: truly, at the beginning. who pink floyd was before they became music’s biggest landmark in time. before the fights, the rifts, the deaths. they were young, unafraid and they experimented. they took things we already knew, and turned them into something we had never known before. they gave us the strength and knowledge it took to appreciate things that we had never thought had any value.

what was pink floyd about? simply, and incomparably: innovation

RIP rick wright. and RIP, the untouched memory of early pink floyd.