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By Mina Xavier, November 18, 2008 2:52 pm

Radio hosts are some of the last true catalysts of unsweetened honesty, so naturally they bear the burden of filtering that honesty as it comes in through their phone lines and leaves their studio rooms on its way back out into society.

I won’t whine. I understand the unusual bind that it puts us in to be feminists and yet defend Eminem’s right to refer to women as whores and bitches. I also gladly accept the grain of salt that comes with turning hot button issues into tactless humor for the sake of breaking tension.

But I have also spent three months watching my culture turn some ugly shades of Union blue and Confederate gray. Furthermore, under the Palin/Bachmann spell of With Us Or Against Us, I have been summarily relegated to anti-American radicalist by some of my contemporaries for speaking my angst about government, law, and national integrity.

Women are the loudest speakers about issues of feminist flavor. We habitually restrict debate about our gender-related issues to female participants out of the recurring fear that we will be dismissed. If I cannot bring Sarah Palin down a peg or two by calling bullshit on her ulterior motives (as well as her mothering skills) without being shot down by conservatives as an antagonist firebrand, then why take my call in the first place?

Most engaging in the discussion were the points made about the role of race in this very intense election. No caucasian in their right mind would dare attempt a monologue on the topic; to approach the issue safely almost always requires a co-host from another cultural community for balance and counterpoint. Evidently the observations of a white female are too risky to air to a mixed audience for fear that I may be interpreted as patronizing, despite the clear message of my complaint: I am ashamed and afraid of my fair-skinned peers for what I have experienced this year.

I will not delve into the tedium. I will relate the hilarious ice breaker that caused my call to end rather abruptly. I was followed by at least a dozen or so opinionated locals who not only laughed with me, they could scarcely let the host argue his way out of the corner he had painted himself into.

After confirmation spread of the RNC’s use of robo-calling to directly imply a connection between Barack Obama and Osama Bin Laden, and after reviewing Palin’s remarks about who he “pals around” with, it was clear to me that white America was being given subtle permission to indulge their phobia … just this once.

The last name. That was the clincher. Too many people were put off by the foreign sound of it and the subliminal rhyme of the still-at-large al Qaeda leader. Barry might easily have circumvented much of this by adapting his last name to O’Bamaugh.

This country is not completely without its sense of humor.

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By Mina Xavier, November 10, 2008 5:00 am

Retrospect is always the better context for consideration of the larger picture. Rather than publish a fear-based assessment of Sarah Palin in the countdown to election night I gave the information time to marinate. In the interim I have drawn some conclusions.

This is a video assembled by the American News Project, a team closely associated with Michael Moore and many alternative media outlets. Though I would assume that no positive assessment of Palin would come from these associations, the information contained herein is nevertheless highly alarming and perhaps indicative of a deeper, more menacing spectacle. It is clearly not a meaningless concoction of partisan fear-mongering against the vice presidential candidate as, indisputably, the tapes uncovered in this composition were from Palin’s own church and subsequent media appearances. Humor me and give it a view:

I sat stunned and silent in front of my television the night Sarah Palin debated Joe Biden, but not because of the competitive thrill of political pugilists going brow-to-brow on camera.
Mine was a deep, primal chill of dread. Glancing over a barrage of political blogs, I found that I was not the only one unnerved by something I could not quite place my finger upon. Jill Hussein C., a writer for Brilliant at Breakfast on Blogspot, made the following remark:

One would think that the mother of [five] children, including an infant, and the soon-to-be grandmother of another infant, would use her “hockey mom” persona to frame her ticket’s agenda as creating a better world for her children. [She] doesn’t. And I think I know why. It’s because Sarah Palin doesn’t believe there is a future.

Jill’s assessment was jarring, and with such precision that the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end upon reading it. We all saw a robotic performer. The cold, mechanical mannerisms of the woman at that podium were starkly reminiscent of a cult recruiter I had encountered in the late nineties. In her remarks to her assembly back in Wasilla, Palin clearly believed that she was chosen by God to move forward into the path she has taken. Her rise to politics was directly attributed to a “prophesy” given to her by an African minister, seen in church footage blessing her and protecting her from witchcraft.

Cultists and extremists are a separate brand of danger in the sociopolitical mix; add high ambition and powerful charisma and you have a most unsettling phenomenon: someone capable of speaking a believable lie, manipulating it to the status of a truth, galvanizing others to action, and securing them as allies in an isolating breakaway from those who do not support their truth.

Palin did not concentrate on the state of the union because she did not feel that she needed to know the nation’s issues. To her, they are merely the backdrop to an upcoming series of events that eclipse the economy, the housing crisis and healthcare even on a national level. New York Times columnist Frank Rich drew a very important correlation between Sarah the candidate and Sarah the conqueror.

In the last of her Couric interview installments on Thursday, Palin was asked which vice president had most impressed her, and after paying tribute to Geraldine Ferraro, she chose “George Bush Sr.” Her criterion: she most admires vice presidents “who have gone on to the presidency.” Hours later, at the debate, she offered a discordant contrast to Biden when asked by Gwen Ifill how they would each govern “if the worst happened” and the president died in office. After Biden spoke of somber continuity, Palin was weirdly flip and chipper, eager to say that as a “maverick” she’d go her own way.

A few weeks later came Charlie Gibson’s question about whether she thought she was “experienced enough” and “ready” when McCain invited her to join his ticket. Palin replied that she didn’t “hesitate” and didn’t “even blink” — a response that seemed jarring for its lack of any human modesty, even false modesty.

But the debate’s most telling passage arrived when Biden welled up in recounting his days as a single father after his first wife and one of his children were killed in a car crash. Palin’s perky response — she immediately started selling McCain as a “consummate maverick” again — was as emotionally disconnected as Michael Dukakis’s notoriously cerebral answer to the hypothetical 1988 debate question about his wife being “raped and murdered.” If, as some feel, Obama is cool, Palin is ice cold. She didn’t even acknowledge Biden’s devastating personal history.

Even her own handlers in the RNC have been quietly reporting to outsiders about the unbridled ambition that has rubbed them the wrong way and created undue strife within an already embattled campaign team. Many of her speeches were impromptu and unapproved, belying a dismissal record of collaboration when it was critically necessary for the success of the campaign. Hers was an individual goal, and the guidance of the RNC was consistently regarded as interference. Most damning were her attacks on opponent Barack Obama’s integrity by way of association with terrorists and radicals. These were wholly unapproved and created a landslide of backlash against both Palin and McCain, deepening the rift between Palin and her party.

Notably an alpha male, Karl Rove could not have taken too well to any of this. Given his propensity for political retaliation (most memorably regarding CIA operative Valerie Plame), it could be suggested that the leaks regarding Palin’s fall from grace among her peers in the RNC were more of the same. In his own first-hand assessment of Palin’s debut performance at the Republican National Convention, Rolling Stone contributor Matt Tiabbi pulls no punches.

I had no doubt that I was witnessing a historic, iconic performance. The candidate sauntered to the lectern with the assurance of a sleepwalker… She appeared to be completely without shame… It was like watching Gidget address the Reichstag.

On social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook, WWII-era motivational images such as Rosie The Riveter were recycled in a disturbing poker play of the gender card to reach feminist voters. While not directly traceable back to the campaign itself, the messages were not unlike the lipstick cracks and bulldog rhetoric of Palin’s own forceful outward persona.

Immediately noticeable is the fact that Palin’s name is atop McCain’s, and I do not think this is mere coincidence. Not only does she believe herself to be the more important contender, she now has her supporters carrying this torch for her as well. If she does indeed go through with her threat to bid for the presidency in 2012, this style of propaganda would likely deepen and spread in menacing ways, especially if Obama’s presidency is less than marvelous in the eyes of the American public.

We have just elected, by a landslide, an African-American man to the highest office of the nation. In four years there may be no scandal or scare tactic big enough to deter us from feasting on the idea of a putting a woman into that same office.

Personally, I would sooner elect Tom Cruise.

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By Mina Xavier, October 30, 2008 9:24 pm

It looked funny enough as an independent party inside joke:

But the other day my mate’s father was wearing this same shirt on a day trip in Princeton (NJ).

Someone studied it on him and asked him if he was voting for Sarah Palin.

“It’s not a caribou… nevermind.”

The shirt’s creator explains himself on shirt.woot, the site where quite a bit of snarky attire has hit the market in a unique process of design, voting and online ordering.

Have fun with the link and make sure you explore the site’s blog as well. Priceless.

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By Mina Xavier, October 26, 2008 11:13 pm

Let’s admit it.

If this woman were to show up on the White House doorstep wearing that American flag bikini and carrying that automatic rifle, half of you would laugh her out of the district while the other half held the tv remote with just one hand.

That having been said, even Mr. Blackwell would be wagging his finger at this latest flap.

As giddy as we can be in picking apart celebrity females on the red carpet, we must keep in mind that Washington is an awards show of a different kind.
We rationalize the Oscar night bitch bashing because the dimunitive golden statues are secondary to the parade itself, as these women are worth several million apiece and lavishly adorn themselves with the intention of being judged competitively.

On the national carpet, however, the expectation has always been for the women to look well kept and neatly covered up as political arm-warmers.

But is this really a double standard?

Cindy McCain has never been modest about her wealth and, as the heiress to a substantial family fortune, her contribution to husband John’s political career has been less about appearances and almost exclusively about the bankrolling.

Hillary, for her part, reportedly spent $42,000 on her duds before her campaign speech and Michelle Obama, while often touted as the budget-minded wife in a $34.90 dress from H&M, clearly has her share of no-wash couture in her closet. A Harvard Law graduate who spent her own money on her clothing, Mrs. O has caught the favorable attention of Vogue lead designer Patrick Robinson.

Palin, on the other hand, is now the focus of a scathing media outcry by Dems and even some Reps alike.

The critical difference is that Cindy was using her own family’s resources in supporting her husband’s bids for office, and presumably hers and John’s to finance that now-infamous $313,100 outfit. The estimate varies from $150-172k for Palin’s outfits including the private traveling makeup artist, which most hockey moms across the nation would be hard-pressed to afford.

Had Palin used her own salary ($230k when combined with husband Todd’s) the reports may not have been so offensive. To accept the opportunity to use funds donated by party supporters, however, is shady at best and worst shows a lack of restraint when given access to deeper pockets than her own.

Given the Governor’s tacky move to sell copies of her office’s Troopergate investigation emails, it is doubtful that these clothing pieces will indeed be “donated to charity”; more likely they will appear on Ebay by mid-November.
If so, let’s hope she has better luck with these than she did with that pesky executive jet.

For another generation’s angry rant, look no further than my favorite 82 year old’s own blog regarding Palin.
I love it when sassy ladies are gutsy enough to use the term “bullshit” this way!

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By Mina Xavier, October 26, 2008 4:09 am

Now you, too, can participate in lynch mob politics!

No matter what state you live in, you can sign the petition urging Congress to censure Rep. Michele Bachmann for shooting her mouth off earlier in the month.

Rachel Maddow never misses a mark, and here we have a two-for-one bargain featuring both Bachmann and doomed iconoclast Sarah Palin:

Her campaign manager must own stock in Rolaids by now.

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By Mina Xavier, October 24, 2008 3:00 am

Go ahead, laugh until you pee:

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By Mina Xavier, October 24, 2008 1:59 am

According to some friends in Little Odessa (northeast Philadelphia), the American equivalent to this video would be Metallica writing a heavy metal tribute to Al Gore and filming a look-alike with laptops for arms, shooting binary code at Ronald Reagan.

Yeah, I don’t get it either.

But the ending was hilarious.

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By Mina Xavier, October 20, 2008 1:31 am

Please pardon my francais, but you scare the shit out of me.

Not one free thinking, intelligent person will ever completely approve of the actions, spending, military behavior and secrecy of the organization in control of their nation.

Having a severe opposition to government conduct and abuse somehow equates to hating one’s country, and as such you are therefore an “anti” nationalist, and having social views that qualify you as liberal (”radical-leftist”) puts one on the radar of the organization at the top.

“The newsmedia should do a penetrating expose and take a look … at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America?”

If being non-conservative makes one anti-American, and “anti-American” is something scary to be investigated, scrutinized and exposed, then what is next?

Indictment? Impeachment?

Quoting Palin, Obama is someone who “sees America as imperfect enough to pal around with terrorists who’ve targeted their own country”.

Pal around? Peripheral relations with Ayers through an educational board could apparently qualify anyone as a co-conspirator. Should I, therefore, be looking over my shoulder for the fact that my mother was a rock-throwing war protestor in her hippie heyday? Probably.

Listening to you give a roll call of names of “people who hold anti-American views”, as you called them, and “people who don’t like America, who detest America”, is downright chilling.

I love this country. I love my neighborhood and every neighborhood I’ve ever lived in (even the shitty ones). I get along incredibly well with the cops who live here, their kids and their dogs. I have always gotten along better with my bosses and office managers than most of my peers. I liked most of my teachers in school and college.

My issue is not with authority. My issue is not with my national identity.

My issue, Mrs. Bachmann, is with the deliberate misuse of national funds, the manipulation of media, the misrepresentation of facts, the wire-tapping, the invasive legislation, the payroll theft, the chastity contests, the fear-mongering, the insider trading, the economic enslavement of developing countries, the wars in Saudi Arabia, the deregulation, the lobbying, the double-standard, THE DISMANTLING OF THE CONSTITUTION, the bankrupting of the lower class, etc …

Have I met enough of your criteria to earn myself the distinctive descriptor of anti-American radicalist yet?

Don’t let the door knob hit you in the colonial rift on the way out of office, darling.

Sincerely,

MX

PS: You may want to quiet down about Senator Obama’s freshman status. You are a first-term representative yourself, lest we forget.

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By Mina Xavier, October 20, 2008 12:14 am

By now you’ve heard about Michele Bachmann (R, MN) and the bombastic political stunt she pulled in an interview with Hardball’s Chris Matthews on Friday. (The fallout was even more impressive.)

Not to be outdone, radio conservative blowhard and former prescription narcotic addict Rush Limbaugh shot his venom at General Colin Powell today for announcing his endorsement of Barrack Obama, principally targeting him for his up-front declaration that his decision had nothing to do with race.

Powell’s severance of loyalty to the GOP couldn’t possibly have anything to do with their turncoat handling of his career at the UN, wherein they systematically destroyed him in full view of the world’s political fishbowl, and after which he gracefully resigned.

If straying from the herd and giving personal support to their nemesis is to be reduced to an issue of simple racial politics, then the party itself is out of touch with reality to a deeper degree than previously feared. This is the same party whose secret weapon for this election was a feisty pistol-whip from the hard north to rouse the religious base and swing the feminist vote.

Having failed that, we are now in the midst of a libelous media blitzkrieg to keep America in the mentality of white flight: If they can’t infiltrate our government, they can’t change our country.

History has already witnessed the character assassination of Paul Robeson. Having nervously observed the downscaling of Powell, this flagging of Obama is not unexpected and yet still unnerving in its implications.

If the tactics employed in 1950 were any indication of our nation’s willingness toward silent complicity, today’s culture of racial profiling and anti-homosexual hate crimes is indeed worrisome.

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By Mina Xavier, October 19, 2008 6:13 pm

I was waiting for this!

You can now vote for the better of the two Palins, and get a free Fuzzy Thing!

Is this a great country or what?

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By Mina Xavier, October 19, 2008 4:02 pm

Sarah, just stop.

You are unwisely provoking everyone with a uterus and a brain.

Stop using the term “maverick” to describe yourself. It’s not unlike the word “bitch“.

Stop pretending to be a feminist. I know of thousands of women who are smart, motivated, educated, useful and extraordinary and they STILL did the right thing with their kids – they were there for them.

Gender equality? “You betcha!” You are steadfastly proving that women can be just as shallow, manipulative, cut-throat, self-absorbed, and megalomaniacal. Congratulations, governess, you have earned your Vag Badge. And now I revoke it.

You undermined the VAWA in your tenure as Mayor in Wasilla by charging rape victims for rape kits, (typically $300-$1200 apiece) which are the cornerstone pieces of evidence in prosecution. You had a direct role in this, signed by your own hand, when you cut critical funding and redirected the costs to women’s health insurance or — most despicably — directly to women who were uninsured at the time of their vicious assault.

But, at a rally on October 5th in California, you quoted from a Starbucks coffee cup (in a “providential” moment) to guilt-trip the females in your audience: “There’s a special place in Hell reserved for women who don’t support other women.” Actually, the quote is as follows: “There is a special place in Hell for women who don’t help other women.” The quote was originally spoken by Madeleine Albright, former secretary of state and UN Ambassador.

Albright offered a concise rebuttal the following day. “Though I am flattered that Governor Palin has chosen to cite me as a source of wisdom, what I said had nothing to do with politics. This is yet another example of McCain and Palin distorting the truth, and all the more reason to remember that this campaign is not about gender, it is about which candidate has an agenda that will improve the lives of all Americans, including women.”

When Martha Stewart decorates your shared bunks in Hell Mrs. Palin, remember this. You had the chance to help other women by providing them with the means to prosecute the men who brutalized them. You chose instead to favor lobbyists and the male-dominated culture of shotguns and dead deer head decorum.

Stop talking about God. You don’t have a single molecule of real faith in your entire body and are shrewdly pandering to the scary, zealous cultisms of American conserva-nazi rhetoric.
You do not deserve the title of Christian.

Stop propagandizing your special needs child as proof of your compatibility with the lowly common public. You only just gave birth to him and therefore have not yet lived through the trials and heartaches of raising a Down Syndrome child. You have nothing in common with the families who are stretching paychecks and struggling to provide necessities, specialist care, schooling, support and advocacy for these children and doing so on a budget that is roughly 1/8 of your personal resources.

Stop peddling yourself as a down-home country girl in the Washington jungle.
Your net worth is broken down as follows:
$230,000 in 2007 (combined salary)
$17,000 in questionable per diem payments
$43,490 to soccer-mom your kids around
$1,654 to each family member in state oil royalties
One $500,000 dollar lake home
A float plane at said lake home
Two vacation retreats
But go ahead and try to relate to those of us trying to keep mortgages on one house or pay rent in apartments.

Stop playing the hockey mom. Nobody actually likes those minivan nazis and you’re not even qualified to talk about everyday motherhood because you have never lived it without a nanny and an entourage. Your ivy league college bound daughter is now pregnant out of wedlock and a borderline alcoholic. I appreciated that you are so glad that she “chose” to keep the baby and get married. Because I’m absolutely certain that she had any such choice in the matter. The teenage father-to-be is a self-described “fuckin’ redneck” who “doesn’t want kids”. If your daughter were impregnated by rape, could she have afforded a kit to prove it without digging into mommy’s purse? Even if so, she could not have gotten an abortion: you oppose the mere possibility of it.

Stop fawning over our founding fathers. They can’t see you batting your eyelashes and kissing their asses. You don’t know a damn thing about them, have no legitimate zeal for reform, and you do not represent anything they fought for. When they started this country they were the descendants of exiled activists from overseas, struggling to resist the interference of a totalitarian government.

Stop punching the bag about taxes, taxes, taxes. Would Obama raise taxes? Maybe he would, or maybe not. But we know one thing for certain: you are so innept at handling money that you are still refusing to acknowledge a public disgrace regarding a private executive jet that you lost $600,000 in taxpayer funds trying to unload. The icing on that Betty Crocker crock of shit? You flat-out lied about making a profit!

Stop bullshitting about family values. You drilled puppet strings into every subordinate you were given as governess to harrass and defame your sister’s ex-husband while the state’s own investigation has backed him up on every counterpoint. And you did so while deliberately hiding emails through a legal loophole: you clearly instructed your participants to use only private email accounts, which are exempt from disclosure laws.

You then promised to cooperate with the legislative inquiry, but hired a lawyer to fight to move the case to the jurisdiction of the state personnel board, which you appoint. Your attorney, Thomas V. Van Flein, challenged the jurisdiction of Stephen Branchflower, the retired prosecutor hired to investigate and report back to the legislature by the last week of October.

Is your ticket really all about integrity? Or is it typical to find your desperate campaign pushing its volunteers to lie and gossip with racism about the opponent you may very well lose against?

You’re not fooling anybody.
You do not represent my gender.
You do not represent my faith.
You have never represented the best interests of your state citizenry.
And I pray to God that you will never represent my country on a national level.