Monday 6 April 2009

Sarah Palin's supporters and censorship










Conservatives4Palin have a call to action to "clean up" the comments section of the ADN. The idea is to target advertisers and encourage them to stop placing ads next to the "filth" the ADN allow on their pages.

Here's one paragraph of a very long article:

"Your promises to clean up the poison at adn.com have turned out to be completely insincere. Enough is enough. No more invective about white trash, hillbillies, methamphetamine or crack cocaine use, or trailer parks. No more snarky comments about the purported sex lives of the Governor or her children, such as statements that the Governor was listening to her daughter "breeding" in her own home. No more insults towards special needs children, or speculation about the parenting skills of the Governor and her husband. No more assertions that the Governor is not the mother of her youngest child. These claims all appear on your website on a regular basis and are deeply offensive to all decent people."

I agree, some of the comments are of a personal nature.

Let's cast our minds back to the vice presidential campaign. Who campaigned on a platform of family values? Who suggested that small town values reflected true America?

Sarah Palin ran a deeply personal campaign, her family was paraded in the rallies for all to see. Willow and Piper signed countless autographs. Sarah Palin considers her children officials of the state and claims expenses for their travel, her reasoning being that they are on official state business.

Sarah Palin told the whole world that Wasilla was an example to the rest of America, that the people from her small town were true Americans because they had proper values.

When both of them failed to live up to her claims, when her family and small town values proved to be less than desirable, people started questioning Sarah Palin just as forcefully as she had trumpeted the whole idea of perfect family and perfect small town which implied their example should be followed by other American families and other American towns.

Sarah Palin exposed her own daughter as a pregnant unwed teenager to counter rumours regarding her pregnancy with Trig. A birth certificate and relevant medical records would have sufficed to prove that she, Sarah Palin, had given birth to Trig and her daughter's privacy would have been preserved. Sarah Palin's own actions perpetuated the rumours and spawned all the birth conspiracies, making her daughter and the babies in question legitimate targets of public curiosity.

Sarah Palin included Levi in her family entourage. He became part of the family, sharing the same values. Until very recently he was part of the illusion of strong family values, as seen in the Greta Van Susteren interview. Sarah Palin has a hotline to People magazine to confirm or deny reports about her family. She issues press releases on her official Governor's website regarding her family, Levi included. Now she's disappointed because Levi is flying solo, stating the facts as he sees them. He was a private citizen until the vice presidential campaign. Sarah Palin made him a public figure, nobody else.

Sarah Palin waxed lyrical about the importance of her marvellous extended family, about how they all pitch in together and help each other. So when Diana Palin, who belongs to the marvellous extended family, behaves in a way that reflects badly on the family and small town "better" values, the public has the right to question the Governor's previous assertions. Sarah Palin made her whole extended family public figures, not by naming them individually, but by painting them as a model, an example to be followed by all other American families.

Sarah Palin's family cannot be out-of-bounds for the simple reason that she herself put them in the public arena in no uncertain terms.

The fact that neither the family nor the small town lived up to her claims is something she will have to live with, as will her supporters.

Sarah Palin used both of them to promote her own agenda, now her supporters can't cry foul and claim that members of the public are not entitled to comment on what they see as blatant hypocrisy.

Censorship will not make the facts more palatable or absolve Sarah Palin of the responsibility of placing her own family and town under public scrutiny in the first place.
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20 comments:

Cynthia Rose said...

ditto! :)

FW said...

Amen to that Regina...every single time Sarah has wined to the media about protecting her family like a mama grizzly, I want to barf. She herself served them up on a silver platter for the media to slice and dice. The woman still has not learned her lesson...and as you point out, as recently as February 15, she let Bristol and her entire family to the sacrificial slaughter when she gave that stupid interview to GVS. Looking back, I wonder if it was "payback" for all the free advice she got from John Coale.

Anonymous said...

I don't know how Palin's supporters can defend her, and not see their own hypocrisy. They can't put out all the Palin fires; even if they censor ADN, the "facts" about the Palin family will be all over the 'Net, available in less than a second via Google, on other news sources.

They are attempting to fight a 21st century battle with the tools of the 19th century.

That figures, considering everything we know about Sarah Palin indicates she doesn't understand modernity--oh, except in terms of clothing and fashion.

Emily said...

Excellent post! The way I see it, Palin tried to present herself as a living conservative(particularly Christian Right) ideal of small-town family values, and her supporters fell for it... but reality kept interfering. If Palin were a fictional character, she could be interpreted as a rather offensive parody of everything she's claimed to stand for, including being "pro-American" with her ties to the secessionists.

basheert said...

She wants it both ways.
Censorship is nasty - but it's not uncommon in the printed news. We have the AZ REPUBLIC ... that should tell you something. They are owned by a REPUBLICAN who inserts his talking points especially on the Editorial Page.
We plan to cancel our subscription when it runs out...it's so bad I won't use it to like a birdcage.
But it is done by people who cannot deal with competition.

That isn't journalism - that isn't "news" ... it's manipulation. And it explains why the printed news is dying all over this country.

There is no balance. All of us can read a simple story and form our own opinion. The newspaper editors have determined we must be spoon fed Republican talking points and we must NOT be allowed to disagree.

Another reason why Lady Nailpins is so dangerous - she has her stooges advocate censorship of a "public" newspaper ...

Anyone know who owns the ADN?

FEDUP!!! said...

TOUCHEE! :)

Anonymous said...

You've nailed it, Reg! It's Sarah Palin's hypocrisy that fries my hash, not any kind of "indecency". Taking a cue from Bill Clinton's campaign, when those in his staff were tempted to stray off track, he always reminded them to return to the most important issue with the slogan: "It's the ECONOMY, stupid!"

For me it always has been and always will be the slogan: "It's her HYPOCRISY, stupid!" when I consider SP's multitudinous "gates". (And "stupid" is not a word I use lightly. In our house when my daughter was a youngster, we impressed upon her the importance of the effect of words, and how the word "stupid" carries a heavy responsibility to understand when and how to use it.)

I love your well-reasoned and amply-researched writing! I read your blog every day.

VR

KaJo said...

Regina, I applaud how you and Celtic Diva are tackling this issue of pro-Palin fans attempting to force some kind of censorship policy onto the ADN.

We need more blogmasters/mistresses to discuss and highlight this issue. I hope more progressive blogs pick it up.

Anonymous said...

so it's okay for c4p to call Leiv Johnston "white trash" but it's not okay for anyone else to call Sarah Plain that name?

I see the hypocrisy for what it is.

Great Article

Anonymous said...

I agree that some of the comments on Palin stories on ADN cross a line that they shouldn't- but the topics themselves are more than fair.

You can't stand on a campaign platform for family values and move your teen daughters boyfriend into her bed! (Levi just recently moved out of the Palin home.)

Back when Sarah's sister was dealing with her messy custody case- the Judge warned Sarah about not doing what's best for the children and interfering with the dad's parental relationship.

One would think that warning, being Governor and supposedly being for strong family values- that Palin would know better than to allow her daughter to keep Levi from having fair access to his son. Not allowing him to take pictures and limiting most of his visits to inside the Palin home- goes against proper parenting and family values.

Parental alienation is a serious problem and Palin is setting a poor example by allowing her daughter to interfere in Tripp's relationship with His father.

Levi needs a lawyer knowledgeable in parental alienation to offer his/her services because if this is allowed to go on- it can permanently damage the child's relationship with his dad.

crystalwolf aka caligrl said...

Another great post...c4P is all about censoring as Jen on Gryphens blog says "They want to censor anything that doesn't have GINO farting out rainbows" lol! And Doogan tried to censor AKM! And she is now stronger than ever!
Truth will Prevail one way or another!

LisanTX said...

Very well said. This is an interesting subject--freedom of speech, censorship, the internet, politics, and public figures, all combined. It has legal issues, media issues, and politics; something for everyone! And Regina, you do such a good job of writing your posts--better than most of us for whom English is our first (or only) language!

basheert said...

Does anyone know who owns the ADN? Is it a Republican run/owned and operated syndicate?

regina said...

Hi basheert,

ADN is owned by McClatchy.

http://www.mcclatchy.com/

I don't know any of the directors, so can't tell about their leanings.

I hope the link helps...

Reg

basheert said...

That explains a lot - heavy haraS coverage on the McClatchy web page for example. Their extreme reporting and heavy bias.
This is why newspapers are dying. The American public has finally figured out that they are being spoon fed propaganda by politicians that own or heavily influence the print media -
This is why the blogs have skyrocketed in importance and are so threatening to the MSM.
This is why haraS hates blogs.

Just watched Levi on Tyra ... he's very soft spoken - and in my humble opinion, just one more nilaP victim. He used poor teen judgment - nilaP is a vindictive wacko and unfortunately he is now permanently tied to that crazy naliP family.

His mother is a bit strange - I can understand why she is portrayed as not the social equal of haraS (???) however haraS is hardly a classy person from what I've heard.

As a grandma, I can tell you that I to would want to be in my grandbaby's life - (as does Levi's sister) - she has made poor choices but she's still grandma.

Levi needs some legal advice or he will never see that baby if haraS has anything to do with it.

If haraS is what is considered "class" in Alaska, I'm glad I live in another state. She's just one more cheap tramp with no morals and no ethics as far as I can tell.

Donna: I love your posts and your intelligent thought provoking points! Thanks so much ... I look forward to everything you write.

Lisabeth said...

Great piece!!! Those c4p are nuts! The comments at ADN are written by private citizens who have a right to express their opinion. If they censor the comment, it wouldn't be much of a newspaper! It would be a Palin web site!

What really boggles my mind are these people who still support Palin!! Can't they see what a manipulatve shrew she is??? What is wrong with them!!!

MartiniCocoa said...

This post provides such clarity into Palin's lack of professionalism and integrity that I'm led to believe that the Americans who still believe in POTUS are so disgusted that a non-white person is President that they would prefer to have an incompetent, sleazy, unsophisticated and corrupt individual as President.

This is an illness and I doubt they will be healed anytime soon.

It is my hope that in 2012 that Newt, Mitt and Mike refuse to let Palin get away with any BS if she attempts to get the Republican nomination for President.

Anonymous said...

I just read the long letter. They are advocating censorship! You see to conservatives the first amendment only applies if they like what you say. What is most upsetting though is their contacting advertisers like that in attempt to squash free speech. Of course they criticize our style if protesting and think theirs is smarter. Isn't there something we can do to counteract them?
I have to say as a web advertiser if they contacted me I would laugh and increase my advertising dollars!! It is funny they just assume all business people think like them!

basheert said...

Anonymous: I agree with your last post however would take issue with one thing.
Not all conservatives are right wing wack jobs. Many individuals are still caught up in the "true" conservatism which truly is less government and snooping into personal lives, etc.
What we see now is NOT conservatism. It has been torqued and bastardized into a "big brother" society where everyone's sex life and personal life is "their" business.
True conservatives are not represented in the Republican Party of 2009.
As for Newt and Mittens...Newt won't run for Pres and if he does he won't win. Don't forget his rather messy personal life ... the fundies won't tolerate it.
I suspect nailpins will have trouble if she aspires to higher office (or even the 2010 Guv office) because of her trailer trashy life that I suspect Alaska had no clue about.
We can counteract their actions by ignoring them, like the spoiled toddler syndrome. I remember one time my 18 month old granddaughter was pitching a tantrum in public. My calm daughter looked at her and said "I feel your pain, and sat down and ignored her".
I'm not advocating ignoring their intrusive, snoopy or illegal/criminal actions. I'm saying ignore their mouthpieces and what they say. People have made up their minds....
Nailpins will never govern anything BUT Alaska...and probably not that after 2010. She may be everyone's darling up there, but I suspect the majority of Amricans in the lower 48 find her repugnant, lacking in ethics and frankly too stupid to run our country.

Anonymous said...

Palin is a hypocrite, and deserves
every negative that comes her way;
if she can't handle the heat, she
should stay home and tan.
People that use their religion to
try and better themselves financially, will eventually get
caught in their own web of deceit.
Can't wait to hear how ignorant
Sarah will sound when she runs for
President. LOL great entertainment!