Wednesday 1 September 2010

Palingates Weekly Roundup - August 23 to August 30


By Regina

Blueberry Tart was away last week, so I tried to do my best to keep to her high standards. We didn't have too many posts, but oh boy, were they powerful and did we have comments!

+++Breaking News: Please also read our post about the VANITY FAIR article+++



This post was a sequel to the Homer fiasco and confirmed Todd Palin's credentials as a card carrying bully. The Palins don't appear to learn from their mistakes, and not content with being a major YouTube sensation with their concerted effort to intimidate teacher Kathleen Gustafson a few days earlier, they provided material for another video. They could have ignored Hawk, but chose to use bully tactics instead. It was their reaction that made an otherwise boring home video into something worth posting on YouTube and linking by 20 other sites. The trolls went berserk, but were dealt with in true palingater style. There's no need to ban dissenters when their puerile attempts to defend their queen and her court jester are rebutted so swiftly.


Three days and 4,500 comments later, we had a very upbeat guest post by Jula. It reminded many people of their reasons for voting for such a positive man to serve as their president. The update to Jula's reassuring post brought news about a judgement that culminated in Sarah Palin's secret contract with CSU Stanislaus being made public, which led to a breaking news post in the middle of the night. (When does Patrick sleep?)


Patrick secured an early copy of the CSU contract and its contents vindicated the "dumpster divers" when all previous speculation about the very existence of the contract became a hard fact. Not only did CSU have the contract, but it confirmed everything Palingates had published about it. It's all there. From the fees to the bendy straws.

Sarah Palin incorporated the latter into her screech:

"First, um, I got my water... do I have my straws? I want my straws. And I want 'em bent, please, thank you. At least that's what I read in some of the lamestream media outlets. Is that I was demanding straws or some ridiculous thing. So, I'm just glad that we got some of those contractual demands out of the way and finally settled."

Pants on fire, as usual. The comments on this post overlapped with the topic of the next one, about the "Restoring Honor" rally. Our readers were appalled to see Martin Luther King's dream hijacked by two opportunists in order to further their own divisive agenda and to fatten their bank accounts.


This post revealed disturbing similarities between Nazi rhetoric and that of the two Fox News stars. Honor, faith, giving your sons to the country, there are too many coincidences. Beck and Palin are becoming bolder in their talking points. They have been talking about "Real Americans" - attacking ilegal immigrants, Muslims, socialists (the new black, so they don't appear to be racist). Having set the mood for their followers over many months, they have now wrapped the whole lot in a "non-political" rally where the values they extolled came directly from Goebbels handbook.

Believe it or not, there is a word, "Palingenesis," that in a political context is described as follows:
The doctrines which are used to comprise the political ideology of fascism often move to describe it as a "palingenetic ideology", primarily as a result of the notion that fascism itself is the rebirth of a state and/or empire in the image of that which came before it - thus, the ancestral political underpinnings. Specifically academic political theorist Roger Griffin refers to fascism as "palingenetic ultranationalism". The best examples of this can be found with both Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany - Italy looking to establish a palingenetic line between the 20th century regime under Benito Mussolini as being the second incarnation of the Roman Empire, while Adolf Hitler's regime was seen as being the third palingenetic incarnation - beginning first with the Holy Roman Empire ("First Reich") then with Bismarck's German Empire ("Second Reich") and then resulting in Nazi Germany ("Third Reich").
No wonder Beck and Palin keep talking about taking the country back, not forward... (H/T to Mrs TBB)


Patrick and Kathleen took a well deserved break and they asked me to lighten up the mood a little bit by posting a humorous Open Thread. It was the least we could do to lift our spirits after such a distressing weekend. Let's hope for better news in the days to come.

Monday, August 3o, 2010 (2)


We have a first hand account and very good photos in this guest post by Kimba. Fox News exaggerated the number of attendees, as they usually do, but the pictures speak for themselves. Patrick posted an update with a video from New Left Media. They always manage to interview people in a non-confrontational way and obtain excellent footage of these very misguided souls.

In a second update, Patrick gave a frightening account of the violence that swept Germany for a couple of years, when right-wingnuts relentlessly assaulted and intimidated people from ethnic minorities, disabled people and committed many acts of vandalism.

Comments of the Week

Due to the extraordinary number of comments, it became an impossible task to sift through them to select the most relevant ones, so I'll just comment on the comments, yes?

The star thread was about Todd's behaviour in Valdez. As I mentioned above, we had many less than polite visitors. They were gently reminded that they are allowed to comment on Palingates, which is in marked contrast with the sites they support, where any utterance against their queen is quickly deleted and the authors of such outrage summarily banned.

Another popular topic was the disclosure of Sarah Palin's secret contract to speak at the gala event at CSU Stanislaus and readers had great fun remembering her disatrous screech on that occasion.

The discussion about the "Restoring Honor" event was very heated and many people were distressed by the rhetoric of the two Fox News stars.

On a lighter note, Bristol Palin's forthcoming appearance on the dancefloor generated many humorous comments and Levi Johnston's retraction of his apology to Sarah Palin didn't go unnoticed.


Links of the Week

Again, this was a monumental task this week, but I managed to come up with a selection. Inevitably, there are many links to articles about Glenn Beck.

aview999
On extremists
On David Koch
A list of Republican offenders

sunnyjane
A comparison of crowd sizes: MLK's "I Have a Dream" v Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor"

so_many_unanswered_questions
Dancing Bristol
The Billionaires Bankrolling the Tea Party

HelenNPN
Koch Bothers - Covert Operations
Ron Kovic

BinCo and msany others
Daily Kos diary about a liberal black man who went to Beck's rally

Patrick
Glenn Beck's new heroes, The Black Robe Regiment

Patrick's book recommendations
Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent, 1934-1941
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany
Nightmare Years: 1930 - 1940
Defying Hitler: A Memoir

texasgal2009
Glenn Beck and privatizing the military

AKSandhills
Some background on Beck

Sparsam
Babies, Guns and Jesus
The "kindness" of the Teabaggers
Restoring Honor package deals
Man charged in racially-charged attack of turban-wearing man

juicyfruityy
Missiles against the NYC mosque, from Political Carnival, who linked to a longer article on TPM

dusty17
Palin, Beck and religion

ProChoiceGrandma
Religious "choices" in the military

honestyingov
Tenneesee Mosque Torched

Wesinoregon
Commentary on Saturday's Honor rally

Bandit Basheert
Glenn Beck's Incest Fantasy

Crystalwolf
Sarah Palin and Her Minions Go to War against Medicare

bluerinse
How Dummies Protect Hallowed Ground

Our tireless friend, aview999, provided quite a list of links about various topics:
So who's still advertising on Beck?
The Truth-O-Meter report card on Glenn Beck
Quote of the Day
Glenn Beck's Perverse Revision of King's Dream Is Nothing New
Sarah Palin and the Tea Partyers Create an Opening for Democrats
The End of America: Last Glance At Glenn Beck’s Horror Picnic
Beck-Palin 2010
Dreams Are Not For the Taking

BellPeppery
Palin criticizes Obama, Fla. gov on abortion at the downsized Jacksonville event.
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