THE FOURTH REICH EXISTS (McCain Speech FULL TEXT)

Sarah Palin - gun crazy - deluded pro death penalty - anti women-choice -

As part of his far-reaching educational policy, John McCain will supplement abstinence-only education with courses designed to help our nation’s sixth and seventh graders plan their shotgun weddings.

THE FOURTH REICH EXISTS (McCain Speech FULL TEXT)

"we can.t turn a blind eye to aggression and international lawlessness that threatens the peace"

excuse me? Russia invading Georgia may be illegal, but how is Kosovo, Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan etc ANY DIFFERENT?

USA has vetoed and undermined the UN more than twice as much as all other nations combined!

What hypocrisy! DoubleSpeak!! "War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength."

McCain knows that he lives or dies as the Bush Mafia wishes.

McCain is clearly deluded, he says:
I know how the military works....
I know how the world works....
I know the good and the evil ....
I know how to work with leaders ....
I know how to secure the peace.

REALLY? McCain KNOWS all these things? What hubris!
Does he know what the BUSH administration has done?
Does he know that he is a dead man should he threaten to uncover the 911 inside job?

Sarah Palin Cartoon.

Here is his speech:

Thank you all very much. Tonight, I have a privilege given few Americans - the privilege of accepting our party.s nomination for president of the United States. And I accept it with gratitude, humility and confidence.

In my life, no success has come without a good fight, and this nomination wasn.t any different. That.s a tribute to the candidates who opposed me and their supporters. They.re leaders of great ability, who love our country, and wished to lead it to better days. Their support is an honor I won.t forget.

I.m grateful to the president for leading us in those dark days following the worst attack on American soil in our history, and keeping us safe from another attack many thought was inevitable; and to the first lady, Laura Bush, a model of grace and kindness in public and in private. And I.m grateful to the 41st president and his bride of 63 years, and for their outstanding example of honorable service to our country.

As always, I.m indebted to my wife, Cindy, and my seven children. The pleasures of family life can seem like a brief holiday from the crowded calendar of our nation.s business. But I have treasured them all the more, and can.t imagine a life without the happiness you give me. Cindy said a lot of nice things about me tonight. But, in truth, she.s more my inspiration than I am hers. Her concern for those less blessed than we are - victims of land mines, children born in poverty and with birth defects - shows the measure of her humanity. I know she will make a great first lady.

When I was growing up, my father was often at sea, and the job of raising my brother, sister and me would fall to my mother alone. Roberta McCain gave us her love of life, her deep interest in the world, her strength, and her belief we are all meant to use our opportunities to make ourselves useful to our country. I wouldn.t be here tonight but for the strength of her character.

My heartfelt thanks to all of you, who helped me win this nomination, and stood by me when the odds were long. I won.t let you down. To Americans who have yet to decide who to vote for, thank you for your consideration and the opportunity to win your trust. I intend to earn it.

Finally, a word to Senator Obama and his supporters. We.ll go at it over the next two months. That.s the nature of these contests, and there are big differences between us. But you have my respect and admiration. Despite our differences, much more unites us than divides us. We are fellow Americans, an association that means more to me than any other. We.re dedicated to the proposition that all people are created equal and endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights. No country ever had a greater cause than that. And I wouldn.t be an American worthy of the name if I didn.t honor Senator Obama and his supporters for their achievement.

But let there be no doubt, my friends, we're going to win this election. And after we've won, we're going to reach out our hand to any willing patriot, make this government start working for you again, and get this country back on the road to prosperity and peace.

These are tough times for many of you. You.re worried about keeping your job or finding a new one, and are struggling to put food on the table and stay in your home. All you ever asked of government is to stand on your side, not in your way. And that.s just what I intend to do: stand on your side and fight for your future.

And I.ve found just the right partner to help me shake up Washington, Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska. She has executive experience and a real record of accomplishment. She.s tackled tough problems like energy independence and corruption. She.s balanced a budget, cut taxes, and taken on the special interests. She.s reached across the aisle and asked Republicans, Democrats and independents to serve in her administration. She.s the mother of five children. She.s helped run a small business, worked with her hands and knows what it.s like to worry about mortgage payments and health care and the cost of gasoline and groceries.

She knows where she comes from and she knows who she works for. She stands up for what.s right, and she doesn.t let anyone tell her to sit down. I.m very proud to have introduced our next vice president to the country. But I can.t wait until I introduce her to Washington. And let me offer an advance warning to the old, big spending, do nothing, me first, country second Washington crowd: Change is coming.

I.m not in the habit of breaking promises to my country and neither is Governor Palin. And when we tell you we.re going to change Washington, and stop leaving our country.s problems for some unluckier generation to fix, you can count on it. We.ve got a record of doing just that, and the strength, experience, judgment and backbone to keep our word to you.

You know, I.ve been called a maverick; someone who marches to the beat of his own drum. Sometimes it.s meant as a compliment and sometimes it.s not. What it really means is I understand who I work for. I don.t work for a party. I don.t work for a special interest. I don.t work for myself. I work for you.

Forbidden words: Georgia-Kosovo, Yugoslavia, Bombing of Belgrade... Trans Balkan pipeline AMBO, Bondsteel US airbase.

I.ve fought corruption, and it didn.t matter if the culprits were Democrats or Republicans. They violated their public trust, and had to be held accountable. I.ve fought big spenders in both parties, who waste your money on things you neither need nor want, while you struggle to buy groceries, fill your gas tank and make your mortgage payment. I.ve fought to get million dollar checks out of our elections. I.ve fought lobbyists who stole from Indian tribes. I fought crooked deals in the Pentagon. I fought tobacco companies and trial lawyers, drug companies and union bosses.

I fought for the right strategy and more troops in Iraq, when it wasn.t a popular thing to do. And when the pundits said my campaign was finished, I said I.d rather lose an election than see my country lose a war.
Thanks to the leadership of a brilliant general, David Petraeus, and the brave men and women he has the honor to command, that strategy succeeded and rescued us from a defeat that would have demoralized our military, risked a wider war and threatened the security of all Americans.

I don.t mind a good fight. For reasons known only to God, I.ve had quite a few tough ones in my life. But I learned an important lesson along the way. In the end, it matters less that you can fight. What you fight for is the real test.

I fight for Americans. I fight for you. I fight for Bill and Sue Nebe from Farmington Hills, Michigan, who lost their real estate investments in the bad housing market. Bill got a temporary job after he was out of work for seven months. Sue works three jobs to help pay the bills.

I fight for Jake and Toni Wimmer of Franklin County, Pennsylvania. Jake works on a loading dock; coaches Little League, and raises money for the mentally and physically disabled. Toni is a schoolteacher, working toward her Master.s degree. They have two sons, the youngest, Luke, has been diagnosed with autism. Their lives should matter to the people they elect to office. They matter to me.

I fight for the family of Matthew Stanley of Wolfboro, New Hampshire, who died serving our country in Iraq. I wear his bracelet and think of him every day. I intend to honor their sacrifice by making sure the country their son loved so well and never returned to, remains safe from its enemies.

I fight to restore the pride and principles of our party. We were elected to change Washington, and we let Washington change us. We lost the trust of the American people when some Republicans gave in to the temptations of corruption. We lost their trust when rather than reform government, both parties made it bigger. We lost their trust when instead of freeing ourselves from a dangerous dependence on foreign oil, both parties and Senator Obama passed another corporate welfare bill for oil companies. We lost their trust, when we valued our power over our principles.

We.re going to change that. We.re going to recover the people.s trust by standing up again for the values Americans admire. The party of Lincoln, Roosevelt and Reagan is going to get back to basics.

We believe everyone has something to contribute and deserves the opportunity to reach their God-given potential from the boy whose descendants arrived on the Mayflower to the Latina daughter of migrant workers. We.re all God.s children and we.re all Americans.

Citizen McCain - Rosebush!

We believe in low taxes; spending discipline, and open markets. We believe in rewarding hard work and risk takers and letting people keep the fruits of their labor.

We believe in a strong defense, work, faith, service, a culture of life, personal responsibility, the rule of law, and judges who dispense justice impartially and don.t legislate from the bench. We believe in the values of families, neighborhoods and communities.

We believe in a government that unleashes the creativity and initiative of Americans. Government that doesn.t make your choices for you, but works to make sure you have more choices to make for yourself.

I will keep taxes low and cut them where I can. My opponent will raise them. I will open new markets to our goods and services. My opponent will close them. I will cut government spending. He will increase it.

My tax cuts will create jobs. His tax increases will eliminate them. My health care plan will make it easier for more Americans to find and keep good health care insurance. His plan will force small businesses to cut jobs, reduce wages, and force families into a government run health care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor.

Keeping taxes low helps small businesses grow and create new jobs. Cutting the second highest business tax rate in the world will help American companies compete and keep jobs from moving overseas. Doubling the child tax exemption from $3500 to $7000 will improve the lives of millions of American families. Reducing government spending and getting rid of failed programs will let you keep more of your own money to save, spend and invest as you see fit. Opening new markets and preparing workers to compete in the world economy is essential to our future prosperity.

I know some of you have been left behind in the changing economy and it often seems your government hasn.t even noticed. Government assistance for unemployed workers was designed for the economy of the 1950s. That.s going to change on my watch. My opponent promises to bring back old jobs by wishing away the global economy. We.re going to help workers who.ve lost a job that won.t come back, find a new one that won.t go away.

We will prepare them for the jobs of today. We will use our community colleges to help train people for new opportunities in their communities. For workers in industries that have been hard hit, we.ll help make up part of the difference in wages between their old job and a temporary, lower paid one while they receive retraining that will help them find secure new employment at a decent wage.

Education is the civil rights issue of this century. Equal access to public education has been gained. But what is the value of access to a failing school? We need to shake up failed school bureaucracies with competition, empower parents with choice, remove barriers to qualified instructors, attract and reward good teachers, and help bad teachers find another line of work.

When a public school fails to meet its obligations to students, parents deserve a choice in the education of their children. And I intend to give it to them. Some may choose a better public school. Some may choose a private one. Many will choose a charter school. But they will have that choice and their children will have that opportunity.

Senator Obama wants our schools to answer to unions and entrenched bureaucracies. I want schools to answer to parents and students. And when I.m president, they will.

My fellow Americans, when I.m president, we.re going to embark on the most ambitious national project in decades. We are going to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don.t like us very much. We will attack the problem on every front. We will produce more energy at home. We will drill new wells offshore, and we.ll drill them now. We will build more nuclear power plants. We will develop clean coal technology. We will increase the use of wind, tide, solar and natural gas. We will encourage the development and use of flex fuel, hybrid and electric automobiles.

Senator Obama thinks we can achieve energy independence without more drilling and without more nuclear power. But Americans know better than that. We must use all resources and develop all technologies necessary to rescue our economy from the damage caused by rising oil prices and to restore the health of our planet. It.s an ambitious plan, but Americans are ambitious by nature, and we have faced greater challenges. It.s time for us to show the world again how Americans lead.

This great national cause will create millions of new jobs, many in industries that will be the engine of our future prosperity; jobs that will be there when your children enter the work force.

Today, the prospect of a better world remains within our reach. But we must see the threats to peace and liberty in our time clearly and face them, as Americans before us did, with confidence, wisdom and resolve.

We have dealt a serious blow to al-Qaida in recent years. But they are not defeated, and they.ll strike us again if they can.

Iran remains the chief state sponsor of terrorism and on the path to acquiring nuclear weapons. Russia.s leaders, rich with oil wealth and corrupt with power, have rejected democratic ideals and the obligations of a responsible power. They invaded a small, democratic neighbor to gain more control over the world.s oil supply, intimidate other neighbors, and further their ambitions of reassembling the Russian empire.

And the brave people of Georgia need our solidarity and prayers. As president I will work to establish good relations with Russia so we need not fear a return of the Cold War. But we can.t turn a blind eye to aggression and international lawlessness that threatens the peace and stability of the world and the security of the American people.

We face many threats in this dangerous world, but I.m not afraid of them. I.m prepared for them. I know how the military works, what it can do, what it can do better, and what it should not do. I know how the world works. I know the good and the evil in it. I know how to work with leaders who share our dreams of a freer, safer and more prosperous world, and how to stand up to those who don.t. I know how to secure the peace.

When I was five years old, a car pulled up in front of our house. A Navy officer rolled down the window, and shouted at my father that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. I rarely saw my father again for four years. My grandfather came home from that same war exhausted from the burdens he had borne, and died the next day. In Vietnam, where I formed the closest friendships of my life, some of those friends never came home with me. I hate war. It is terrible beyond imagination.

I.m running for president to keep the country I love safe, and prevent other families from risking their loved ones in war as my family has. I will draw on all my experience with the world and its leaders, and all the tools at our disposal - diplomatic, economic, military and the power of our ideals - to build the foundations for a stable and enduring peace.

In America, we change things that need to be changed. Each generation makes its contribution to our greatness. The work that is ours to do is plainly before us. We don.t need to search for it.

We need to change the way government does almost everything: from the way we protect our security to the way we compete in the world economy; from the way we respond to disasters to the way we fuel our transportation network; from the way we train our workers to the way we educate our children. All these functions of government were designed before the rise of the global economy, the information technology revolution and the end of the Cold War. We have to catch up to history, and we have to change the way we do business in Washington.

The constant partisan rancor that stops us from solving these problems isn.t a cause, it.s a symptom. It.s what happens when people go to Washington to work for themselves and not you.

Again and again, I.ve worked with members of both parties to fix problems that need to be fixed. That.s how I will govern as president. I will reach out my hand to anyone to help me get this country moving again. I have that record and the scars to prove it. Senator Obama does not.

Instead of rejecting good ideas because we didn.t think of them first, let.s use the best ideas from both sides. Instead of fighting over who gets the credit, let.s try sharing it. This amazing country can do anything we put our minds to. I will ask Democrats and Independents to serve with me. And my administration will set a new standard for transparency and accountability.

We.re going to finally start getting things done for the people who are counting on us, and I won.t care who gets the credit.

I.ve been an imperfect servant of my country for many years. But I have been her servant first, last and always. And I.ve never lived a day, in good times or bad, that I didn.t thank God for the privilege.

Long ago, something unusual happened to me that taught me the most valuable lesson of my life. I was blessed by misfortune. I mean that sincerely. I was blessed because I served in the company of heroes, and I witnessed a thousand acts of courage, compassion and love.

On an October morning, in the Gulf of Tonkin, I prepared for my 23rd mission over North Vietnam. I hadn.t any worry I wouldn.t come back safe and sound. I thought I was tougher than anyone. I was pretty independent then, too. I liked to bend a few rules, and pick a few fights for the fun of it. But I did it for my own pleasure; my own pride. I didn.t think there was a cause more important than me.

Then I found myself falling toward the middle of a small lake in the city of Hanoi, with two broken arms, a broken leg, and an angry crowd waiting to greet me. I was dumped in a dark cell, and left to die. I didn.t feel so tough anymore. When they discovered my father was an admiral, they took me to a hospital. They couldn.t set my bones properly, so they just slapped a cast on me. When I didn.t get better, and was down to about a hundred pounds, they put me in a cell with two other Americans. I couldn.t do anything. I couldn.t even feed myself. They did it for me. I was beginning to learn the limits of my selfish independence. Those men saved my life.

I was in solitary confinement when my captors offered to release me. I knew why. If I went home, they would use it as propaganda to demoralize my fellow prisoners. Our Code said we could only go home in the order of our capture, and there were men who had been shot down before me. I thought about it, though. I wasn.t in great shape, and I missed everything about America. But I turned it down.

A lot of prisoners had it worse than I did. I.d been mistreated before, but not as badly as others. I always liked to strut a little after I.d been roughed up to show the other guys I was tough enough to take it. But after I turned down their offer, they worked me over harder than they ever had before. For a long time. And they broke me.

When they brought me back to my cell, I was hurt and ashamed, and I didn.t know how I could face my fellow prisoners. The good man in the cell next door, my friend, Bob Craner, saved me. Through taps on a wall he told me I had fought as hard as I could. No man can always stand alone. And then he told me to get back up and fight again for our country and for the men I had the honor to serve with. Because every day they fought for me.

I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else.s. I loved it not just for the many comforts of life here. I loved it for its decency; for its faith in the wisdom, justice and goodness of its people. I loved it because it was not just a place, but an idea, a cause worth fighting for. I was never the same again. I wasn.t my own man anymore. I was my country.s.

I.m not running for president because I think I.m blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me to save our country in its hour of need. My country saved me. My country saved me, and I cannot forget it. And I will fight for her for as long as I draw breath, so help me God.

If you find faults with our country, make it a better one. If you.re disappointed with the mistakes of government, join its ranks and work to correct them. Enlist in our Armed Forces. Become a teacher. Enter the ministry. Run for public office. Feed a hungry child. Teach an illiterate adult to read. Comfort the afflicted. Defend the rights of the oppressed. Our country will be the better, and you will be the happier. Because nothing brings greater happiness in life than to serve a cause greater than yourself.

I.m going to fight for my cause every day as your president. I.m going to fight to make sure every American has every reason to thank God, as I thank Him: that I.m an American, a proud citizen of the greatest country on earth, and with hard work, strong faith and a little courage, great things are always within our reach. Fight with me. Fight with me.

Fight for what.s right for our country.

Fight for the ideals and character of a free people.

Stand up to defend our country from its enemies.

Stand up for each other; for beautiful, blessed, bountiful America.

Stand up, stand up, stand up and fight. Nothing is inevitable here. We.re Americans, and we never give up. We never quit. We never hide from history. We make history.

Thank you, and God Bless you and God bless fascist America.

Obama US President? CFR puppet? Assassinated?

=======================

Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin.s Wednesday night speech to the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota was greeted with rapture by the mass media. Newspapers and broadcast news declared it a .homerun. and a .star performance..

The New York Times declared that Palin.s turn at the podium .electrified a convention that has been consumed by questions of whether she was up to the job.. The Washington Post chimed in that the one-term Alaska governor .proved to be an instant jolt of energy for a political party that has been worried and demoralized for much of 2008..

Meanwhile, NBC.s Tom Brokaw proclaimed on the air minutes after Palin finished her speech: .Tonight makes a very auspicious debut as the vice presidential candidate before this hall and a national television audience. She could not have been more winning or engaging..

There was little or no criticism of the brazen cynicism of the speech.which managed to avoid any mention of Palin.s political party, now deeply unpopular.or its essential vacuousness. While presenting herself as an everywoman, Palin made no mention of the actual social problems which confront working class families: rising joblessness, plummeting real wages, the lack of affordable health care, the immense growth of economic inequality.

The fawning coverage was the media.s cowardly response to its own vilification by the Republican Party, which denounced even the limited scrutiny given by the press to Palin.s background as biased, unfair and out of bounds.

Hurricane, HurryCain, Hurricain, Hurricaine, "The LARD"="The Lord"

The losing candidates in the Republican presidential primaries who preceded Palin to the platform all sounded this same theme. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee sarcastically thanked .the elite media. for having helped .unify the Republican Party.. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani affirmed that it was the American people, not the .left-wing media. who would pick the next president.

And former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, the multi-millionaire son of a governor, complained, .For decades, the Washington sun has been rising in the east.Washington has been looking to the eastern elites, to the editorial pages of the Times and the Post, and to the broadcasters from the coast..

For their part, the Democrats continued their virtual silence on Palin. The party.s own vice-presidential nominee, Senator Joseph Biden, appeared on morning talks shows Thursday. On NBC.s .Today. show, Biden affirmed that Palin had given .one heck of a political speech. and declared that she would be a .formidable opponent. and a .very skilled debater..

Speaking on ABC.s .Good Morning America,. he was slightly more critical. .It was a very skillfully written, very skillfully delivered speech,. he said. .But there was not a word about the middle class or health care or how people are going to fill up their gas tanks or a single word about how we.re going to get our kids through college..

The reality is that Palin.s speech was a piece of ultra-right demagogy delivered to an audience assembled by what is unquestionably the most reactionary party on the face of the planet, committed to the unrelenting defense of wealth and privilege against the interests of the vast majority of the American people and all of humanity.

Assembled in the hall were the foulest elements of American society. The lily-white crowd.the number of black delegates had fallen from 150 in 2004 to 36 in 2008, barely 1.5 percent of the total.included a collection of religious fanatics, racists, anti-Semites and militant defenders of torture, militarism and inequality.

Only such a party could even conceive of someone like Sarah Palin as a candidate for vice president.

Palin cast herself as the small-town .hockey mom. determined to go clean up Washington, and as an innocent victim of media disparagement. One would never guess that she was a politician with intimate ties to movements best described as theocratic fascist, who has campaigned for the outlawing of abortion and the teaching of creationism and, as mayor of a small town, sought the banning of books.

.I.ve learnt quickly these past few days that if you.re not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone,. she told the Republican delegates.

Any sober reading of the Palin speech makes it clear that it is as noteworthy for what was not in it as for what was.

Among the things missing.and this has been true for virtually all those who have addressed the convention.were the words .George W. Bush,. who was physically frozen out of the convention, relegated to an eight-minute address from Washington via a video screen. This is all the more significant given that the words coming out of Palin.s mouth Wednesday night were written by Matthew Scully, the Bush White House speechwriter who helped craft the lies used to sell the war in Iraq and contributed his prose to the infamous .mission accomplished. speech delivered on the deck of an aircraft carrier in the invasion.s aftermath.

Bush.s absence, attributed to Hurricane Gustav, was the result of deliberate political calculations. The Republicans have decided to pretend that they have nothing to do with the incumbent president and his administration and bear no responsibility for the deepening economic and social crisis gripping the country and the disastrous wars of aggression launched over the past eight years.

After controlling the White House for all but eight out of the last 28 years, boasting a majority in the House of Representatives for 12 out of the last 14 years and in the Senate for more than eight out of the last 12, as well as having appointed seven out of the nine justices to the US Supreme Court, the attempt by the Republicans to masquerade as outsiders taking on Washington and its .elites. is quite simply ludicrous.

Also notable for its absence in Palin.s speech was any hint of a political program, outside of pursuing a policy of bellicose militarism abroad, unfettered drilling for oil and maintaining tax cuts for the wealthy.

Her denunciation of Obama for threatening to raise the .death tax,. a measure that would affect a handful of estates of the super-rich, won some of the strongest applause from the audience, in which the country.s real .elites. were amply represented. According to CBS News, 51 percent of the delegates have assets of over $500,000.

Among the main speakers warming up the crowd for Palin was the billionaire former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, who had the gall to lecture the American people on the need for .tightening the belt during hard times..

Neither Palin nor any of the other speakers at the convention made even a passing reference to the millions upon millions of working people in America facing the loss of jobs and homes as well as steadily declining real wages.

The issues with which she and the Christian right wing of the party have been so closely identified were likewise missing. There was no mention of abortion, gay marriage, gun rights or creationism. Even God got one solitary mention, outside of the obligatory .God bless America. which has become the mandatory closing line of politicians from both big business parties.

No doubt speechwriter Scully and Republican strategist Karl Rove concluded that there was no need to make an appeal on these issues; her presence on stage as the nominee would by itself suffice. Republican presidential candidate John McCain.s selection of Palin.his first choice was reportedly Senator and former Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joe Lieberman.represented a capitulation to the veto power exercised by the Christian right over the program and personnel of the Republican Party.

A few oblique biblical references.Palin.s vow to go to Washington with a .servant.s heart. and her talk of the .spirit. that brought her to the Alaska governor.s office.were thrown in just to keep the religious hucksters happy.

After comparing herself to Harry Truman.because they both traced their origins to small towns.Palin praised the virtues of that segment of America, declaring that small-town residents are the ones who do .the hardest work ... who grow our food, run our factories, and fight our wars.. There was not even a hint at the devastation that has been wrought upon small towns throughout the US over the past quarter century, as industries have moved out, leaving poverty and unemployment in their wake, as well as young people with few options outside of joining the military to .fight our wars..

Palin then segued into one of many anti-Obama barbs, declaring, .in small towns, we don.t quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren.t listening..

This was perhaps the most disingenuous line in the entire speech. In the first place, the Republicans are well known for extolling the virtues of working people .when they are listening,. only to kick them in the teeth at the first opportunity, with attacks on wages, working conditions and basic rights.

Palin was referring to Obama.s lament, delivered in what he thought were off-the-record remarks to an audience of well-heeled contributors in San Francisco last April, which began by acknowledging that small towns in Pennsylvania and throughout the Midwest had seen the loss of jobs and deep deterioration for the past 25 years, under Democratic and Republican administrations alike. As a result, he said, their residents were .bitter. and tended to .cling to guns or religion..

If anyone knows what Obama was talking about it is Palin, who began her rise to the Alaska governorship by launching a virulently right-wing campaign to win the race for mayor in her Anchorage suburb of Wasilla, invoking precisely religion and guns, spewing anti-abortion demagogy and proclaiming that her victory would give the town its .first Christian mayor..

The political trends to which Obama referred.and to which Palin appealed.did not develop in a vacuum. They are the product of the betrayal and collapse of the official labor movement as well as the Democratic Party.s own sharp turn to the right, casting off of any remnants of New Deal social reformism, which in turn helped accelerate the growth of social inequality and economic insecurity.

Under these conditions, the Republicans were able to appeal to religious backwardness and spout pseudo-populist demagogy against so-called .liberal elites.. With the selection of Palin as McCain.s running mate, the Republicans hope, despite the immense popular hatred for the Bush administration, to do so again. They have turned even further to the right than in the 2000 and 2004 campaigns of Bush and Cheney, now bringing onto their ticket a member of the Christian fundamentalist right with longstanding ties to political organizations of a semi-fascistic character.

What Palin.s speech signaled above all is that the Republican Party, despite the odds, has no intention of giving in. Over the course of decades it has been the most consistent and most ruthless representative of the interests of the ruling class. It has no intention of ceding that role to the Democrats, in no small part out of fear that its leading representatives could ultimately face criminal prosecution.

For their part, the Democrats and Obama are.like the media.clearly intimidated by the Republican attacks and unable to mount a reply. They are terrified that a determined attack on the Republican Party and the Bush administration could, despite their best intentions, encourage among working people both popular anger against the capitalist system and unrealistic expectations of change. Such an outcome would cut across the interests of the Democrats. real constituencies, Wall Street and corporate America.

These fears render the Democrats incapable of speaking with either sincerity or anger.the latter reserved exclusively for those to their left. Their cowardice and duplicity are what provide a political opening to the fraudulent right-wing populist demagogy of the likes of Palin and the Republicans.