Thursday, November 19, 2009

First 30 Pages of Palin's Work

Upon opening Palin’s book, Going Rogue and reading the first 30 or so pages, I was struck by 3 things: (1) It is atrociously written. This is not too shocking, as I had the fabulous opportunity to read Lynn Vincent’s previous xenophobic “memoir,” The Blood of Lambs, and it was the most unintentionally hilarious book I have ever read. (2) Palin seems to believe she is uniquely special in God’s eyes and (3) Palin believes that she is someone who is inherently an outsider and therefore especially persecuted at every turn. I have a feeling that Palin views herself as a modern day Job.

That said, let’s dive into the first 30 pages.

In a shocking amount of restraint, Palin manages to avoid discussing infringing upon a woman’s right to chose for all of 2 pages.
I saw the Alaska Right to Life (RTL) booth, where a poster caught my eye, taking my breath away. It featured the sweetest baby girl swathed in pink, pretend angel wings fastened to her soft shoulders.
"That's you, baby," I whispered to Piper, as I have every year since she smiled for that picture as an infant....
It reminded me of the preciousness of life.
It also reminded me of how impatient I am with politics.
A staunch advocate of every child's right to be born, I was pro-life enough for the grassroots RTL folks to adopt Piper as their poster child, but I wasn't politically connected enough for the state GOP machine to allow the organization to endorse me in early campaigns. (2-3)

This is only the first time in which Palin points out how mean the GOP is to her and how much of an independent voice that she is. On page 4, she laments the “fat-cat deals behind closed doors.” She further goes on to say “government was growing as fast as fireweed in July” in Alaska. On page 18, Palin complains about being pulled over as a child while on a snowmobile with her older brother, Chuck. “It was Christmas day; we were out in the middle of nowhere, a couple of kids on a snowmachine up against a big dude with a gun and a badge. I couldn’t help wondering about his priorities, if he really didn’t have more important things to do, like catching a bad guy, or maybe helping a poor lady haul in her firewood for the night. Looking back, maybe that was my first brush with the skewed priorities of government.” Obviously, small government only matters when it is not regarding a woman’s right to chose or gay people having equal rights, then the government should have every right in the world to encroach upon women’s wombs & people’s bedrooms. Furthermore, Palin’s whining about her victimhood complex is going to get VERY old—I still have almost 400 pages to read!

Palin writes about ethics & in my head, all I can hear is “ethics smethics” in her folksy-voice.
"Though I was a registered Republican, I’d always been without a political home, and now, even as governor, I was still outside the favored GOP circle….I didn’t owe anyone, and nobody owed me. That gave me the freedom and latitude to find the best people to serve Alaskans regardless of party, and I was beholden only to those who hired me—the people of Alaska." (5)

Yeah & her sister when it comes to firing her ex-husband.

There’s some drivel about Palin’s family & how awesome & independent Alaska is. I think I fell asleep through that.

I did catch the part about Palin’s mavericky genetics—her dad moved the entire family up to the dangerous state of Alaska to make more money and she goes on to say how she inherited his independent spirit.

Palin also tells us of her love of reading, which is not shocking, considering she “reads everything” to this very day. She writes that “the library on Main Street was one of my favorite summer hideaways.” (27) HMM, I wonder if she was stockpiling books to eventually have banned when she had any power.

My favorite part of the section has to be Palin waxing poetic about her relationship with God. “I made the conscious decision that summer to put my life in my Creator’s hands and trust Him as I sought my life’s path.” (22) Pretty typical Christian reflections. However, the rest of the book shows that Palin thinks she is especially special in God’s eyes. She seems to buy onto that ridiculous doctrine of wealth saying, “If I earned five dollars, I put fifty cents in the offering plate….God continually proved His promises true, blessing our giving with giving of His own.” (23) I find this to be a particularly abhorrent & dangerous point of view—that if you give money to your church God will bless you & your family. What if you have no money? Are you screwed?

Palin also seems to hate the feminists & anyone progressive, whining about the ACLU who “convinced young people that they were supposed to feel offended by other people’s free exercise of religion” & claiming that conservative women “consider ourselves more liberated than some women’s rights groups would have us believe we are.” You know, I don’t give a shit if Palin considers herself “liberated.” She does ABSOLUTELY nothing to further the cause of women or feminism. She preaches abstinence, which absolutely does not work, made women in her city pay for their own rape kits & is avowedly pro-life, even though she herself admitted that she considered aborting her youngest when she found out he had Down’s Syndrome. So to me, it is highly offensive that Palin boasts of her liberation when she works tirelessly to put those pesky feminists in their place—at home & pregnant taking care of the mensfolk.

Stay tuned for the next 30 pages in the next day or so…this book should be a doozy. Sadly, I can’t do the drinking game, as I discovered that if I do, I would need a liver transplant.

Here is a treat for everyone. When you open up Palin's book, there is a map called "The Top of the World," which proves that Palin can see Russia from her house! I'm sorry it's such a crappy photograph of the map, I just found it too hilarious not to share.


1 comment: