Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All

Monday, September 15, 2008

How Palin Energizes the Republican Base

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., asks a question in today's Huffington Post:
Fascist writer Westbrook Pegler, an avowed racist who Sarah Palin approvingly quoted in her acceptance speech for the moral superiority of small town values, expressed his fervent hope about my father, Robert F. Kennedy, as he contemplated his own run for the presidency in 1965, that "some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow flies."

It might be worth asking Governor Palin for a tally of the other favorites from her reading list.

3 comments:

Anne Corwin said...

While I am most certain of an anti-racist mindset, and while I think it's great that Mr. RFK Jr. has enough sense to point out racist wingnuts when they're around, I have to say that he and the Huffington Post irk the heck out of me with their anti-vaccination wingnuttery. I have actually been getting kind of worried lately about how those wingnuts in particular seem to be trying to co-opt "progressivism" in the name of organizing massive rallies wherein they proclaim that autistic children are "toxic train wrecks".

(sorry about the axe-grinding, but I have such a bug up my butt about antivaccination whackjobs these days that I couldn't help but say something...)

Dale Carrico said...

Is RFK any kind of expert on vaccination health policy, and what proportion of his advocacy directs itself to this topic? Funny the odd things that turn up in public figures who stretch themselves thin in the advocacy of too many topics to assure the soundness of all their positions, to the cost of their credibility even on topics they understand well. I have heard him say many reasonable things about climate change and election protection over the years, but wasn't aware that he had a prominent position on this vaccination question at all. By the way, I'm not aware of his position on vaccinations and so I can't say what I think of his positions without exploring them -- and it's not like I'm an expert on the topic myself either. All very interesting.

Anne Corwin said...

No, as far as I know, RFK is not an expert on health policy or vaccine chemistry. Neither am I, to be fair, but I've done enough reading of the relevant, honest, clear scientific and generally logical writings on vaccinations and such to know BS when I see it as far as this topic goes.

RFK's antivaccination scaremongering started, I think, when he wrote articles in Salon and Rolling stone (a discussion, with some links, can be found here).

I totally agree with you, by the way, that some folks are trying too hard to have a definitive opinion on everything without doing anything near the necessary background work -- however, the whole vaccine debacle is a can of worms unto itself, full of conspiracy theories and True Believers up the wazoo. I wouldn't suggest you derail your own work of interest for the sake of delving deeply into vaccination conspiracymongering, but seeing as you've always been one to point out when Public Figure X (who might be otherwise reasonable) has...shall we say, areas of considerable wingnuttery, I figured I might as well point this one out.

This issue concerns me because of a complicated set of factors, among them being the bizarre denial by the antivax folks of the existence of autistic adults, as part of their whole screed is the notion of Our Government Poisoning Our Children(TM). Again, I don't expect you to go off on a research bender on this area, but I figured I might as well add my 2 cents.