NOTE: IMPORTANT UPDATE APPEARS AT BOTTOM OF POST
I said a long time ago, there's a war going on for control of the Republican Party, and at the rate its going, its going to tear the party apart. That is yet another reason why I say its really presumptuous to assume a sure victory for any side, this year or any year.
I was reminded of this today, when my new diary at Red State, that I started under the name Federalist Pagan, was unceremoniously dumped. Well, I assume it was, since I have been barred from the site, thanks to the machinations of a man named Art Chance.
So who is Art Chance? Well, it so happens that he is a retired labor relations thug formerly in the employee of the Administration of former Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski. Yes, as you might have guessed, he has a hard-on for Sarah Palin, but not in a good way. My first, and apparently last post at Red State, was a re-post of this one here in which I mused about her potential as a possible future Chairwoman of the RNC to replace the bumbling Michael Steele.
Chance started trolling my blog, saying nothing of substance, just insulting me, and the Governor, while accusing me of having the hots for her.
Although I did engage him in this dispute, I was incredibly restrained, and avoided engaging in foul language or inordinate name-calling. Amazingly, I was still banned from Red State for stating the obvious, that this outrageous thug was a troll, and evidently for daring to debate the issue with him to begin with. Before they banned me, however, I was deluged with some friends he brought over to my site, assuring me I didn't know what I was talking about, in so many words. One asshole told me I had said quite enough, and that I should leave, and perhaps pray to Zeus for wisdom. He and the others were amazed that I dared to engage in open dispute with the mighty Chance.
Obviously, I was supposed to be impressed by this cretin's credentials. Unfortunately for him and his band of sycophants, who had the unmitigated gall to call me a Palin sycophant, I am not impressed with anyone. I support Palin, but I am not part of any personality cult that might surround her, nor do I have the "hots" for the lady. I just happen to be impressed with her resume as a reformer of Alaska politics who stood up to the good old boys, and the corrupting influence of the oil industry.
Chance, meanwhile, worked for Frank Murkowski. Whoooooo, everybody should bow down, or you might get shot down by a corrupt retired government official who worked for one of the most corrupt Republican Governors in Alaskan history.
I am not the only one who has run afoul of him on Red State, nor am I the first to be banned from the site because of it. Nor are criticisms of him and his tactics the exclusive purview of the left. His victims on Red State, such as myself, are conservatives, anyone who is a Tea-Party member or sympathizer, or most especially it would seem, anyone who is a Palin supporter. A post from the blog Conservatives4Palin goes into some detail about his pervasive influence at Red State, which they claim due to mainly his influence is becoming another Little Green Footballs.
What he did as a labor relations leader in Murkowski's administration was threaten workers who tried to organize. He even brags about it. Mess with him, go against the system, and your livelihood is at stake. That is the attitude he carries with him even today, it seems. He will make an example out of you. There is a special place in hell for people like that. But while he is in this world, he is going to make sure that he has a special place on the payroll of the good old boys of Alaska, and the Republican Party of Frank Murkowski. Anyone who sets out to reform the party and its corruption, or the corruption of the state in general, or Gods willing, the national party, and end the inordinate influence of the oil industry, will earn his special ire.
And that in a nutshell explains his attitude towards Sarah Palin, or anyone who supports her. Amazingly, he calls her ruthless for the way she exposed the corruption and used this as a means to achieve power in Alaska politics.
Yet, for all his talk, this is a guy who works for a system that doesn't mind one whit whether the Republican Party stays in permanent minority status, which in a sense would be the status it would deserve. People outside the party tend not to understand this. These kind of Republicans have no ideology to speak of. They are anti-communist, but that is only for self-serving reasons. They are not concerned with your freedom and liberties, or even your basic human rights. They just don't want their property expropriated.
But at the same time, they are more than willing to compromise on issues that would make it tough on the average person, most especially their smaller, weaker business rivals, so long as they get to maintain a certain status quo, which amounts to a small set of goals-
One-Tax breaks for they and their more important, well-connected contributors. It doesn't have to be enshrined in the tax code, a few well-placed loopholes will do just fine, thank you. In fact, that might even be preferable.
Two-Pork to take home to the folks in their states and districts.
Three-Government contracts for their contributors.
Four-A hefty retirement package with medical care and the ability to use their contacts to gain further enrichment in the private sector once their career in public service, if you really must dignify it with such a term, is over.
There you have it. These people are more than willing to talk shit about religion and patriotism, as long as they don't actually have to walk the walk. The knuckle-dragging base can do that for them. They just better not expect too much in return. They just better get their asses out and vote for what little they do get, if they don't want the Democrats to take away the few crumbs the Republican insiders throw their way in their vast munificence.
And what is really maddening is, they are so cocksure of themselves, they don't even try to hide it anymore. They are aware that the base hates Obama to such an extent, the Republicans are likely to make big gains in the next mid-terms.
They'll be damned if they are going to let Sarah Palin and those Tea-Party nut jobs oust them from their perches of power in the GOP. They got a good thing coming their way, and by God nobody is going to take it away from them. Not Sarah Palin, not the Tea-Party crowd, and most certainly no small-time blogger like me. At least, not as long as they can sew up the bigger conservative blogs, like Red State, to such an extent that anybody who dares speak out against them or for their inter-party rivals, are shut down, shut up, and shut out.
UPDATE:
A person affiliated with Red State has made a couple of comments here in which he alleges that I made several provocative statements, inferring that I engaged in name calling and foul language, something which in fact I did not do.
He then went out of his way to inform another commenter that my diary has not been removed from Red State, though I have been banned. I just lately learned of a bizarre tactic utilized by the site's moderators against banned commenters. In effect, they edit their diaries to make them appear to have said things to justify their being banned. If anyone calls them on it, they use the vandalized diary as "evidence" against the banned diarist.
Here's the link to the Wikipedia page.
Here's a specific quote from the text of the article-
While any person may sign up to write blog posts in RedState's diary section, moderators have banned users identifying as conservative due to specific policy disagreements, replacing their signature line and all previous diaries with taunting messages.[3][4]
And here's another paragraph that goes into a bit more detail.
The site's moderators have been criticized for banning some users who disagree or dissent permanently from the site. Responses to any viewpoints deemed unwanted by site moderators have included replacing all of a person's diaries with messages designed to be offensive.[8] Banned users may be accused of being "progressive trolls"[4] or "moby," the latter being a person with over-the-top political positions making conservatives look bad.[9] Banned users may be greeted with an error message reading "601 Database redigestation error." The site moderators' behavior is a topic of discussion among moderate conservatives and internet discussion sites.[10]
Some will point out that this is Wikipedia, but I have no doubt as to the authenticity of the article's claims.
Red State, from my experience with it, might best be compared to a large public school system run by a disorganized, dysfunctional school board made up of high school dropouts, and who are in fact teenagers themselves, either in years or in intellectual and emotional capacity.
Unfortunately, they are a privately run company, owned by Eagle Publishing, which also owns Regnery Publishing and Human Events. As such, the best thing to do is simply stay away from them, and find another source for your political news and conservative commentary. There are certainly more choices out there-bigger ones, better ones, and certainly, one should hope, more ethical ones.
