First and foremost, let’s clear the air. I’m a peace activist. In case you don’t know what that means, it means I’m not at all pleased with mainstream politics. I’m not a lockstep Democrat. I’m not even a registered Democrat. I’m a member of the Peace and Freedom Party — a small, obscure, socialist party based in California with about 60,000 members. We’re mostly aging flower children, although, at 48 years of age, I can’t claim that distinction. I was nine when the ’60s ended (much to my chagrin), and that of my whole post-hippy generation. We played the guitar, smoked pot, sang “Kumbaya,” and read Kahil Gibran. But we were definitely wannabes. We wore pre-faded, pre-shredded, designer jeans.

That said, I’ll be damned if I’m not going to call out the emperor when he steps butt-naked into the street.

“You’re nude!” I cry. “You are a carnival barker! You’re a fake, a fraud, a charlatan!”

The corporate media that, today, claims integrity is the hallmark of their creed is the phoniest bunch of snake oil salesmen this side of electric hair-growers.

Let’s face it, ladies and gentlemen. The current media frenzy around the Republican vice presidential campaign is a freak show. Sarah Palin is running on her freakish credentials. She’s drawing enormous crowds, as does every freak in every show ever produced.

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen! See the incredibly tough woman! She hunts! She fishes! She kills things that slither across the floor! She wears a bra and high heels! She speaks publicly in tight skirts!

Wikipedia defines Freak Shows thusly:

Generally considered in contemporary times as a highly inappropriate and dehumanizing term, a freak show is an exhibition of rarities, “freaks of nature” — such as unusually tall or short humans, and people with both male and female secondary sexual characteristics — and performances that are expected to be shocking to the viewers. Heavily tattooed or pierced people have sometimes been seen in freak shows, as have fire-eating and sword-swallowing acts.

Contemporary examples from Wikipedia are interesting, though not nearly as salacious as the Palin phenomenon.

The SUPER FREAKS Sideshow and Revue, a traveling Freakshow/Sideshow that is considered to be the Biggest in The World. The SUPER FREAKS include so-called Human Freaks (such as The Human Gargoyle, The Indestructible Man, Milo The Pretzel Boy, and others), as well as some of the best and most unique performers on the planet (such as Senor Stretchy Skin, Murrugun The Mystic, George The Giant, and others). Another freak show with born living human oddities and medical anomalies is the 999 Eyes of Endless Dream Carnival Museum & Sideshow. ThiElizas show features people born with medical anomalies such as the Black Scorpion aka Lobster Bro, Jackie the Half Girl, Peg Leg the Modern-Day Elephant Man, Lobster Girl, and the Dame Demure Madame Miniature, along with a museum that includes pickled punks and many items from John Strong’s collection, including Patches, a stuffed two-headed calf. Ken Harck’s Bros. Grim Sideshow also tours with a combination of human oddities and working acts.

Although widely referred to as freaks, a distinction must be made between self-made freaks and “born” freaks. Generally, the most extreme examples of self-made freaks are referred to as “Human Marvels.” Katzen, The Enigma, The Lizardman, and both the Scottish and Texan Leopard men are all human marvels.

With the rise of the Internet, the freak show mentality has been given a new lease on life, as sites such as rotten.com arose, allowing people to gaze at “freakish” abnormalities that would not have been seen during the television era due to ideas about aesthetic taste.

Sarah Palin is a self-made freak — a human marvel. In Hollywood, she’d be considered an Elizabeth Dilling stereotype, if anyone knew who that was. Look Dilling up. You’ll love her…if you have any affection at all for lipstick-wearing pit bulls. She wrote the sublime handbook titled The Red Network — A Who’s Who of Radicalism for Patriots (1934), in which she named the world’s four most dangerous people: Mohandas K. Gandhi, Glenn Frank (then president of the University of Wisconsin), Jane Adams, and Albert Einstein.

Were she a man, Palin would be too irrelevant to elicit so much as a yawn. But this one, folks, sports not just a blistering agenda, but a vagina too!

Lord help us all…and Oscar Wilde.

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