[Rhodes22-list] Palin the loose cannon and the Chicago Lama [Politics]

[Brad Haslett]

Ed,

Speaking of Mao, we ran into a friend of ours at the polling place
yesterday and had a long talk about Mao in the parking lot.  She's a
few years older than my wife, was a published author in China (her
book was made into a movie) and like my wife, immigrated to the US
after Tienanmen to attend grad school (Columbia). The gist of our
conversation was the "Cult of Obama" and her frustration with her own
(non-Chinese) husband's enthrallment with the "lofty rhetoric".
Neither she nor I came-up with any plausible explanations.

I'm attaching an article I stumbled across this morning that
summarizes well my own confusion and frustration. We have a two party
system because it isn't healthy for our republic for one party to hold
all the reigns of power.  That I understand and accept. But why people
seem so willing to sacrifice critical inquiry, history, and proven
economic principles is obviously beyond my intellectual capacity.

Brad

----------------------

Saturday, October 25, 2008

The Obama Temptation   [Mark R. Levin]
I've been thinking this for a while so I might as well air it here. I
honestly never thought we'd see such a thing in our country - not yet
anyway - but I sense what's occurring in this election is a
recklessness and abandonment of rationality that has preceded the
voluntary surrender of liberty and security in other places. I can't
help but observe that even some conservatives are caught in the moment
as their attempts at explaining their support for Barack Obama are
unpersuasive and even illogical. And the pull appears to be rather
strong. Ken Adelman, Doug Kmiec, and others, reach for the usual
platitudes in explaining themselves but are utterly incoherent. Even
non-conservatives with significant public policy and real world
experiences, such as Colin Powell and Charles Fried, find Obama
alluring but can't explain themselves in an intelligent way.

There is a cult-like atmosphere around Barack Obama, which his
campaign has carefully and successfully fabricated, which concerns me.
The messiah complex. Fainting audience members at rallies. Special
Obama flags and an Obama presidential seal. A graphic with the
portrayal of the globe and Obama's name on it, which adorns everything
from Obama's plane to his street literature. Young school children
singing songs praising Obama. Teenagers wearing camouflage outfits and
marching in military order chanting Obama's name and the professions
he is going to open to them. An Obama world tour, culminating in a
speech in Berlin where Obama proclaims we are all citizens of the
world. I dare say, this is ominous stuff.

Even the media are drawn to the allure that is Obama. Yes, the media
are liberal. Even so, it is obvious that this election is different.
The media are open and brazen in their attempts to influence the
outcome of this election. I've never seen anything like it. Virtually
all evidence of Obama's past influences and radicalism — from Jeremiah
Wright to William Ayers — have been raised by non-traditional news
sources. The media's role has been to ignore it as long as possible,
then mention it if they must, and finally dismiss it and those who
raise it in the first place. It's as if the media use the Obama
campaign's talking points — its preposterous assertions that Obama
didn't hear Wright from the pulpit railing about black liberation,
whites, Jews, etc., that Obama had no idea Ayers was a domestic
terrorist despite their close political, social, and working
relationship, etc. — to protect Obama from legitimate and routine
scrutiny. And because journalists have also become commentators, it is
hard to miss their almost uniform admiration for Obama and excitement
about an Obama presidency. So in the tank are the media for Obama that
for months we've read news stories and opinion pieces insisting that
if Obama is not elected president it will be due to white racism. And,
of course, while experience is crucial in assessing Sarah Palin's
qualifications for vice president, no such standard is applied to
Obama's qualifications for president. (No longer is it acceptable to
minimize the work of a community organizer.) Charles Gibson and Katie
Couric sought to humiliate Palin. They would never and have never
tried such an approach with Obama.

But beyond the elites and the media, my greatest concern is whether
this election will show a majority of the voters susceptible to the
appeal of a charismatic demagogue. This may seem a harsh term to some,
and no doubt will to Obama supporters, but it is a perfectly
appropriate characterization. Obama's entire campaign is built on
class warfare and human envy. The "change" he peddles is not new.
We've seen it before. It is change that diminishes individual liberty
for the soft authoritarianism of socialism. It is a populist appeal
that disguises government mandated wealth redistribution as tax cuts
for the middle class, falsely blames capitalism for the social
policies and government corruption (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) that
led to the current turmoil in our financial markets, fuels contempt
for commerce and trade by stigmatizing those who run successful small
and large businesses, and exploits human imperfection as a
justification for a massive expansion of centralized government.
Obama's appeal to the middle class is an appeal to the "the
proletariat," as an infamous philosopher once described it, about
which a mythology has been created. Rather than pursue the American
Dream, he insists that the American Dream has arbitrary limits, limits
Obama would set for the rest of us — today it's $250,000 for
businesses and even less for individuals. If the individual dares to
succeed beyond the limits set by Obama, he is punished for he's now
officially "rich." The value of his physical and intellectual labor
must be confiscated in greater amounts for the good of the proletariat
(the middle class). And so it is that the middle class, the
birth-child of capitalism, is both celebrated and enslaved — for its
own good and the greater good. The "hope" Obama represents, therefore,
is not hope at all. It is the misery of his utopianism imposed on the
individual.

Unlike past Democrat presidential candidates, Obama is a hardened
ideologue. He's not interested in playing around the edges. He seeks
"fundamental change," i.e., to remake society. And if the Democrats
control Congress with super-majorities led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry
Reid, he will get much of what he demands.

The question is whether enough Americans understand what's at stake in
this election and, if they do, whether they care. Is the allure of a
charismatic demagogue so strong that the usually sober American people
are willing to risk an Obama presidency? After all, it ensnared
Adelman, Kmiec, Powell, Fried, and numerous others. And while America
will certainly survive, it will do so, in many respects, as a
different place.



On Sun, Oct 26, 2008 at 8:28 AM, Tootle <ekroposki at charter.net> wrote:
>
>
> David B said that Palin is a "loose cannon."
>
> Then he said, "I think it's going to be close."
>
> He does not understand that the "loose cannon" is what makes it close.
>
> Her words and beliefs are what gall the pseudo elites.  The main stream
> media despises those who hold different beliefs than theirs.  Their opinions
> are always the correct views.  Do we have those on this forum who are this
> type of sheep?
>
> No, she is not a Rhodes Scholar.  But who selects Rhodes Scholars?
>
> "Rhodes Scholars are selected through a decentralized process by which
> regional selection committees choose 32 Scholars each year from among those
> nominated by selection committees in each of the fifty states."  But who are
> these selection committees?  What is their political persuasion? Could the
> nominee's political beliefs be persuasive?  Say it isn't so.
>
> "In most years, a Rhodes Scholar is selected from an institution which has
> not formerly supplied a successful applicant.  Does this mean that a nominee
> from an institution not known for quality of applicants could be selected
> over a nominee from say, "Penn State University"?  Say it isn't so.
>
> "Intellectual distinction is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for
> election to a Rhodes Scholarship. Selection committees are charged to seek
> excellence in qualities of mind and in qualities of person which, in
> combination, offer the promise of effective service to the world in the
> decades ahead."  How is the qualification, 'intellectual distinction'
> determined?  Is it influenced by glibness and politics?  Say it isn't so.
>
> Learn to ask what the words mean and what motivates the words said.  Learn
> to say it isn't so.
>
> I thank Brad for reminding me about Mao and Ho Chi Minh.  Should we correct
> the name to Barack Chi Mao Hussein Obama?  The man is a reincarnation of
> their ideologies.  What religion believes in reincarnation?  Maybe we should
> be addressing the Chicago Lama?
>
> Ed K
> http://www.nabble.com/file/p20173463/Chicago%2BLama.gif Chicago+Lama.gif
> --
> View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Palin-the-rogue-tp20169334p20173463.html
> Sent from the Rhodes 22 mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
>
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