More Thoughts on Sarah Palin
I spent the entire day yesterday, driven by an obsession to find out more about Sarah Palin and why she appeals to so many people. The Republican Party is polishing her as the great proletarian hero, out to slay the dragons of corruption and immorality in this country created by those horrible liberals. I say that nothing could be further from the truth. Palin is simply a puppet, though she is a very appealing puppet to those who don’t look more closely. Who, after all, wrote the speech that she gave? Palin? I don’t think so. The selection of Palin has the marks of Karl Rove all over it – he is a brilliant (and evil) man. The hard truth that so many, in their hopes for a better future for their children and grandchildren, overlook (or don’t know) is that both the Democratic and Republican parties are controlled by the ruling elite in this country. The parties will do as their masters bid. The election of 2008 is all about spin. Obama is being touted as the solution for all of our troubles, as in Palin. Whom to believe? Neither. It is well past the time when we need to accept responsibility for our own lives and not try to dictate the terms of other people’s lives. That applies on a local (thank you, Karl Hess) as well as on a national and international level.
One philosopher that I think should be widely read in these perilous times is Eric Hoffer. His first book, published in 1951, was entitled The True Believer. It was immensely popular in the 1960s, but it has faded from popular memory and not many people have heard of it or read it. It is still the best book, in my opinion, to gain an understanding of mass movements, such as we are witnessing these days with the hosannahs being offered up to Obama and Palin. Every time I see, on TV, the crowds worshipping at the feet of Obama or Palin I am reminded of the mass devotion offered to Adolf Hitler, the man whose movement inspired Eric Hoffer to write about mass movements. Eric Hoffer was no elite intellectual – he was a self-educated book-devouring migrant worker. During World War II, because he was rejected for health reasons by the military, he worked on the docks of ports on the West coast as a longshoreman. He was a working man’s philosopher, not an observer peering down on the masses from the ivory tower.
We are in our current sad state partly because of what I like to call the “National Enquirer-ization” of America. America is the best entertained and least informed nation in the entire world.
I will get down off my soapbox, for today ….
I think there is also an element of hope, hope that at last the secular saviour has arrived. People are so very tired of politicians being caught with their hands in the cookie jar and with their pants down that they are looking for a breath of fresh air. I don’t doubt that Palin will have an enormous amount of moral rectitude and I don’t doubt that she is very intelligent. But that doesn’t change two things: (1) a perceived willingness, on the part of a whole lot of people, to impose her belief system on others and (2) the fact that she will do as her masters order her to. She may be a reformer in Alaska, but that will go out the window in Washington, D.C. Washington has a whole lot more players who are a whole lot more powerful than the players in Wasilla or Juneau. The part that TV plays in this scenario is that people have lost the ability to question and reason – they are terribly gullible, to their lasting detriment.
I quite agree with your last statement about entertainment and information. It’s an astounding thing to see.
I agree with you that Palin is a puppet (a very perky puppet), but unfortunately, the masses are mesmerized by her, no doubt due in part to time spent in front of the boob tube, willingly having their minds manipulated.