I remember when I was in high school (1967 to 1971) my father’s great enthusiasm for the books of Eric Hoffer, the longshoreman philosopher and author of The True Believer
(My father is Hubert P. Yockey, one of the pioneers in the field of information theory and molecular biology, and I will take up in another post the influence Hoffer’s books have had on his scientific publications.)
I hunted up Dad’s copy of The True Believer recently for a post I was researching that explains how Dr. Laura flipped from being an Orthodox Jew to an evangelical Christian. On pp. 16-17, Hoffer examines the characteristics that make someone receptive to a mass movement, which makes it possible to convert a true believer from one movement to an opposing one, but almost impossible to to establish one in any middle ground. (For the record, I was never an extreme liberal and I am not an extreme conservative. I just can’t seem to toe the line anywhere I go.) I’ll finish that thought in my upcoming post on Dr. Laura.
But Firefox is crashing on me frequently these days, so I have been flipping through The True Believer while I am waiting for it to start up. In the process, I discovered Obama’s Kryptonite. Not the green, deadly one — the more benign gold Kryptonite that would simply strip him of his superpowers forever. (Boo-yah!)
Obama’s Kryptonite is ridicule. Especially when mixed with shame.
Fortunately, Obama has supplied conservatives with plenty of material.
And we’d better get busy with the ridiculing, mocking, derision, scorn, belittling, shaming, parodying, satirizing and lampooning toot sweet like our lives, homes, families, nation and the world depend on it. (Because they do.)
Hoffer explains on p. 138 how the media are able to create the grounds for a fanatical mass movement like Obama’s:
It is easy to see how the faultfinding man of words, by persistent ridicule and denunciation, shakes prevailing beliefs and loyalties, and familiarizes the masses with the idea of change. What is not so obvious is the process by which the discrediting of existing beliefs and institutions makes possible the rise of a new fanatical faith. For it is a remarkable fact that the militant man of words who “sounds the established order to its source to mark its want of authority and justice” often prepares the ground not for a society of freethinking individuals but for a corporate society that cherishes utmost unity and blind faith.
However, while ridicule is Obama’s Kryponite, since he is now the prevailing order, Hoffer explains why it does not affect the masses he has inflamed with “hope” for “change” (pp. 138-140):
When we debunk a fanatical faith or prejudice, we do not strike at the root of fanaticism. … The freedom the masses crave is not freedom of self-expression and self-realization, but freedom from the intolerable burden of an autonomous existence. They want freedom from “the fearful burden of free choice.” freedom from the arduous responsibility of realizing their ineffectual selves and shouldering the blame for the blemished product. They do not want freedom of conscience, but faith — blind, authoritarian faith. They sweep away the old order not to create a society of free and independent men, but to establish uniformity, individual anonymity and a new structure of perfect unity. It is not the wickedness of the the old regime they rise against but its weakness; not its oppression, but its failure to hammer them together into one solid, mighty whole.
What this means for fiscal conservatism is that some re-positioning and re-branding of its product is urgently in order to win back the majority of Americans because right now it is selling what Americans either don’t want, don’t believe they can achieve, or are bitter because they have failed to achieve, which is the freedom to rise on the basis of one’s own initiative and keep a fair share of the fruits of one’s labor to spend as one pleases.
Somehow, thanks to the constant ridicule of the mainstream media, and their shameless falsehoods and bias — the one that irks me the most is the “Bush-tax-cuts-for-the-rich” chant, when those tax cuts also dropped the tax rate for the poorest taxpayers by 50 percent — we hit a tipping point where a majority of Americans stopped believing in themselves and America, which left them receptive to Obama and his brand of socialism.
For fiscal conservatives to succeed in thwarting Obama in turning America in a socialist economy and totalitarian state (only a month ago I was afraid to say that and now I find I’m behind the curve instead of in front of it), therefore will require a two-pronged approach:
- Wall-to-wall exposure of Obama to his Kryptonite: we must ridicule, mock, shame, belittle, parody, satirize and lampoon him in every way until he is the global and historic laughingstock that he deserves to be.
- Get Americans to believe in themselves and America again. As Eric Hoffer points out (p. 141), even the “intellectual midwives of a mass movement” do not belong to it because “no matter how much they preach and glorify the united effort, they remain essentially individualists. They believe in the possibility of individual happiness and the validity of individual opinion and initiative.
Hoffer also cautions what happens to a society that fails to inspire people to believe in themselves and their ability to succeed individually:
But once a movement gets rolling, power falls into the hands of those wh0 have neither faith in, nor respect for, the individual. And the reason they prevail is not so much that their disregard of the individual gives them a capacity for ruthlessness, but that their attitude is in full accord with the ruling passion of the masses [to lose their hated individuality in the uniformity of the mass movement].
Update: Ed Kaitz has a piece at American Thinker that applies Hoffer’s insights on mass movements to his years teaching remedial education classes at the college level that were predominantly attended by African-Americans and foreign students. Here’s the crucial sentence: “Citizens of all colors are about to witness on a national scale what has been quietly fermenting for decades within the Ivory Tower: a crystallization of ethnic identity so rigid that dialogue becomes virtually impossible.” Kaitz explains that thanks to “selfish elite race hustlers” American blacks have lost their individuality to their racial identity, and along with it, their belief in their ability to succeed as individuals.
Conservatism is losing ground right now because it is fundamentally an appeal to individuals and promotes the conditions in which individuals may thrive. That’s a “no sale” proposition when people would rather lose themselves in a mass movement. Conservatives need to ponder how to make people confident in their individuality again because when they are, the demand for conservatism will follow.
Updated, 1/29/2010, Fri.: Thank you, Instapundit, and welcome, Instapundit readers! Such is my genius-brilliance that I wrote this post LAST YEAR. In fact, I wrote it on February 17, 2009! That was in the dark days just after Obama’s inauguration — in fact, it was the very day that Obama signed the $787 billion stimulus package into law. THAT’S how dark that day was! So that is why I referred to “conservatism losing ground.” Last February it certainly was. Thankfully, Obama has completely turned that around. I am just one of the very first new fiscal conservatives he has made.
One of the most important things to understand about Obama is that he is a sociopath, in the clinical sense. People have caught on to his narcissism, but they do not understand his sociopathy. In a nutshell, he lives to control people, assert power and make people jump. All of the promises he makes are intended to get people to hand over their power and money to him voluntarily. However, the only promises he intends to keep are the ones that will result in him getting more power and ability to make people jump.
By now Obama has supreme faith in his ability to get away with breaking his promises by shaming the people who wanted them kept, blaming others or putting off into the indefinite future the day he must keep his side of the bargain (gay people! that means you!). The disconnect between this supreme faith and the fact that for the first time in Obama’s life people are holding him to his promises and ready to punish him for breaking them is the reason some people are starting to speculate that he is insane. I don’t think he is crazy. I think he is destroying America as a capitalistic, meritocratic and democratic republic ON PURPOSE because he loves and craves power (this is his sociopathy) and he is shamed by the achievements of genuinely talented people (this is his narcissism).
I explained this to Victor Davis Hanson on June 13, 2009, when I wrote, “Dr. Hanson, I can tell you why Obama just makes stuff up.” That post is an efficient way to get at my other foundational posts on Obama, which include this one and “Understanding Obama” from February 10, 2009, and “The chilling explanation of why Obama is cool,” from February 12, 2009.
The more you understand Obama’s sociopathy, the better prepared you will be when he uses the Alinsky tactic of telling you what you want to hear in order to gain your support and cooperation. You are being conned and cheated. I hope that understanding Obama will help you know not to fall for his cons.
As I stand awe-struck more each day by the most amazing display of ineptitude to EVER hit the White House. Yes, this includes the Peanut Carter administration. It is also becoming apparent to me that this disaster is so enormous that we have to provide the people who voted for Obambi a way out to avoid the embarrassment of opening them up to the total ridicule that they are due for voting for this imbecile. (I could write an entire article on the same folks who were gushing that, coupled with Michelle, echoes of Camelot and new high fashion were here again in the White House – but that’s for another day).
Anyway, when people are faced with the predicament of having made one of the most colossal errors in their lifetime, their first inclination is going to be to deny it. Their embarrassment coupled with the inherent liberal, enormous feelings of superiority creates a cognitive dissonance that they will note be able to reconcile. And most probably, this denial will manifest itself in the adult equivalent of a child sticking his fingers in his ears while constantly droning “na na na na na na na na na…” Even though these people deserve having their nose rubbed into the pile of dog poop on the new carpet which is Obambi, this will be counter-productive to rendering this man impotent as soon as possible.
Many of the liberal and the moderate cognoscenti who thought that the Obambi change might be less than a total disaster have already started coming to their senses and are voicing their mea culpas: Christopher Buckley (who probably has been having nightly nightmares of his Dad reaching out from beyond to slap the snot out of him), David Broder, Peggy Noonan (who really has been emotionally scared ever since 9/11 and is just short of acting like a New York bag lady, and should probably be given a pass), Camille Paglia (seems to be starting in her clever, nuanced way), Maureen Dowd (seems to be starting in her un-clever, catty school-girl, psycho-babble way), etc… have all started voicing their apprehensions now, if not their outright admissions of their mistaken belief, in change they could believe in.
But for others, we are going to need to provide them some cover. We need to allow them to feel that they, and other “intelligent” people, were tricked on a grand scale. That were it not for this trickery, they would have and could have seen through the snake-oil salesman selling that same brand of snake-oil which has NEVER worked as advertised. We need to give them that requisite sacrificial lambs to be slaughtered, and ideally, one that should be slaughtered anyway. For these sacrificial lambs, let us provide the main stream media, which is in their financial death throes anyway and unable to put up much of a fight, and ACORN. And if we do not get rid of these entities, and/or render them impotent, through future deception and outright thievery, we are destined to be in this same boat again.
Well Dave, as an outsider here, I do find the daily gaffes amusing. On the other hand, I am horrified over the legislation that is getting through the Congress. The most horrific is the one related to only what can be described as “Hitler Youth”.
I have been thinking about this one over a number of days. The present Pope – Josef Ratzinger by name or Benedict XVI – as a German was forced to join Hitler youth. Nobody was allowed to not join if you know what I mean. However, the young Josef Ratzinger was determined to have nothing to do with the organization and he refused to go along to the meetings. In other words he defied Hitler and the SS on this subject. It is just one starting point to find inspiration on how to combat the new Hitler.
However, there are also other very pressing issues including the subject of Congress determining executive pay. It goes to show how OBummer managed to manipulate the whole situation, considering that he personally stopped any attempts by Congress to ensure that bonuses would not be paid in the first place. The takeover of GMH is also rather disgraceful. The market forces should be allowed to adjust over time.
What horrified me though, was the way in which both Obummer and KRudd talked down their respective economies in order to hammer through the Parliament packages full of pork. Obummer screams that it was Bush’s fault – that he inherited the mess, and so many of the faithful believe the charlatan – yet when you do the research there is one name that is implicated, the one who lobbied to have the regulations changed that would allow the bankers and traders to package the subprime mortgages in the first place. That name is Obama. He did it as the lobbyist for ACORN.
There has to be a way of bringing this man to account before it is too late.
Maggie,
I have a post about Obama’s GIVE legislation that might interest you — it’s late and I’m tired, or I would put the link in.
I wish more Americans paid as much attention to Obama’s real history as you obviously have.
Cynthia
One of the things most people have forgotten about the, so called, Reagan revolution was the background of economic teaching that had gone into preparing the ground for rejecting socialism and accepting free markets. One of the most amazing things about our current era is the apparent inability of conservatives to teach the same truths that Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell, President Reagan and others were teaching in the early 80s. Rather than offering a clear explanation of why government is the problem the majority of conservatives have jumped on the bandwagon of moment and offer instead different versions of how government is the solution. If I was king of the conservatives for a day I would make our official meme, “Government is the problem not the solution.”
with one caveat– judaism and christianity are not ‘opposing movements’ in the sense of making a leftist into a rightwinger, but rather christianity historically uses judaism as a base and does not, for the most part, refute it– Jesus was a practicing Jew who spoke in synagogue–
that said, I love your avatar, the girl from Pompeii who was bragging that she could read and write.. wasn’t her husband, pictured beside her in the painting, a lawyer? I think so..
and I enjoy your wit, experience, background and rationality… I am another Reaganite who can find a speech or two for timely application to every single problem in the daily news..
I must disagree, though, that conservatism is losing ground.. I’ve been ‘tea partying’, even went to DC on 9/12, and I have more faith in the people than ever. Less in our politicians, but more in the people. And we have a generation of read-to-serve military folk who are going to find their way into office and lead from the front also, something to look forward to.. 🙂
keep up the good work!
Big Dave
Dallas
Cynthia,
Your headline feed truly is awesome. Also, I dig cats.
Thanks!
Dr. Laura is now an Evangelical Christian?!?!?! Oh my!
As for Obama, yes, he’s gotta be ridiculed to death. The problem is that many in the black community have their identities tied into Obama. People will make any and all excuse for him because they see his failure as theirs. That’s what the libs have done to the black community: they’ve given it a monolithic mindset. I heard a black guy on Hannity today, and the guy’s position essentially was if you’re against Obama you’re a racist. No, he didn’t say it like that, but that is what he said. IOW, no person of another race can dissent from the liberal orthodoxy concerning Obama. The only way people in the community can be brought to see Obama for the vain fop that he is is if he is broken down via ridicule. The knife must be wielded in such a way that it separates him from the egos of the community. How the hell did the black community come to such a pass!?!! When you start believing that education is the province of whites only, you not only stop being educated, but you also stop thinking for yourself. That’s how. Sigh.
… The freedom the masses crave is not freedom of self-expression and self-realization, but freedom from the intolerable burden of an autonomous existence. They want freedom from “the fearful burden of free choice.”
This idea is also explored by Erich Fromm in Escape from Freedom.
I think people who find themselves being told what to do in life find it easier to deal with if everyone else is also being told what to do.
Obama once possessed the ability to move the masses but no longer.
The pretense he constructed to win the votes of those who reside in the political center and are part of the vast middle class has been crumbling as his lies and hypocrisy are revealed daily. Also, the middle class is a vast group in a capitalist society, and it is naturally resistant to collectivism. Its upper reaches include the entrepreneurs and small business owners that bring economic vitality. Virtually every aspect of Obama’s agenda is designed to injure or burden small businessmen, and this is no accident. It’s the small business owners and self-employed, along with those who aspire to join their ranks, who are the most difficult to control, and the most likely to muster effective electoral resistance to the statist agenda. The middle class is filled with people who pay attention and carefully notice how much $$ the government takes out of their paychecks each week.
Laughing at Obama is a very useful, effective way to show just what a liar he is. To expose just how weak and insecure he truly is.
Obama is slowly being exposed. He is a radical ideologue with a severe personality disorder. Many may not be able to label him as a malignant narcissist, but they will be confused and repulsed by his dishonesty and his distorted thinking. We already see this happening.
Obama has brazenly lied. Pick a topic, any topic. Let’s talk about lobbyists.
Obama built his entire rationale for electing him President on the notion that only an outsider with little experience in national politics could ever hope to change the influence peddling and backroom dealings he blamed on lobbyists. Yet in helping to craft HCR legislation we have been eyewitness to Obama’s notion of ‘hope’ and ‘change’ and we are left scratching our heads and we are rightly disgusted. Yet Obama refuses to even admit that the deals, that took place in the WH are his responsibility.
In an interview with Diane Sawyer on Monday, the president declared “I mean, I think that this gets into a big mush. So let’s just clarify. I didn’t make a bunch of deals. There is a legislative process that is taking place in Congress and I am happy to own up to the fact that I have not changed Congress and how it operates the way I would have liked.”
What a clever justification! What a brilliant rationalization! What a lie!
Unions, participating in a day long, marathon negotiating session AT THE WHITE HOUSE walked away with a sweetheart deal that exempted their ‘Cadillac” health care plans from taxation until 2018!
But let’s just clarify, the president didn’t make a bunch of deals!
This is downright delusional. This self-deception of the greatest magnitude.
The more Obama is questioned, challenged, scrutinized and exposed, when truth penetrates his deception , the more uncomfortable he will become.
Note that Obama may already be looking for a way out.
“I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.”
The light of scrutiny, the light of truth, THAT is Obama’s kryptonite.
Stephanie,
I always freeze a bit when I hear Obama say he is willing to be “a one-term” president because I believe he intends to be president-for-life. As I wrote recently, I believe he is bringing down the U.S. economy on purpose as his “fire in the Reichstag” so he has an excuse for his “Enabling Act” to suspend the Constitution and take total power.
Cynthia
That he must be stalled, stopped and removed from power is obvious.
True, too, that we must give cover to our friends and family members so they can back out gracefully (from the realization that they were dupes in voting for him anyway). (Yes, blaming it all on the MSM for their willing duplicity is a good idea, and to ACORN for their fraud will be well received.)
And as Greg says, we must teach the world about limited government and how that provides the most help to people in the form of jobs and prosperity!
Reasoner,
Hill Buzz suggests that we give people the face-saving out of blaming Oprah. Ironically, National Enquirer in November of 2009 (I think) and this month has reported that Obama keeps throwing Oprah under the bus and she is angry that her support has not translated into more access to power and invitations to the White House. But since Oprah did change her support from Hillary to Obama and she named him “The One,” I think heaping blame on top of her humiliation at Obama’s hands is appropriate. She will still be a billionaire and, ahem, not miss any meals.
Cynthia
Parallel developments in disintermediating old ways of doing things via the internet:
How a tweet brought makeshift 911 services to life in Haiti
.-= Sissy Willis´s last blog ..SOTU: Ironically, maybe the news isn’t so bad after all =-.
“Conservatives need to ponder how to make people confident in their individuality again because when they are, the demand for conservatism will follow.”
I think that this is exactly what Glenn Beck is doing with his program. He explicitly is about reminding Americans of who we are and what we believe. He encourages people to stand up for their beliefs, to question boldly and to seek the truth.
On the ridicule side, he’s exposing Progressives and their beliefs. He’s exposing how they must lie about their beliefs, because they are so pernicious.
Today’s program, Beck will be conversing with three historians about the Progressive Movement.
Jabba the Tutt,
You are correct! Glenn Beck is an educator, not a polemicist. And he loves America and understands the principles each generation must master and teach the next generation to keep America and the American Dream alive.
Cynthia
“Conservatism is losing ground right now?” I would have agreed with you on that in the wake of Obama’s big electoral win in November of 2008, but the pendulum has definitely started to swing back the other way. Can you say tea parties? Town halls? Scott Brown 41st Vote? More here in my latest blogpost:
SOTU: Ironically, maybe the news isn’t so bad after all”
.-= Sissy Willis´s last blog ..SOTU: Ironically, maybe the news isn’t so bad after all =-.
Sissy Willis,
I wrote this post on Feb. 17, 2009, which was the dark, dark day that Obama signed the $787 billion stimulus package into law. On that day, conservatism was indeed losing ground. What a difference a year makes, eh? But yesterday Instapundit linked Jonah Goldberg, who wrote about ridicule being Obama’s glass jaw, so I sent this post to him to add my two cents to the conversation and he graciously linked it this morning.
Also, THANK YOU for your heroic work on behalf of Scott Brown in Massachusetts — I pointed out to neo-neocon that you (SISU) and Prof. Jacobson and Hill Buzz were the first to spot Scott Brown’s importance as the 41st vote against Obama’s programs for destroying the American economy.
FYI, in order to give other bloggers incentive to visit here and comment, I have a plug-in called CommentLuv that finds and links your most recent post at the bottom of your comment. If you don’t see it being linked, that means there’s something missing or misspelled in the URL you entered (NOTE: Peter of Shakey Pete’s Shootin’ Shack — this means you!). So if you want to promote a post with a link here, make it a different one than your most recent post, which will be linked automatically anyway.
Cynthia
What this mass movement to restore a little individual ridicule to the political process needs is a good song. I offer (to the tune of “The Colonel Bogey March”):
Biden, he only has one b*ll,
MEchelle has two but very small.
Jarret’s are like a ferret’s,
But poor Obama has no b*lls at all.
Repeat ad infinitum.
Got it? Okay. Route step, March.
Whoops: My first comment above was meant for your Hayek 2010 post! My mind is turning to mush with all these
windows, and yet I wouldn’t have it any other way.
.-= Sissy Willis´s last blog ..SOTU: Ironically, maybe the news isn’t so bad after all =-.
Sissy Willis,
For people reading your first comment, my Hayek 2010 post is about how something called “personal fabrication,” which is the new access of individuals to design and order circuit boards and other such things for their own inventions, is going to be the driver of job creation if the government will get out of the way.
Cynthia
Conservatives should emphasize states rights. If individual states balk at some of the dopey federal ideas the blue states will be drained of revinue
Nice try, but for ridicule and shame to work, the target must have a conscience. Obama has not one.
running dog,
Read the Hoffer quotes again. We do not ridicule Obama to change Obama. We ridicule Obama to destroy his ability to dupe people.
Cynthia
I think I’m part of the mass movement that loves eric Hoffer – I’ve got all his books! Cheers to your dad for passing on a great intellectual gift to you. Good points.
Das,
Be sure to read Jamie Glazov’s book, United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror. Dr. Glazov brings Hoffer’s work up-to-date. He writes for Frontpage magazine online.
Cynthia
Every day that goes by I just get more and more depressed. While Obama and his radical cohort work behind closed doors to transform our nation the Republicans work…uh…well, I assume they have some policy they will soon share with us. I continue to believe that we require a change in perspective to let us look DOWN on our government and determine what “We the People” want it to do. The money we hear being flushed away, by either party, can only be tracked if we try to track it. Looking down, why is it that recipients of government aid, grants, loans, tax abatements, etc don’t receive an IRS Form 1099-GOV but you get your W-2 and IRS 1099-misc? This is why they act like it’s their money to do with as they see fit! IRS Form 1099-GOV for ALL!!!
SenatorMark4,
Your “depressed” remark makes you sound like a concern troll, or a Democrat. There are plenty of reasons to be optimistic, if you are a fiscal conservative and/or Republican. The determination of Obama/Pelosi/Reid to impose their not-really healthcare reforms against the will of the majority of voters is waking Americans up to the fact that of their true nature as totalitarians and socialists and a majority of Americans have promptly taken up the cudgels to defeat them. A year ago it looked like Democrats would be in power for a generation. Now, it looks like Republicans will take back both the House and Senate.
So — huzzah!
Cynthia
I agree totally with your assessment.
That’s why Obama SOTU contained so much ridicule and contempt for anyone even vaguely thwarting him, he knows his Alinsky. He’s trying to regain the upper hand with the media and the country at large. More than anything, his SOTU address was aimed right at the thirty percent or so who still support him.
He is a sociopath, whether by nature, nurture, or as I believe, training as a “community organizer”:
THE PASSION OF THE PICKLE-YELLER
http://naturalfake.wordpress.com/2010/01/10/the-passion-of-the-pickle-yeller/
If you have time and/or inclination, check out our website. We yield to no one in the ridicule dept. though we have thoughtful pieces as well.
I, too, have come to the conclusion that ridicule the best weapon against this administration. Unfortunately.
Written above, ” “Citizens of all colors are about to witness on a national scale what has been quietly fermenting for decades within the Ivory Tower: a crystallization of ethnic identity so rigid that dialogue becomes virtually impossible.””
In 1991, I was a part time tutor at Seattle Central Community College. At one point, all tutors were required to attend a training session labeled something like “multicultural tutoring.” The gist of the entire session was that the races learn in different ways. Caucasians learn by taking things apart and studying how they work. Several tutors offered that this was a really horrible way of learning and were part of the reason Caucasians were so horrible. (The black female session leader offered no objection.) Black people, on the other hand, learn on the diagonal, using intuition and allowing knowledge of the transcendental nature of things. All agreed that this was really cool. Asian people take things apart too. This caused some obvious consternation in the audience because it was just like white people, but the leader added that Asian people then put things back together and achieved the same transcendental knowledge as black people. Which made it OK.
As I write this post, it seems very surreal. I trust my memory of the incident, but still can’t help thinking, “Intelligent people couldn’t have been that bizarre, could they?”
jvermeer51,
Yes, that theory of different races learning differently does sound creepy and without foundation.
However, ayurveda, the traditional medical system of India, discusses 10 different body types based on the combinations of the three doshas — kapha, pitta and vata — and their respective learning styles and I find its principles are solid. Kaphas must physically rehearse and/or experience to learn; they learn slowly but keep their knowledge forever. Pittas must see in order to learn; they learn at a medium rate, ditto for forgetting what they learn. Vatas learn by listening; they learn and forget quickly, so they are both the intellectuals AND the air-heads in any class. Certain body types DO predominate in different races. Whites and Asians are both predominantly different combinations of pitta and vata. Not surprisingly, our educational system is built for the learning styles of pittas and vatas — lessons are shown (seen) and explained (heard) far more than they are experienced or rehearsed, as would be ideal for kaphas.
Since the kapha mind-body type is common among blacks, it is true that our educational system is not as geared to the kapha learning style — and therefore their needs — as it could be. There is excellent information on ayurveda at The Raj and Maharishi Ayur-veda Products International. (I’ve known Dr. Nancy Lonsdorf, of The Raj, since she was a medical student at Johns Hopkins. She is a superb physician.)
Cynthia
Cynthia,
I agree with you that Obama might try to create a fire at the Reichstag event to take power, but would our military follow his orders? The cadets at his speech last year and the top brass who sat through his recent State of the Union look like a group that would be extemely unwilling to back Obama on a takeover of America. That he would try is scary, but maybe not that scary. Your thoughts?
BvG
BvG,
I think Obama now feels supreme confidence that he can force anyone to do his will. I also am worried about how he has rigged this game — he never plays a game he hasn’t rigged.
Cynthia
While that may be true, as you believe, that he is capable of such evil, he will not succeed. He may be willful but the power of the American people and the electoral system we have in place will keep him in check. His window of opportunity is already closing fast with the election of Scott Brown, and the great awakening of previously politically unengaged Americans.
Group evil, such as you envision, can be prevented. It can be prevented by turning first and foremost to the INDIVIDUAL. The ‘group mind’ is ultimately determined by the minds of individuals who make up the group. In this case, the middle-class.
As M. Scott Peck wrote, in his groundbreaking book, People of the Lie, “As a single vote may be crucial in an election, so the whole course of human history may depend on a change of heart in one solitary and even humble individual…This is why the individual is sacred. For it is in the solitary mind and soul of the individual that the battle between good and evil is waged and ultimately won or lost.”
Through education and outreach now available in cable media, the internet and other electronic social networking sites, as well as the traditional family, community and religious networks, like minded individuals are able to connect and organize as never before.
Peck also goes on to say, “…laziness and narcissism are at the very root of all human evil.” Each individual is of sacred importance. Our founders understood and preserved this truth in our Constitution. It is ingrained in our indomitable spirit and national character. We must impress upon individuals to resist the temptation, in times of great stress, to regress to a child-like state and surrender our liberty, our souls to the power of the government or to any being other than God.
I know so many people who voted for Obama and who are now angry and engaged that I cannot believe that the pure power of the freedom, granted to us by God, protected for us in our Constitution and so dearly loved by it’s citizens will defeat Barak Obama.
oops…I meant to say in my last line…I cannot believe…will NOT defeat Barak Obama.
You might like the Tea Party Sign at the link.
As to the “one term fear”. Congress is very jealous of its power. And a change in the party in control in Nov 2010 may help.
.-= M. Simon´s last blog ..Illinois Governor’s Race 2010 =-.
It seems to me the GOP laughed at Obama a couple of times at the SOTU, particularly when he mentioned the settle science of global warming. But maybe I imagined it.
Vita,
You are correct — the GOP did laugh a couple of times and Obama went off-script to put them down: to wit, his asides on “this is how the budget works” and something about AGM really being true. It is a measure of his arrogance that he didn’t realize those were laugh lines.
Cynthia
The McCain campaign successfully used mockery against Obama, and McCain briefly took a small lead. Then he lost his composure as the financial crisis broke and the game was over; he was too much of an underdog to survive a mistake of that magnitude.
Outright nastiness would have let Obama respond with the race card and the mean-spirited card. The McCain people had the good judgment to sidestep that.
IMHO the key to using mockery against the Democrats is to be amused and light on your feet, and not to be vicious.
Cynthia,
I was designing circuit boards for personal fabrication 15 years ago. You send them files and money and you get back plastic with a metal pattern. Prices have come down and the number of layers you can get have gone up.
BTW I have a comment in the awaiting moderation queue.
.-= M. Simon´s last blog ..Illinois Governor’s Race 2010 =-.
I totally agree that a subtle chuckle rather than a vicious rant would be particularly effective. Libs always become unhinged and it makes them look petty and ridiculous.
Perhaps this also explains why he set up a tattle-tell e-mail addy to monitor those who would dare to mock The One? One thing is certain, Michelle is even more fragile — and vicious.
Thank you for the reminder of Hoffer’s books. It’s been years since I read them and now I look forward to re-reading them. The one idea of his that did stick with me was in reference to book selection: An author’s first book is the best, the second, larger, book is a rehash of the first book’s ideas pushed by the publisher based on the success of the first. This has saved time and money in book purchases.
“No great movement designed to change the world can bear to be laughed at or belittled,”
The fact is, Obama is trying to take all are freedome away. I want My Country back!
“Somehow, thanks to the constant ridicule of the mainstream media, and their shameless falsehoods and bias — the one that irks me the most is the “Bush-tax-cuts-for-the-rich” chant, when those tax cuts also dropped the tax rate for the poorest taxpayers by 50 percent”
15% to 10% is not a 50% cut.
The share of the tax cuts for the bottom 20% was 1.20%. The share of the tax cuts for the top 20% was 67.70%. You can look it up!
pj,
I was actually thinking of the increase from 10 percent to 15 percent — the poor will pay 50 percent more than previously. How extraordinarily callous you are toward the poor not to know how large their mite is to them!
Cynthia