PRES ELECT OBAMA: PLEASE READ & HEED

> Obama and The Palin Effect
>
> From: Deepak Chopra | Posted: Friday, September 5th, 2008
>
> Sometimes politics has the uncanny effect of mirroring the national
> psyche even when nobody intended to do that. This is perfectly
> illustrated by the rousing effect that Gov. Sarah Palin had on the
> Republican convention in Minneapolis this week. On the surface, she
> outdoes former Vice President Dan Quayle as an unlikely choice, given
> her negligent parochial expertise in the complex affairs of governing.
> Her state of Alaska has less than 700,000 residents, which reduces the
> job of governor to the scale of running one-tenth of New York City . By
> comparison, Rudy Giuliani is a towering international figure. Palin's
> pluck has been admired, and her forthrightness, but her real appeal
> goes deeper.
>
> She is the reverse of Barack Obama, in essence his shadow, deriding
> his idealism and exhorting people to obey their worst impulses. In
> psychological terms the shadow is that part of the psyche that hides
> out of sight, countering our aspirations, virtue, and vision with
> qualities we are ashamed to face: anger, fear, revenge, violence,
> selfishness, and suspicion of "the other." For millions of Americans,
> Obama triggers those feelings, but they don't want to express them. He
> is calling for us to reach for our higher selves, and frankly, that
> stirs up hidden reactions of an unsavory kind. (Just to be perfectly
> clear, I am not maki ng a verbal play out of the fact that Sen. Obama
> is black. The shadow is a metaphor widely in use before his arrival on
> the scene.)
>
> I recognize that psychological analysis of politics is usually not
> welcome by the public, but I believe such a perspective can be helpful
> here to understand Palin's message. In her acceptance speech Gov.
> Palin sent a rousing call to those who want to celebrate their
> resistance to change and a higher vision.
>
> Look at what she stands for:
>
> --Small town values -- a denial of America 's global role, a return to
> petty, small-minded parochialism.
>
> --Ignorance of world affairs -- a repudiation of the need to repair
> America 's image abroad.
>
> --Family values -- a code for walling out anybody who makes a claim
> for social justice. Such strangers, being outside the family, don't
> need to be heeded.
>
> --Rigid stands on guns and abortion -- a scornful repudiation that
> these issues can be negotiated with those who disagree.
>
> --Patriotism -- the usual fallback in a failed war.
>
> --"Reform" -- an italicized term, since in addition to cleaning out
> corruption and excessive spending, one also throws out anyone who
> doesn't fit your ideology.
>
> Palin reinforces the overall message of the reactionary right, which
> has been in play since 1980, that social justice is liberal-radical,
> that minorities and immigrants, being different from "us" pure
> American types, can be ignored, that progressivism takes too much
> effort and globalism is a foreign threat. The radical right marches
> under the banners of "I'm all right, Jack," and "Why change?
> Everything's OK as it is." The irony, of course, is that Gov. Palin is
> a woman and a reactionary at the same time. She can add mom to apple
> pie on her resume, while blithely reversing forty years of feminist
> progress. The irony is superficial; there are millions of women who
> stand on the side of conservatism, however obviously they are voting
> against their own good. The Republicans have won multiple national
> elections by raising shadow issues based on fear, rejection, hostility
> to change, and narrow-mindedness.
>
> Obama's call for higher ideals in politics can't be seen in a vacuum.
> The shadow is real; it was bound to respond. Not just conservatives
> possess a shadow -- we all do. So what comes next is a contest between
> the two forces of progress and inertia. Will the shadow win again, or
> has its furtive appeal become exhausted? No one can predict. The best
> thing about Gov. Palin is that she brought this conflict to light,
> which makes the upcoming debate honest. It would be a shame to elect
> another Reagan, whose smiling persona was a stalking horse for the
> reactionary forces that have brought us to the demoralized state we
> are in. We deserve to see what we are getting, without disguise.
>
>



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