Forget the Clowns
Once upon a time Nobel Prize-winning ethologist Konrad Lorenz had a jackdaw colony. One morning he noticed the alpha male allowed a low ranking female to force him from a feeding tray. It turned out that a wandering male had returned to the colony, defeated the previous alpha and his mate, and had bonded with the female, thus she became part of the alpha pair and had higher status than the previous alpha male. The entire colony knew and acted accordingly.
It has been theorized that the surest evolutionary path to intelligence is living in a social group and having to keep track of social relationships. Like jackdaws we are social animals and like them we have to keep track of such relationships. This makes us especially interested in gossip.
How is that related to politics? Well, if someone is interesting, that makes them easier to remember. Palin is interesting. She reminds me of Neocon French President Sarkozy and his wild personal life with his wife’s naked pictures appearing on the internet and his previous wife describing him as a “skinflint lothario who parties all night with women whose name he doesn’t remember” and his previous relationships which included the daughter of former French President Chiracs, a relationship, which some claim, led to her husband’s suicide.
It has been claimed that Sarkozy has used the drama of his personal life to distract the French people from governmental actions that have caused them harm. In just such a way Palin’s bizarre personal life is being used to distract the American people from Republicans policies that have and will harm them.
“Bread and circuses” (from Latin: panem et circenses) is an ancient Roman metaphor for people choosing food and fun over freedom. As people have become more immune to the entertainment media, some leaders have begin to act as the circus part of that equation. Palin is just such a clown, an interesting clown who distracts the public from what really matters.
There’s a picture of Palin in a bikini with a gun. It doesn’t matter that it was photoshoped. There’s a picture of her in a micro-mini and an open satin blouse. It doesn’t matter that it was photoshoped. They use sexy models to sell cars and razors and a thousand other things even though the models have nothing to do with the product they are being used to sell. Just the image of the sexy woman makes many men, maybe almost all men, want to buy what is being sold. It doesn’t matter what Palin is selling. Some men will buy. The bikini, the gun, Palin’s face. It’s an ad campaign. It’s a lie like all ad campaigns. That doesn’t stop it from working.
She’s a way to distract the American people from what really matters. An effective way. Remember she is just a weather girl/clown there to distract us. STOP paying attention to her.
I was recently reading a forum that asked: If you were to send one email to convince your republican family or friends to vote for Obama, which clip, site, or text would you include?
I decided that what I would send would be a collage. On one side would be pictures (or videos) of war and death and houses for sale, of people being tortured, people on the roofs after Katrina, people crying and dying, wolves being killed from helicopters (the one concession to Palin), starving polar bears, and over that, McCain and Bush embracing. Then on the other side I would have Obama pushing those images back with all kinds of people helping him. The picture would have to make clear that the people were helping, not pushing him. Behind him would be smiling children and happy kids in graduating gowns and a nice nature scene. We need to remind the American people of the last eight years and not get bogged down in anything else.
Remind the American people that there are two possible futures for our nation and ask them to help us achieve the one we deserve.
Obama needs to run against George Bush. Not Sarah Palin. Not even John McCain. It is Bush and his policies that are our enemies.
PS. Have you noticed that 90% of the time on the news channels when they have someone supporting Obama it’s almost always someone black? Isn’t that code trying to convince the American people subliminally that only blacks support Obama, that he’s not one of us and isn’t concerned with the same things we are?
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To comment email alllie at alllie@newsgarden.org
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© Alllie 2008
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