IF BARACK Obama doesn't win November's presidential election in the United States, "you can kiss the Democratic Party goodbye", the actor and director Robert Redford told an audience in Dublin last night.Judging by Obama's council of wise men and women on foreign policy (Anthony Lake, Madeleine Albright, Sam Nunn...), it's not very clear just why Redford thinks Obama will usher in a "new group." But hey, the guy's time is valuable, you can't expect him to spend it on minutiae like this.Speaking at a public interview in Trinity College in advance of his conferral with an honorary degree by the university today, Redford said he hoped Obama would win because while John McCain "represents yesterday", the Democrat embodied the sort of change America needed....
"I think Obama is not tall on experience . . . but I believe he's a really good person. He's smart. And he does represent what the country needs most now, which is change.
"I hope he'll win. I think he will. If he doesn't, you can kiss the Democratic Party goodbye. I think we need new voices, new blood. We need to get a whole group out, get a new group in..."
"I believe he's a really good person," Redford says. Much as I hate to say it, maybe this means that George Lakoff has a point. It's not what Obama says, or what he'll do, that matters. Here's what matters to Redford and the other Obamaniacs: Is he one of us? And of course the answer is yes. Which says more, perhaps, about them than him.
I wish I could believe that Redford was right to say that Obama's defeat this November would destroy the Democratic Party. Alas, I fear it would take a lot more than that. Drawing and quartering, burial at the crossroads in the dark of the moon, exorcism with bell book and candle -- do it all, and the fetid old bloodsucker would still somehow shabbily assemble its disjecta membra and come lurching relentlessly back.
Comments (8)
The risk of allowing our emotions to rule our intelligence.
Posted by Jay Taber | July 12, 2008 2:12 PM
Posted on July 12, 2008 14:12
Pathetic. The problem isn't GWBush, as has been said many times in many different ways here, but a lightweight political culture that encouraged and allowed his presence to begin with.
Posted by Michael Hureaux | July 12, 2008 3:18 PM
Posted on July 12, 2008 15:18
There is nothing natural about political infantility; it is an achievement of investing in ideas. Cultural imbecility, likewise. Mythology has to be nurtured to survive cognitive dissonance; otherwise, such things as legitimacy collapse in the face of logic. Making sense of things, however, requires disciplined minds--not something found in abundance in America.
Posted by Jay Taber | July 12, 2008 4:58 PM
Posted on July 12, 2008 16:58
Maybe making this much nonsense of things requires more discipline. Who says we're special? Too much cognitive dissonance made my mind snap.
Posted by StO | July 12, 2008 7:41 PM
Posted on July 12, 2008 19:41
True.
False.
The investment was in an infrastructure for the dissemination of propaganda; images, stereotypes, a catalog of rhetorical and argumentative moves. For such propaganda to be effective, there should be unifying narratives and metaphors, but these too can be void of cognitive content; even Plato knew that.
The Romantic notion that ideas have agency is demonstrably false; appeals to ideas without some notion of political practice is sententious hooey.
Posted by Mean Joe Spleen | July 13, 2008 2:51 AM
Posted on July 13, 2008 02:51
"The Romantic notion .... ideas have agency ... demonstrably false... appeals to ideas without some notion of political practice...sententious hooey ... unifying narratives and metaphors.. void of cognitive content..."
".. even Plato knew that"
poor plato
Posted by op | July 13, 2008 8:02 AM
Posted on July 13, 2008 08:02
"Mythology has to be nurtured to survive cognitive dissonance; otherwise, such things as legitimacy collapse in the face of logic"
too strict
Posted by op | July 13, 2008 8:07 AM
Posted on July 13, 2008 08:07
You do feel a bit sorry for poor old Plato, don't you Owen? I know I do. All those squabbling hacks in academia digging up his bones and chewing on them... the socratic method perverted into a tool for human resources thugs to interrogate people... a merit class that makes a sick mockery of his pedagogical inspirations...
Look at the way he was treated in his own time, plagued by that smug, chicken-plucking hooligan Diogenes! No respect. No respect whatsoever.
On the other hand, he should have been slapped silly with that chicken. It would have improved his philosophy and saved us all a lot of trouble.
Posted by Al Schumann | July 13, 2008 2:22 PM
Posted on July 13, 2008 14:22