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So why is Obama here? Is the UCCS vote a big catch? Is there $1000 plate gold in the Broodmoor Hills to mine? Is the military brass congregating at North Comm for the future President to talk to? Or is he having a super secret meeting with Dobson and gang up on Briargate Pkwy. HARDLY.....
He is using the symbolic back drop of CO Springs and UCCS as pulpit to move forward the call for national service. It is a non-partisan policy initiative but I am certain Obama will use the selfless service of the heavy military community here, the evangelical service and non-profits and yet he will probably call for much more. Standing in the belly of the beast he is silently challenging the RIGHT to say no to his actions.
But also he is challenging them on their home turf. Politics is about amassing and counting the votes. Most votes wins. Hillary and forces learned that lesson regardless of their hopeless math this spring. The Republicans in a down cycle year in their brand (I always like how they refer to their party as a marketing identity instead of a political ideology and calling.) Anyway in a down cycle year Obama is politically attacking McCain and the Republicans in their base.
In the Electoral Race Obama seeks to expand the battleground states. Think of it like how a football team like the old Chicago Bears attacked the quarterback in the old '46 Defense. Buddy Ryan had a simple math, I will send more from different angles and eventually take out your QB. In the national race Obama has now put CO in play, along with PA, OH, FL, MI, WI and MN. There is talk that VA and NC are also in play meaning three former Republican base states are weak---kind of like injured lineman.
By coming to CO Springs Obama seeks to get a bigger bump with the National Convention where he will be all over the local and regional news in Denver next month. Finally here is the math in CO: Ritter gathered 40% in El Paso County (42% in CO Springs) he won the state at 57%. Ken Salazar won CO in 2004 with 51.3% and got 34% in El Paso County. (Remember also that Fawcett gathered 42% of the vote as a Dem Congressional candidate in '06 also). The difference between Ritter and Salazar was in El Paso County. For CO it is all about El Paso County where if a Dem gathers 40% or more CO is theirs.
That is why Obama is here when it come down to it. The thing is Obama's campaign is very aware of symbolism, opportunity, organization and policy (meaning issues). It is far more powerful than simply wedge issues that the right have had up their sleeves for the last couple of decades.
The timing of the Colo Springs trip with Sen. Obama's speech yesterday on Pres. Bush's faith-based initiatives program and the policy assistance by David Kuo and John Dilulio (former Bush White House officials on the faith program) is an interesting turn of events as well.
Couple these developments with Sen. McCain's visceral discomfort with the evangelical community and fractures from within the conservative religious movement on a whole host of issues, like environmentalism, that are now reaching beyond partisan affiliation.
It's going to be an interesting election season.
You're absolutely right on Ritter and Ken Salazar who also had success in CD-4, another bastion of political conservatism.
What other wedge issues do you think might persuade your friends and neighbors in the Springs to reconsider straight ticket voting? And what affect might that have on state and local races?
Now that she is out of the race, the Academy can (and should) be picked up by Sen. Obama. It could be for President Obama what the Peace Corps was for JFK -- a highly-visible national institution that attracts a new generation into public service. You can learn more here:
http://www.uspublicserviceacademy.org
Why doesn't he support this?
If you learn how to rule one single man?s soul, you can get the rest of mankind. It?s the soul, Peter, the soul. Not whips or swords or fire or guns. That?s why the Caesars, the attilas, the Napoleons were fools and did not last. We will. The soul, Peter, is that which can?t be ruled. It must be broken. Drive a wedge in, get your fingers on it ? and the man is yours. You won?t need a whip ? he?ll bring it to you and ask to be whipped. Set him in reverse ? and his own mechanism will do your work for you. Use him against himself. Want to know how it?s done? See if I ever lied to you. See if you haven?t heard all this for years, but didn?t want to hear, and the fault is yours, not mine.
There are many ways. Here?s one. Make man feel small. Make him feel guilty. Kill his aspiration and his integrity. That?s difficult. The worst among you gropes for an idol in his own twisted way. Kill integrity by internal corruption. Use it against himself. Direct it towards a goal destructive of all integrity. Preach selflessness. Tell man that altruism is the ideal. Not a single one has ever reached it and not a single one ever will. His every living instinct screams against it. But don?t you see what you accomplish ? Man realises that he?s incapable of what he?s accepted as the noblest virtue - and it gives him a sense of guilt, of sin, of his own basic unworthiness. Since the supreme ideal is beyond his grasp, he gives up eventually all ideals, all aspiration, all sense of his personal value. He feels himself obliged to preach what he can?t practice. But one can?t be good halfway or honest approximately. To preserve one?s integrity is a hard battle. Why preserve that which one knows to be corrupt already? His soul gives up its self respect. You?ve got him. He?ll obey. He?ll be glad to obey ? because he can?t trust himself, he feels uncertain, he feels unclean. That?s one way.
I don?t see why you should look so shocked, Peter. This is the oldest one of all. Look back at history. Look at any great system of ethics, from the Orient up. Didn?t they all preach the sacrifice of personal joy ? Under all the complications of verbiage, haven?t they all had a single leitmotif: sacrifice, renunciation, self-denial ? Haven?t you been able to catch their theme song ? ?Give up, give up, give up, give up? ? Look at the moral atmosphere of today. Everything enjoyable, from cigarettes to sex to ambition to the profit motive, is considered depraved or sinful. Just prove that a thing makes men happy and you?ve damned it. That?s how far we?ve come. We?ve tied happiness to guilt. And we?ve got mankind by the throat.
Throw your first born into a sacrificial furnace ? lie on a bed of nails ? go into the desert to mortify the flesh ? don?t dance ? don't go to the movies on Sunday ? don't try to get rich ? don?t smoke ? don?t drink. It?s all the same line. The great line. Fools don?t think that taboos of this nature are just nonsense. Something left over, old-fashioned. But there?s always a purpose in nonsense. Don?t bother to examine a folly ? ask yourself only what it accomplishes. Every system of ethics that preached sacrifice grew into a world power and ruled millions of men.
Of course, you must dress them up. You must tell people they?ll achieve a superior kind of happiness by giving up everything that makes them happy. You don't have to be too clear about it. Use big vague words. ?Universal Harmony? ? ?Eternal Spirit? ? ?Divine Purpose? ? ?Nirvana? - ?Paradise? ? ?Racial Supremacy? ? ?the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.? Internal corruption, Peter. That?s the oldest one of all. The farce has been going on for centuries and men still fall for it.
Yet the test should be so simple: just listen to any prophet and if you hear him speak of sacrifice ? run. Run faster than from a plague. It stands to reason that where there?s sacrifice, there?s someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there?s service, there?s someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master. But if you ever hear a man telling you that you must be happy, that it?s your natural right, that your first duty is to yourself ? that will be the man who has nothing to gain from you. But let him come and you?ll scream your empty heads off, howling that he?s a selfish monster. So the racket is safe for many, many centuries.
"Peter, you?ve heard all this. You?ve seen me practising it for ten years. You see it being practised all over the world. Why are you disgusted ? You have no right to sit there and stare at me with the virtuous superiority of being shocked. You?re in on it. You?ve taken your share and you?ve got to go along. You?re afraid to see where it?s leading. I?m not. I?ll tell you.
The world of the future. The world I want. A world of obedience and of unity. A world where the thought of each man will not be his own, but an attempt to guess the thought of the next neighbour who?ll have no thought ? and so on, Peter, around the globe. Since all must agree with all. A world where no man will hold a desire for himself, but will direct all his efforts to satisfy the desires of his neighbour who?ll have no desires except to satisfy the desires of the next neighbour, who?ll have no desires ? around the globe, Peter. Since all must serve all. A world in which man will not work for so innocent an incentive as money, but for that headless monster ? prestige. The approval of his fellows ? their good opinion ? the opinion of men who?ll be allowed to hold no opinion. An octopus, all tentacles and no brain.
Judgement, Peter ! Not judgement, but public polls. An average drawn upon zeroes ? since no individuality will be permitted. A world with its motor cut off and a single heart, pumped by hand. My hand ? and the hands of a few, a very few other men like me. Those who know what makes you tick ? you great, wonderful average, you who have not risen in fury when we called you the average, the little, the common, you who?ve liked and accepted these names. You?ll sit enthroned and enshrined, you, the little people, the absolute ruler to make all past rulers squirm with envy, the absolute, the unlimited, God and Prophet and King combined. Vox populi. The average, the common, the general.
Do you know the proper antonym for Ego ? Bromide, Peter. The rule of the bromide. But even the trite has to be organised by someone at some time. We?ll do the organising. Vox dei. We?ll enjoy unlimited submission ? from men who?ve learned nothing except to submit. We?ll call it ?to serve?. We?ll give out medals for service. You?ll fall over one another in a scramble to see who can submit better and more. There will be no other distinction to seek. No other form of personal achievement.
Insane ? Look around you. Pick up any newspaper and read the headlines. Isn?t it coming ? Isn?t it here ? Every single thing I told you ? Isn?t Europe swallowed already and we?re stumbling on to follow ? Everything I said is contained in a single word ? collectivism. And isn?t that the god of our century. To act together. To think ? together. To feel ? together. To unite, to agree, to obey. To obey, to serve, to sacrifice. Divide and conquer ? first. But then, unite and rule. We?ve discovered that one last. Remember the Roman Emperor who said he wished humanity had a single neck so he could cut it ? People have laughed at him for centuries. But we?ll have the last laugh. We?ve accomplished what he couldn?t accomplish. We?ve taught men to unite. This makes one neck ready for one leash. We found the magic word. Collectivism.
Look at Europe, you fool. Can?t you see past the guff and recognise the essence ? One country is dedicated to the proposition that man has no rights, that the collective is all. The individual held as evil, the mass ? as God. No motive and no virtue permitted ? except that of service to the proletariat.
That?s one version. Here?s another. A country dedicated to the proposition that man has no rights, that the State is all. The individual held as evil, the race ? as God. No motive and no virtue permitted ? except that of service to the race. Am I raving or is this the harsh reality of two continents already ? If you?re sick of one version, we push you in the other. We?ve fixed the coin. Heads ? collectivism. Tails ? collectivism. Give up your soul to a council ? or give it up to a leader. But give it up, give it up, give it up. Offer poison as food and poison as antidote. Go fancy on the trimmings, but hang on to the main objective. Give the fools a chance, let them have their fun ? but don?t forget the only purpose you have to accomplish. Kill the individual. Kill man?s soul. The rest will follow automatically."