Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Uncontemplated Change is the Devil's Workshop

In elements of the Obama speech, I can see all of the rhetoric but none of the substance. But we should not worry, right? Youthful energy and optimism are the important factors here.

Years from now, you'll look back and you'll say that this was the moment, this was the place where America remembered what it means to hope. - Obama
"Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way round, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise" - Adolf Hitler














It's not ignoring the enormity of the task ahead or the roadblocks that stand in our path. It's not sitting on the sidelines or shirking from a fight.
- Obama










We're choosing unity over division and sending a powerful message that change is coming to America.
- Obama
Learn from the masses, and then teach them.
- Mao Tse Tung







Che flag spotted in an Obama campaign office.

I ended the problem giving him a shot with a .32 pistol in the right side of the brain, with exit orifice in the right temporal. He gasped for a little while and was dead. Upon proceeding to remove his belongings I couldn't get off the watch tied by a chain to his belt, and then he told me in a steady voice farther away than fear: "Yank it off, boy, what does it matter." I did so and his possessions were now mine. - Che Guevara
















Change for change sake. Style over substance. Bearing a standard on this criteria has ended the freedom of nations.


"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell

8 comments:

Sezme said...

I said to some students, today, that Obama would make a decent motivational speaker, since he hypes the hope, but he has nothing of substance to say.

The whole primary season is flat out screwy. I don't even have the words for it all.

Insolublog said...

rt - I have the words, but not the will. I am tired of death by compromise. Do you, as a teacher, see some hope out there? This cultural treason in Berkeley is really burning me up.

miriam sawyer said...

Great minds think alike: I wrote about this at http://miriamsideas.blogspot.com/2008/02/this-creeps-me-out.html

Very well done.

Ssssteve said...

It's like they are all a bunch of lemmings. Just follow the next guy to you. Or, it's like he is the pied piper, blowing his flute while the mice come running. I'm scared, really!

Sezme said...

The juniors and seniors I speak to, for the most part, do think hard and long about how the candidates will impact society.

Some, however, still follow the "liberal" approach to life, as that is how they were raised. I think the quieter students in our political discussions are conservative (given my experience with kids). They don't want to argue, because they don't go the nasty route so often hurled at conservatives.

I have hope, because I really do see good kids trying to do good things out of sincerity. Unfortunately, my kids are not what you find at most schools. There are parents who raise their kids to not value education, common sense, and who teach their kids to ride the system for all that its worth. That is not hyperbole; it is the truth.

Sezme said...

Sorry...wasn't finished.

I also had a discussion with a few students yesterday about education of self. They were talking about how they should have a class in a particular subject (really not necessary, trust me) because they didn't know enough about that subject. I said that they should educate themselves and look to their parents for this particular type of education. I explained the importance (as I do a lot of the time) of questioning and investigating what it is we are trying to understand/learn.

I said to not do that and to expect a social institution to fill that void will lead them to a "nanny" state and to a government that controls everything.

They actually agreed with me. (It was an at-the-end of class, nothing to do with the topic at hand, discussion.)

Uber said...

"There are parents who raise their kids to not value education, common sense, and who teach their kids to ride the system for all that its worth. That is not hyperbole; it is the truth."

Sad but true. Intellectual as well as physical laziness will be our undoing as a nation, imo. The conservative way requires personal effort.

Of course, I'm currently in the welfare state.. so that may have something to do with my present outlook.

I have no real hope to offer, Insolu...but as always, great read!

Insolublog said...

miriam - Thanks.

sssteve - I just don't want to have to pay this piper.

rt - I am also concerned with the young college crowd, where there is even less protection from the specter of indoctrination. The academia is even more likely to push their agenda, since the source of government money is more volatile and is supplemented by a large foreign component. Unfortunately, these young kids do not have enough exposure to life in the private sector, or plain civics, to make an informed judgment about the ineffectiveness of government solutions.

Uber - Frankly, it's human nature. Anyone could see that behavior coming, since it manifests itself in nature. Physical phenomena and uninspired people, both gravitate towards the path of least energy expenditure. It should be our mandate to reward inspired behavior first, and discourage social stagnation.