Always alert for signs of human intelligence in the blogosphere, I was happy to come across Accumulating Peripherals just now (thanks to Neighbor Jim). A small sample:
Sarah Palin notes in a new right-wing propaganda film that the media employed search and destroy tactics against her: “We are going to seek and we are going to destroy this candidacy of Sarah Palin’s because of what it is that she represents.”Palin is right that the media deployed a search and destroy strategy against her, and that this was every bit as poor a strategy as it was in Vietnam. Like the Viet Cong and the NVA, Palin has simply retreated to her base areas, where the media have been unable to effectively pursue her, and keeps resurfacing at times of her choosing to harass and entrap media forces. The NVA called this strategy “clinging to the belt” of the enemy, engaging them only when one has a temporary advantage, then melting away in the face of counterattacks.
What the media needs to do is shift to a “clear and hold” counterinsurgency strategy, creating secure Palin-free zones where citizens can pursue their interests in peace and safety, and allowing Palin to sit out in her bases — the mountains, the deep jungle, the tunnel complexes — as her strength gradually withers until she is no longer a threat.
IMHO, this idea that Palin's strength will wither if we all ignore her (a la the Simpsons episode http://wtso.net/cat/7.html) is an artifact of the Wimpy Liberal outlook.
The reason Palin was more popular than her running mate, whatever his name was, is not that she has a secret red lantern hidden away somewhere. It's not the media attention. It's that a large subset of Americans buy into the same stupid crap she does. According to the polls, many, in some cases most, Americans believe that
- God created humanity in its present form 10,000 years ago or less.
- Humans and dinosaurs walked the earth simultaneously.
- There's a literal devil.
- Moses physically parted the Red Sea.
- The sun orbits the earth.
Then there's the Rapture crowd, which gleefully anticipates the destruction of the earth on the theory that they'll be snatched up into heaven just in time to watch the people they hate burn in a lake of fire. And they know that they're good Christians because they hate the right people.
The Wimpy Libs think that such ignorant bullshit is dying out on its own, but polling data doesn't appear to support that.
The way out, I think, is to educate Americans. But to do so, we must start early. Most of the people I grew up with will kill you rather than learn from you, because they believe that knowledge is inherently impure. Everything they learn takes them farther away from God.
These are the type of folks who burn libraries. Ignoring them won't make them disappear.
Posted by: Chuck Dupree on February 25, 2009 2:11 AM