The reviews of Sarah Palin's VP nomination acceptance speech seem to be overwhelmingly positive, at least those reviews from conservative pundits: "The start of something truly big", "A star was born last night"; "She has star quality"; etc.
I watched her speak and I thought it was a pretty decent delivery of a somewhat marginal speech. The crowd stepped on a lot of her lines with applause, she made a lot of references to Obama's foibles that people who aren't political junkies probably didn't get, and while she was trying to stress her relevant experience, she still looks pretty green to me.
On the other hand, looking at the faces at the convention while she was speaking, and also noticing the rapt look on my daughters (ages 12 and 9) and wife's faces, she is clearly a mesmerizing speaker for many people. Just like Obama. Now each ticket has their very own hypnotist. I'm not surprised that Obama hypnotizes people. His cadence and tone sound somewhat hypnotic to me. I'm a little more surprised that Palin has this effect since she has a much different speaking style. However, I'm pretty convinced that a lot of the crowd was hypnotized.
This could be a serious problem. This election, like the previous two presidential elections, might also be close. Hypnotized followers can be incited to do very extreme things. Hitler was such a speaker and leader and his leadership didn't turn out too well for the world. I'm not saying that either Obama or Palin (McCain) would take us in a direction even vaguely similar to Hitler. What I am saying is that the side that loses this election, being hypnotized, may be even more irrational in dealing with their disappointment than in previous elections. And the losers were already pretty scary in those previous elections.
My wife and I have made a strict rule that we're not going to talk about politics at all with friends, family, co-workers, or anybody in person until well after the election. Many of our friends are already hypnotized by one side or the other and are clearly extremely emotional when politics is even mentioned. Emotional to the point of visibly shaking. Emotional to the point of being completely irrational. Emotional to the point of talking about moving out of the country if their candidate loses. And these are generally intelligent and balanced people. I'm finding it very scary.
Fortunately, I can still spout off about politics here in the safety of the blogosphere. If I piss y'all off, at least I won't suffer any significant harm.
Ultimately, I'm confident that the country will survive just fine regardless of who's elected. Everybody needs to splash some cold water on their faces, wake up, take a deep breath, and get a grip.
5 comments:
What you're saying about a hypnotist for each ticket is absolutely true. I am a certified master hypnotist and trainer of hypnotherapy and I decided to analyze speeches from each of the candidates. What I found proves your claim. You can read about it in my latest blog post at:
Are Your Presidential Candidates Hypnotizing You?
www.transformdestiny.com/blog/?p=7
-Michael
That's why it's best to read the speech and commentary. I'm getting tired of so much video on blogs now. I only trust my own reactions when I read something. Video clips are distractions.
Michael your analysis is fascinating and I also look forward to your opinion of Palin's speech.
"Hypnotized followers can be incited to do very extreme things."
Very astute observation. Obama acts like a CULT LEADER. If this conman gets elected, through deceit, rather than through merit your country, and the world by extension is in a WORLD OF HURT. Thanks for your blog.
The update of the blog format made some old stuff like this to get the forefront links, so I decided to take a look.
A few very interesting phrases in hindsight:
"What I am saying is that the side that loses this election, being hypnotized, may be even more irrational in dealing with their disappointment than in previous elections."
"Ultimately, I'm confident that the country will survive just fine regardless of who's elected."
Would the Bret of Present agree with the Bret of Past?
Clovis wrote: "Would the Bret of Present agree with the Bret of Past?"
Sure. We survived, didn't we?
I suppose the "fine" part is arguable, by me as well as others, since unemployment has been pretty high, GDP growth a bit below average, depression up, bureaucratic rules ever increasing, etc., but I know that "fine" is in the eye of the beholder.
We'll clearly survive for decades more, regardless of who's elected. At least some people think it will be "fine."
By the way, old post like this run all the comments through the moderator (yours truly), so feel free to post such comments on a new post and just refer back.
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