ARS on Twitter
RSS
Be VERY careful of what you wish for
Posted by civil truth on February 25th, 2008
As the old saying goes, sometimes the gods punish us by giving us what we ask for.
For those who tactically are trying to lend support to Hillary or rooting for Hillary to win on March 4th in the hopes of prolonging the Democratic primary, if the despicable ethics and bad karma of this behavior don’t scare you off, remember the experience of others that lies behind the proverb about stepping into a quarrel between two enemies – or even worse, a domestic dispute: the combattants are more likely to turn from their dispute and both turn on you instead with a fury.
As for those who believe that Hillary will be the weaker candidate in the general election, that may well have been true before Super Tuesday, had she smoothly marched to coronation without serious opposition.
However, now that Hillary’s been battered so badly in the weeks since, she’s a far more formidable foe than before should she prevail in the end.
Let me explain this paradoxical statement.
In boxing, the first rule is that when you’ve got your opponent on the ropes, you’ve got to finish them off. If you let them survive to the bell, the tides of battle very well may reverse and you may well lose, as many boxing match losers can attest.
Then there is this graphic narrative scene from the beginning of the 13th chapter of Revelation:
And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. He had ten horns and seven heads…One of the heads of the beast seemed to have a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was astonished and followed the beast. Men…worshipped the beast and asked, “Who is like the beast? Who can make war against him?
Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not in any way trying to claim that Hillary is a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. I respect the Scripture far more than prostituting it like that. Rather, I’m using this passage to illustrate a lesson.
And that lesson is the power of story, the power of myth – in this instance the power of the narrative of the great comeback
We’ve already seen the power of the comeback narrative with the incipient Republican nominee, John McCain.
We’ve already seen the power of the insurgent narrative – the David vs. Goliath tale – in Barack Obama’s campaign, which is now being complemented with a Great Awakening narrative.
Thus, if Hillary is able to trump Obama’s narratives with her own narrative of strong woman surviving – of a woman given up for dead who comes back and prevails against nearly insuperable odds against a stronger man to reach the threshold of a pinnacle of accomplishment unattained by any previous woman – this will prove to be an extraordinarily powerful narrative, especially among women voters whose previous distaste for Hillary will be overwhelmed by the thrill of rooting for the underdog, the release of desire to see one of their own fulfill on their behalf a sublimated dream they cannot fulfill for themselves.
Don’t underestimate the power of myth, especially in these days when the media can trumpet and echo a myth everywhere so pervasively that people say to themselves: “who can resist?”
A tiger is most dangerous when it has been wounded. Complacency is the antecedent to history’s greatest disasters.
We must not allow the return of the Clintons, the continuation of this 20-year dynastic conflict between two families. America can do far better than that.
February 25th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Funny how you posted this…I was listening to my local talk radio- Extreme Games with Jay Severin last week and he said that those who consider Hillary’s recent “resignation” types phrases are about to see the REAL HILLARY come to life…that we ain’t seen nothing yet AND that the battle is only just starting. SHe will sell her soul and ours as well, she will do ANYTHING, to get the job she has always wanted. She will buy, beg, borrow and of course steal to get superdelegate votes…she will take this to court if she has too…she will make this election a travesty. It will dull the Goricle of 2000…the funs only just beginning. This is the Clinton’s we are dealing with, and it’s never a good or fair or honest deal.
February 25th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
Nice warning.
Agree America would be a far, far better place if all of the Clinton and Bush clans had been born in Burma or Darfur or Gaza. Hell, anywhere but in America, they have been a scourge and a blight on our country.
February 26th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
Spot on LomaAlta.