Brainwashed Masses

By Alan Caruba

This is pure conjecture, but I am beginning to think that the campaigns of Barack Obama and John McCain, while appearing to be completely detached from reality, i.e., the real lives of Americans, are actually some kind of political alchemy, a potion brewed to influence our rational minds in ways that will cause us to vote for one or the other candidate.

It makes no sense for both candidates to promise to rethink the immigration issue in any other way than to recall the massive outcry that occurred when Congress tried to slip an amnesty by us that would have added a lot of people to the rolls who lacked a decent education, could not speak the language, and were already receiving various forms of welfare.

That, however, is clearly what both candidates intend to do.

It makes no sense for both candidates to continue to blather about alternative fuels or forms of energy like giant fuel cells when the problem we have right here and right now is the insanely rising cost of oil that is draining off billions from our economy. They are not talking about anything sensible like the oil on which our nation is totally dependent. McCain has made some mention of offshore oil, but doesn't appear enthusiastic about any oil. Obama doesn't appear to know what oil is, where it is found, what one does with it.

Like a poison fog adrift in the land, the political madness is exemplified in the statements by Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, saying that oil and coal “make us sick” and should be abandoned. This is the same man who told us that the war in Iraq was “lost” despite ample evidence it is beginning to look like we have actually won. What parallel universe does he live in? Why should we want to go there?

In a nation that has as many cars, trucks, and other gasoline and diesel fueled vehicles as there are citizens, it would be easily 15 to 20 years before an “alternative” means of getting around would be able to replace them—if in fact we wanted to replace them. The problem is the price of gas at the pump today.

Visit either candidate’s website and you get the equivalent of a visit to the late Madam Marie on the boardwalk of Asbury Park. She would read tarot cards and tell you the future. Even famous people visited, but the likelihood that anyone who had their fortune told could ever attribute the outcome to Madam Marie is small.

What is missing in the candidate’s messages is the vital element of reality. What is missing is a pragmatic choice of actions to deal with a future rife with a host of nasty scenarios ranging from a nuclear-armed Iran to a severely challenged national economy.

The only thing missing from the candidate’s message is soothing music and a touch of incense in the air. It’s all about seduction and it’s exceedingly strange to observe.

What is John McCain doing in Colombia? That nation is in South America! I half expect to see Obama hugging Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. At least they both have communism in common.

What is Obama saying lately about anything other than patriotism, his spiritual beliefs, and other ephemeral notions?

Somewhere, I am convinced, are two dark, cavernous rooms filled with evil gnomes all sitting in front of computer screens, all plotting and scheming to say just the right thing, to avoid saying just the wrong thing, staging events in just the right place, avoiding being seen in just the wrong place.

These political demons, employed by both parties, never venture out to breathe the air of our beaches, our parks, our backyard barbeques with friends and family. Instead, they labor day to day to find just the right imagery and rhetoric to so befuddle our brains that we will vote for one or the other candidate despite the fearful prospect that neither is suited to the job, to the times, to the menace that is always waiting to devour the weak.