One of the funniest things on earth is watching people watch a tennis game.
The camera observing tennis spectators shows a sea of sunglasses. All of those sunglasses move as if in a giant choreographed movement left, right, left, right. It looks truly weird, and it looks as if the whole crowd had practiced this routine for weeks.
Watching tennis is a very relaxing activity. You know exactly when the action is taking place, like a dance, left, right, left, right.
Both sides.
But if you leave the tennis court and go work and your boss finds you looking left, right, left, right, and you say you are “watching both sides,” he will probably put you in for disability.
Half of your income and all of your children’s future is in the hands of government. Half your income and all of your children’s future is determined by politics, just as much of your income as is determined by your job.
So in politics you sit there watching “both sides.” Andrew Young serves one to Rush Limbaugh, and the crowd turns right, then Limbaugh argues, and the eyes turn left.
And I am the cameraman, watching that crowd as the sunglasses turn left and the sunglasses go right, in a choreographed dance, while their world topples down around their ears.
#1 by Don on 12/16/2004 - 7:34 pm
Ah, the spectators. They look. What they see, I do not always understand. What they understand I have no idea. Their minds are full of endless eclectic notions about this and that, and what they reason and what logic they use escapes me. They are the herd, the crowd, the masses, or, as Pierce would say, the lemmings.
This is why I always come back to leadership. As far as I am concerned, a failure is always a failure of leadership. I never expected the masses to spontaneously arise and make things right.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.” –Margaret Mead
#2 by Bedford on 12/16/2004 - 8:11 pm
Marc Faber is a Swiss economist who recently said that America’s economic power is going to be surpassed by China and Asia in the next 10 to 15 years. He said that the new American economy will be like Brazil and Mexico. He predicted that most commodities will be going up because of a great increase in usage by China and Asia. He said wars may result from the commodity problem. I (intuitively if for no other reason) have been skeptical of this outsoucing of manufacturing.Mao was a great villain to the Chinese whether they acknowledge it or not. He did the USA a great service by keeping the Chinese economy and consumption down for decades.
#3 by Mike on 12/17/2004 - 5:48 pm
I believe the most important action one can take is to construct ways of breaking the trance of the game.
Seeking out and displaying the obvious as Bob does in the book is a way to make some ground.
We are going to have to dig and scratch for every inch.