Per Christum Catholic Blog

I don’t have a problem with crowds per se, but I do have a problem with mass hysteria about a president (or VP even) that is based more on perception, aspiration, and frustration than reality. When the candidates are spoken of in near (or even spot-on) religious terms, it freaks me out a little bit. I think we need change that is for sure, a change from the neo-conservatism that has dominated for the last 8 years, but do the frustrated people chanting “change” as dogma realize that the change they are really supporting is a sharp turn left? The Obama supporters I know are tired of working hard and feeling cheated. They don’t want bailouts, they don’t want  higher taxes, and they don’t want their kids fighting in expensive wars for countries that don’t even like us. The current administration has failed us on these issues, but would an Obama administration be any better? I don’t think so, but in the name of “change,” people are imagining that this charismatic, likable, and nice guy, will change all of this.

Below is an interesting article on the crowds that Obama draws, from a professor at Johns Hopkins who grew up in the Middle East:

There is something odd — and dare I say novel — in American politics about the crowds that have been greeting Barack Obama on his campaign trail. Hitherto, crowds have not been a prominent feature of American politics. We associate them with the temper of Third World societies. We think of places like Argentina and Egypt and Iran, of multitudes brought together by their zeal for a Peron or a Nasser or a Khomeini. In these kinds of societies, the crowd comes forth to affirm its faith in a redeemer: a man who would set the world right.

There is something odd — and dare I say novel — in American politics about the crowds that have been greeting Barack Obama on his campaign trail. Hitherto, crowds have not been a prominent feature of American politics. We associate them with the temper of Third World societies. We think of places like Argentina and Egypt and Iran, of multitudes brought together by their zeal for a Peron or a Nasser or a Khomeini. In these kinds of societies, the crowd comes forth to affirm its faith in a redeemer: a man who would set the world right.

As the late Nobel laureate Elias Canetti observes in his great book, “Crowds and Power” (first published in 1960), the crowd is based on an illusion of equality: Its quest is for that moment when “distinctions are thrown off and all become equal. It is for the sake of this blessed moment, when no one is greater or better than another, that people become a crowd.” These crowds, in the tens of thousands, who have been turning out for the Democratic standard-bearer in St. Louis and Denver and Portland, are a measure of American distress. Read it All.

By the way, Happy Halloween to everyone. As I pass out treats, I will be wearing my mullet wig, a flannel shirt, a rosary, and a gun, with a sign saying “redneck clinging to guns and religion.” Well that is a joke, but I am wearing a mullet wig, and if I can find one, an old Poison shirt. Tomorrow is All Saints Day, but in the U.S. it is not a day of obligation this year. Nonetheless, we are going to find a service either tonight or tomorrow. Sunday is All Souls Day.

H/T Catholic Report