They Can't Kill All The Indians This Time

"We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side; one which we preach but do not practice, and another which we practice but seldom preach."

Bertrand Russell

I watched Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin come on stage Wednesday night like a couple of cowpokes from the Wild Wild West with their six shooters drawn. After listening to the two of them, it appears that the easiest way for us to "circle our wagons" to save America from the bad guys would be to evacuate the nation from top to bottom - then allow only right thinking, completely certifiable Anglo-Saxons back in.

When "us" versus "them" is your theme song - the righteous versus the damned, the right to lifers versus the baby killers, the evolutionists versus the creationists, "pure hearted" America against the "evil doers" - you should not surprised when your supporters boil these images down to their most simplistic form, the way you've taught them to do in every other situation.

I guess that makes the rest of us as relevant as the Indians used to be when the America decided to tame the West. We're just a bunch of peace pipe smokers who don't have any guns, taking up space on valuable land that should be developed, speaking a language that is incomprehensible to those whose native tongue is Gasolinia - "drill baby drill!"

Take Christianity, for instance. Who was that guy back in Galilee, way back when, who went from house to house, from corner to corner, ready to help those in need? Jesus Christ himself, it seems, was one of those lousy"community organizer" types.

A self designated American patriot who only sees the world in red, white and white while driving an Expedition, a Suburban, an Excursion, a Hummer, or any other big ass SUV slash school bus is as patriotic as the reverend who spends money from his parishioners at the strip club is religious.

Now if you're reading this, and your politics leans to the left, before you go getting on your high horse about the minuscule size of your carbon footprint, you need to remember that righteousness, that good old salve for the prickled consciences on both the left and the right, has never won an election, even when married to the best of intentions.

For those of you who have been thinking critically, you can see beyond the rhetoric that Palin has been pushing the last...well, the last thirty six hours...and think about where the locus of power really resides in political arenas. Is it the person who can write a check to a campaign for $4600? Is it the person who can write a check for $4600 to a campaign AND $28,500 to the party?

Or is it the person who is a center of influence in his community, whose judgment and advice is trusted because his or her community sees it in action everyday? Community organizers are one of the cornerstones of the Obama campaign, helping to keep costs down and enthusiasm up as they attempt to pull off the most massive voter registration drive in the history of this country.

There are not enough big donors out there to fund this kind of gargantuan registration effort if you had to do it with paid staff, which is why people who believe, the same armies of people in every single state in the union who are working for the Obama campaign for little or nothing, are so powerful.

With the help of their tireless efforts, the expanded electorate McCain/Palin will face in November pose an extremely tough challenge to the Republican ticket in states like Missouri, Florida, New Mexico and Colorado. It could even make it a horse race for our electoral votes here in good ole Georgia, as well as North Carolina and Virginia.

At some point this October, the campaign ads will reach a point of saturation. The colorful mailers will get thrown out before the mail hits the counter. And even though there is nothing so sweet as the sound of a robo call to bond a voter with his candidate, voters will inexplicably stop listening to them.

The “code of the west” was romantic, but John Wayne is dead, there is no more cavalry, and they can't kill all the Indians this time.