Obama's oratory, and fears of charismatic illusions.

A brief note on the fears that continue to be expressed, about Obama, and the crowds that he draws - these are sinister reminiscences of current and bygone despots, who rant/ed in front of blindly clamoring crowds. These are the archetypes of hatred, who are now presented to us in articles and emails, as chilling warnings of the "tyranny to come".

But, there are some differences to be aware of, and you really don't have to dig very deeply to deal with these feeble fear-ploys. The differences of import are readily appreciated - just as with horses and zebras - a resemblence of form cannot be equated with similarity in temperament. The key difference between the variants of equine breeding is this - zebras can't be domesticated. If you try to raise two zebra foals from birth, you may get lucky now and then and tame them, but their offspring revert to the genetic profile of wildness and aggression. The zebra has resisted domestication for thousands of years. (See Diamond's book "Guns, Germs and Steel").

Here, again, an article from the Wall Street Journal, (one hopes this is published by the mainstream media mostly out of a desire to present the "other" view). It is written by an Arab writer, and expresses concern about Obama's rousing crowds, supposedly resembling those seen at rallies addressed by Nasser and Ahmadinejad.

The pretext of such articles is vapid. When despots address the masses, they present typical despotic behaviours - with shrill speeches, words drumming up hatred and threatening mayhem and war. Can these writers really say that they have watched Obama, and listened to him, and come away with fear creaping up their spines? I can't. I don't care who the despot is, when the profile expresses itself, we all can recognize it and shudder. Obama just doesn't fit the profile.

Let's look at another piece of evidence from the national media. It is not at Democratic rallies that threats and vitriole are being vented. Just the opposite: coverage in the media of threats and hatred has related exclusively to Republican rallies - at McCain / Palin meetings, people cry out "Terrorist!" referring to Obama, and saying he is a muslim, and "not one of us".

So let's be frank and honest. If there are crazy people out there on the campaign trail, and there are, let's at least be honest about who's stoking them, who is tolerating them, or half-heartedly saying, "no, that's wrong".

and if you don't want to take my word, Colin Powell should be good enough for you. A fine man, and still a Republican, but as a moderate, a rare one. He has endorsed Obama over McCain, even as he acknowledges McCain's (in my view, declining) merits. If Powell himself ran for president, I would be happy to vote for him. Would that be good enough to put an end to all this jabbering about "oratory" and the "madness of the masses"? Sadly, with more than enough undercurrents of prejudice in our national veins, I believe even a Powell presidency would not achieve this miracle.

Now, to those of you who may have sent out the Wall Street Journal article above, please do me a favor, and send this post along the same route. Let's have some basic honesty in our political discourse, and let's make an effort to undo the injury done by such articles to the fabric of our society.