First read this from Paul Krugman:
Most
of the post-election discussion will presumably be about what the
Democrats should and will do with their mandate. But let me ask a
different question that will also be important for the nation's future:
What will defeat do to the Republicans?(...) the Republican rump, the
party that's left after the election, will be the party that attends
Sarah Palin's rallies, where crowds chant "Vote McCain, not Hussein!"
It will be the party of Saxby Chambliss, the senator from Georgia, who,
observing large-scale early voting by African-Americans, warns his
supporters that "the other folks are voting." It will be the party that
harbors menacing fantasies about Barack Obama's Marxist -- or was that
Islamic? -- roots. Why will the G.O.P. become more, not less, extreme?
For one thing, projections suggest that this election will drive many
of the remaining Republican moderates out of Congress, while leaving
the hard right in place.(...) Also, the Republican base already seems
to be gearing up to regard defeat not as a verdict on conservative
policies, but as the result of an evil conspiracy. A recent Democracy
Corps poll found that Republicans, by a margin of more than two to one,
believe that Mr. McCain is losing "because the mainstream media is
biased" rather than "because Americans are tired of George Bush." And
Mr. McCain has laid the groundwork for feverish claims that the
election was stolen, declaring that the community activist group Acorn
-- which, as Factcheck.org points out, has never "been found guilty of,
or even charged with" causing fraudulent votes to be cast -- "is now on
the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter
history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy."
Needless to say, the potential voters Acorn tries to register are
disproportionately "other folks," as Mr. Chambliss might put it.(...)
the G.O.P.'s long transformation into the party of the unreasonable
right, a haven for racists and reactionaries, seems likely to
accelerate as a result of the impending defeat.
And then this from Hindu mythology:
There
was once a man chopping wood in the forest. He was splitting the wood,
stacking it in piles etc. "It's very exhausting work," he thought. So
he sat under on particularly nice tree, and he thought to himself, "I
just wish all this wood would chop itself." So suddenly all the trees
chopped themselves and stacked themselves up very nicely. "What is
this?" he thought. "I just wished that it would happen, and it
happened." So then he looked up at the tree he was under, and he
realized that it was a kalpataru tree. "This is wonderful! Now I desire
a beautiful woman." Poof! The most beautiful woman appeared to him.
"Now I desire a beautiful palace to live in, I desire so many servants,
an opulent feast.." On and on he went for many hours, and every single
thing appeared because he was sitting under a desire tree. But then he
thought, "The sun is going down, it's getting dark now. I know what's
going to happen. Because this is a jungle, a tiger's going to appear
and that tiger's going to eat me." So lo and behold, because he thought
it, and he was sitting under a desire tree, a tiger appeared and
gobbled him up.
MORAL: Vancha kalpataru 'bhyas ca. A devotee is a desire tree, so we have to be very careful what we desire.
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