Obama as Dionysus: A Man of No Vision
At Ford Hall Forum in 1969, Ayn Rand examined the cultural significance of two high-profile, enormously well-attended but very different events: Woodstock and the Apollo 11 launch.In her lecture, “Apollo and Dionysus,” she showed how philosophical ideas play out in a culture: she showed why these two events, so opposite in nature, were a product of a long-standing philosophical dichotomy, reason versus emotion. She concluded her talk by noting that, against the bromide that man’s senses and reason confine him to the grubby, material world while his mystical emotions lift him to the stars, Woodstock and the Apollo 11 launch “offered you a literal dramatization of the truth: it is man’s irrational emotions that bring him down to the mud; it is man’s reason that lifts him to the stars.” (source)
When my sons were young, one of the possible answers to the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, was ‘astronaut’. You could expect, even back in the eighties, that your children had a feast of options in their future. A child in America could snuggle down in bed at night and imagine themselves becoming anyone, doing anything; building cities on the moon, performing groundbreaking surgery in orbit, building the first commercial space fleet - all were possibilities. That is the America I know.
It is not the America Obama knows and it isn’t an America he dreams of. Obama is Dionysus, a man whose “senses and reason confine him to the grubby, material world”.
To pay for his education program, Obama would eliminate tax-deductibility of CEO pay by corporations and delay NASA’s program to return to the moon and then journey to Mars.
“We’re not going to have the engineers and the scientists to continue space exploration if we don’t have kids who are able to read, write and compute,” Obama said
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Obama is a man of weighted and gray vision. For all of his purported brilliance, he somehow can not imagine an America excelling in education while simultaneously probing outer space. How could he? If SUVs, 72 degree homes and a full stomach offend the man, a Mar’s probe must wound him right down to the bottom of his Marxist soul.
Mars Probe Heading for Sea of Buried Ice
NASA approved the Phoenix mission in response to the 2002 discovery by the orbiting Odyssey spacecraft that the Martian poles have a layer of ice near the surface.
[..]
“The discovery of organic materials, which haven’t been found on Mars yet — in ice or in soil — would be an amazing discovery,” said Arvidson, a planetary scientist with Washington University in St. Louis. “It would probably lead to a replanning of the Mars mission architecture for the next decade.”
Scientists are chipping away at one of the fundamental questions of human existence: Is life unique on Earth or does it exist elsewhere in the universe?
Obama’s is still chipping away at used-up, blood soaked Utopian myths. This is change?
“No matter who is our next president, he or she is either going to have to buy in completely to the premise of that young president, or stand aside and watch as other nations lay claim to the promise of space. There is no middle ground. John F. Kennedy understood it then, and the People’s Republic of China, with its ambitious manned space program run by its military, understands it now. Preeminence in space translates to economic, scientific, educational and national security advantages,” writes MacKinnon, who is now a Washington lobbyist.
He urges the new president not to cancel the Bush Administration’s Orion and Ares human space programs. MacKinnon also rails at the Office of Management of Budget, which he says has shortchanged NASA on its budget for finishing the space station by 2010. “Additionally, OMB has taken $3 billion away from the president’s space budget. Why? On who’s orders?” MacKinnon asks.
“Should our space program flounder, Chinese astronauts will establish the first bases on the moon, and the American people will be the poorer for our lack of leadership,” he concludes.
“…the American people will be the poorer…”
Yeah, that is pretty much Obama’s plan.
Related:Behind the Velvet Rope of Commercial Space Travel
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This entry was posted on Friday, May 23rd, 2008 at 2:11 am and is filed under '08, America, Elections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
"Conjure magic for them and they'll be distracted. Take away their freedom, and still they'll roar. The beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the Senate. It's the sand of the Coliseum. He'll bring them death... and they will love him for it."
zee May 23rd, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Because he offers them excuses to be whining entitlement freaks and to loathe those citizens who can actually carry their own weight.
When led by men like Obama, America can expect nothing more than a point of view predicated by the lowest common denominator.