As everyone knows, all wisdom is contained in the movie The Empire Strikes Back. Naturally — it’s got Yoda.
One of the big slam-bang wisdom scenes in the movie occurs when Luke Skywalker tries to levitate his crashed spaceship out of a swamp. Luke grimaces and strains, and manages to raise the ship a few inches, but then he collapses and the ship sinks even deeper into the muck. “It’s too big,” he gasps.
Yoda tells Luke that size doesn’t matter. “My ally is the Force,” he says. It is a field created by all living things. It’s particularly strong in the swamp, which teems with life. “And a powerful ally it is,” collectively much bigger and more powerful than Luke, or Yoda, or the sunken spaceship. Then he raises the ship and moves it to dry land.
Luke failed because he thought he was doing it himself.
In last week’s debate, Hillary Clinton said, “The question that I have been posing is, who can actually change the country?” She says she can.
Remember Hillary’s tongue-in-cheek Christmas campaign ad, where she was wrapping up “universal health care,” “alternative energy,” “bring troops home,” and “middle-class tax breaks” as the gifts she was giving to the American people? It bothered me. I still like to imagine we have government by the people, not by the president.
In a speech last month, she said, “It’s about picking a president who relies not just on words but on work, hard work, to get America back to work.”
Just words? Obama has inspired millions of Americans who were sitting on the sidelines to get involved in building a stronger and better America — an involvement that doesn’t end on Election Day, but only begins then.
If Clinton thinks that doesn’t matter — that his message is “just words” — if she thinks that solutions to the country’s problems can be her gift to us; if she thinks she can grimace and strain and make the change America needs by the force of her will, then I think she is not a Jedi yet.
Spink Nogales | 08-Mar-08 at 10:27 am | Permalink
Two car salesmen trying to sell the same car.
The old salesman says, “This car is not new. If the car needs repair in the next four years, I will work to fix it.”
The young salesman says, “This car is new. As long as you think positive it will not break down.”
Still trying to make a decision you look around the car lot and notice they have a nice clean service department busy with many cars. Puzzled by this you ask each salesman to explain.
The young salesman says, “Those cars were purchased by people who could not remain positive. To repair those cars will take a long time and be very expensive.”
The old salesman says, “Most of those cars are here for service, so they won’t need repair in the future. Any car that does need repair I will work to fix.”
B. Moore | 08-Mar-08 at 2:41 pm | Permalink
my friend you’re missing it.
hillary is missing it.
o’bama is missing it.
mccain is mising it.
yoda is missing it.
the american public is missing it.
all this individual issue crap is is just side-show.
OIL is the issue.
give the country cheap oil and all these little pissant issues will eventually solve themselves.
oil is at least TWICE what it should be just from paranoia alone.
this country needs to realize who it’s friends are, and treat them accordingly. foreign policy seems to have ignored this.
FACT: america needs oil. lots of it. TODAY. every day. ignore this reality at your peril.
i hear no candidate for high office talking about what is strangulating the entire country.
‘change’ the price of oil and you will solve a lot of other problems.
anything else is just haffass meddling. political posturing.
OIL. CHEAP OIL. whatever you got to do. money will then free up for all the rest of your pie-in-the-sky dreams and wishes. the country will go back to work.
but, my views fall on deaf ears…
Spink Nogales | 08-Mar-08 at 3:42 pm | Permalink
Ahhh. Now you have awakened the sleeping giant of great American economic thinkers. B. Moore