Sheep BAAH!
I'm a first generation American and my parents immigrated (emigrated?) from Portugal in 1967. The reason they immigrated (again if its emigrated I apologize to all the english majors out there, on second thought fuck it, its immigrated) was to escape the political and economic clutches of António de Oliveira Salazar, who was the prime minister and de facto dictator of Portugal from 1932 to 1968. That is quite impressive for a dictatorial regime to last if you ask me. In fact it's the longest regime ever in Europe and given Europe's long and distinguished history you almost gotta give the man a standing O for his steadfastness.
Now my love for dictators has been mentioned on this blog before. Venezuelan President/Dictator Hugo Chavez is a frequent target of mine and he is cut from the same cloth as Salazar, believing in Nationalism and Aurtarky, which basically means I am smarter than you so I make the rules, now shut up. He basically ruled his government through fear, employing tactics such as secret police and media control to rule over his people.
Now a couple of weeks ago, the Portuguese people through a televised national call in vote (kinda of like American Idol, only stupider) voted for the greatest Portuguese person of all time and guess what? Salazar won, by a landslide. He beat out four other nominees and garnered 41% of the vote in the process. The other four people were Satan, he was born in Portugal in late ninth century. Hitler, little known fact that he was the son of a Portuguese fisherman conceived during a cod fishing expedition to Germany. The Son of Sam killer David Berkowitz (yes there are Jews in Portugal) and Mother Teresa.
When people were asked why they voted for Salazar, they said that he was charismatic and he led Portugal the right way. People went so far as to say that it should be led that way again. I guess the populace have become so unenamored with the political process, that they just want to go back to the days where the ruling class just told people what to do and you did it, no questions no problems. Have governments become so corrupt that we do not trust the people in charge and we would rather have someone in the seat of power who will rule absolute and with complete authority, rather than an elected official who will do right by his constituents.
We have become sheep, who just lay around in a circle waiting for someone to come cracking the whip and tell us where to move and graze. We are too caught up in our everyday lives to question what is going on and why. As you can see, it is not just happening in our own country either.
BTW over 40% of Russian utes (youths) wish Stalin was leading Russia right now as well. A man responsible for the genocide of over 1 million of his people doesn't seem all that bad right now.
Time really heals all wounds doesn't it?
