The most powerful weapon is sarcasm,
and the kind of piety on display
in the Obama movement seems
to beg for sarcastic deflation
Can we doubt that a South Park episode
concluding in the handing out of Kool-Aid
at an Obama rally is forthcoming?
Finger-Lickin' Good?
MGLO Chairman Urges World Leaders to Endorse Barack Obama Presidency
The MEDIA GLOBO Corporation (MGLO) called today for global support of The OBAMA Movement, and the Company's founder urged world leaders of common interest to endorse U.S. Senator Barack Obama for President of the United States.
"This is a landmark moment in American history and the history of the world," said MEDIA GLOBO Chairman Michael Hardon. Here is his message:
Obama movement could propel our nation into revolutionary awakening Now is the opportunity for leaders around the world to come together to solve shared economic, social and political challenges; and help turn America toward the new international hope and unity an Obama Presidency so profoundly promises."
For the first time in this century we are witnessing a revolution -- not a revolution of barricades, but a civil revolution that could very well be the kind Thomas Jefferson said we must have every 100 years.
There is no doubt the country is facing an awakening that could very well be fulfilled within a very short time. As any new beginning that carries profound changes, it will not be easy.
President Bush's horrendous eight years of arrogance, imperialism, lies and contempt for the law -- together with the proxy of mediocrity and political opportunism -- have plagued the country.
It is this catalytic energy that has been building up and has finally reached this cohesive will for change, and the need to come back to basics.
In this campaign, Obama is creating a once-in-a-generation possibility to make us tall and proud again, and regain the respect of the rest of the world. In many ways he seems too good to be true.
He has shown an ability to unite gender and races, mobilize a previously unresponsive youth toward unbound enthusiasm, convey hope -- yes, hope -- and is making a commitment to all of us to participate in the political process. We must not forget: This young generation is the future!
For the first time in a very long while, we are seeing imagination, an uplift in the national mood, an excitement and a newly found pride to be an American.Obama Mania: Not So Much a Movement...More a Marketing Campaign
"The Obama 'movement' demands nothing from
the candidate except to get elected."
When you visit barackobama.com on the web, the button in the lower left corner says “join the movement”. The Obama campaign frankly claims to be the direct successor to and the current incarnation of the movement for justice and human rights which won Black voting rights and an end to Jim Crow.
Unprecedented numbers of young people have been put in motion, the corporate media breathlessly tell us, by “the Obama movement” and Hillary Clinton's staffers have publicly wrung their hands in dismay at the futility of running against, not a rival campaign, but against a “movement.”
While there many similarities between a well-executed twenty-first century US presidential campaign, and a successful multimedia and viral marketing campaign, there are many important differences between both of these and a transformational movement for social change.
All three, to be successful, must tap into widespread, deeply held beliefs in their target audiences, and take full advantage of horizontal, person to person communications inside those audiences to push their message, a process marketers call “viral marketing.”
But the content of marketing and political campaign messaging is dictated from the top. Though the masses are passive consumers and sometimes the transmitters of marketing and partisan political messaging, they are seldom or never its originators.
By contrast the goals, the messages, the plans, and the tactics of the mid twentieth century movements for civil and human rights did not come from the top down, they came from the bottom up.
They came from union halls, student dormitories and church basements. They came from meetings in the back rooms of restaurants and at kitchen tables across the South and around the country.
"Mass social movements aim to alter relations of power.
They are impolite and sometimes operate
outside of or in defiance of the law."
The greatest difference between the top-down messaging of marketing and political campaigns and the messages of mass movements for change is in the scope of what they demand, and who they demand it from, and how those demands are backed up.
The goal of marketing campaigns is to get large numbers of people to change or affirm habits of consumption. Political campaigns need to get out their vote and win the election for their candidates.
The objectives of marketing and political campaigns are time-limited, respectful of authority and strictly inside the bounds of law and decorum, whether shopping, registering voters, canvassing, calling house meetings, or getting out the vote.
Mass social movements aim to alter relations of power. They are impolite and sometimes operate outside of or in defiance of the law.
They make impossible, reckless, irresponsible demands, like respect, human rights and the vote to people who didn't have them - like stopping an unjust war, halting foreclosures and gentrification, like guaranteeing the absolute right to organize a union, to strike and to win a living wage.
But the Obama “movement” demands nothing from the candidate except to get elected.The One & Only Celebrity Candidate
Ba-Ba Obama is something of a phenomenon in American politics — a rock-star politician celebrated by swooning masses.
On college campuses Obama is a demi-god, and on the trail you get the sense that some of his supporters are not so sure about the “demi.”
On several occasions now, audience members at campaign events have fainted merely from the thrill of being in Obama’s presence.
Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings, introducing the candidate at a rally, said of the Obama experience, “this is not a campaign for President of the United States, this is a movement to change the world.”
Hollywood, too, has seen the light. “He walks into a room and you want to follow him somewhere, anywhere,” actor George Clooney told PBS’s Charlie Rose.
“I’ll do whatever he says to do,” actress Halle Berry said to reporters without a hint of irony, “I’ll collect paper cups off the ground to make his pathway clear.”
It is clear that Obama has sought to make his campaign a cult of personality.
The traveling revivalist cabaret has certainly helped Obama immensely, and contributed to his electoral strength, but it also carries serious risks for him.
In the long run, the messianic flavor of his campaign could endanger his support from the very quarters now most receptive to the message; and even in the short run it could hurt him with blue-collar voters who have little patience for the grand production.
The Culture of Cool
America’s cultural elites are easily swept up in fashionable new idealisms, especially those that confirm their existing predilections and demand no serious personal sacrifice.
But the culture of cool is also powerfully allergic to forthright displays of devotion and fervor. Its most powerful weapon is sarcasm, and the kind of piety on display in the Obama movement seems to beg for sarcastic deflation.
Can we doubt that a South Park episode concluding in the handing out of Kool-Aid at an Obama rally is forthcoming?
Can Jon Stewart’s Daily Show put up with statements like Halle Barry’s above for long before letting loose a massive assault on the whole endeavor?
How long can a politician go around saying “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for” before a sharp and memorable punch line leaves him with a nasty lasting bruise?
And how will Obama’s young followers respond when forced to choose between the movement to change the world and the snide knowing chuckle?
The frantic pace of our cultural trends means Obama is running a very serious risk of making his most ardent supporters tired of him very quickly.
A nasty turn in his press coverage in just the past week offers Obama an ominous preview of how that could feel. This may not be his fault, but it is certainly his problem.
The style and culture of his campaign suggest some serious weaknesses that are only beginning to emerge. They suggest above all the danger that voters may grow tired of him before Election Day — a risk no politician can take lightly.