The pop-poster above of Obama in the Joker make-up, is surfacing around the web and on the streets, and at the bottom is the ultra terrifying slogan, Socialism, which wets the pants of idiotic Republicans more than watching Sarah Palin. I don't know why the designer of the poster didn't use Communism or Fascism, since those ideologies are much more extreme, and closer to the American Establishment's idea of how government is supposed to work, ...for them, that is. Besides, Obama's political nature has a closer resemblance to the character Two-Face than the Joker, who is the most honest criminal ever portrayed.
I think there is something to be learned from any event, phenomenon, cultural development, basically anything. Particularly, this trend of political thought in the American heartland can't just be explained away by blaming cultural fragmentation, the lack of reality-based knowledge, or an aversion of the facts. Political establishments have always used misdirections and diversions to keep the people from realizing who their true enemies are. Kierkegaard wrote that "the life of any state depends on means of diversion."
This idiocy has continually reared its head, and its implications are frightening for America's future. The funniest example yet is the renaming of french fries to freedom fries after the French criticized America's invasion of Iraq. Although people who put weight into such criticism are beyond repair intellectually, their usage of the language of freedom is more positive than you can imagine. There is something hidden in this folly, and I'm trying to excavate it. But before all that, it's good to just take a good laugh in. We should also remember that language is key to human memory, the sense of self, national character, etc. Donald Phillip Verene in his book about Vico's influence on Joyce, said Joyce "saw that the key to the human world is language. All human institutions depend upon language, as does all knowledge of them." Describing the American system under Obama as socialist is at the very best a negation, and at the very worst a complete surrender to the corporate state by the dumb right. In fact, the false conservatives in America have enthusiastically backed America's descent into totalitarianism. They have painted the smiley face on the global order in a haze of stupidity, and now as they are stepping back, they're pointing the brush at anyone but themselves.
America's political, financial and media elite have for too long capitalized on the irrationalism of Americans, and on their attachment to myth and legends. All people, not just Americans, are carried primarily by their imagination and not reason in the political domain, so this type of extreme and off-base criticism is not irregular. The trouble is the lack of civil wisdom among politicians who seem to denounce their fellow Americans altogether on a regular basis, and who would rather see them become total slaves than retain any dignity.
From all this idiocy there is the fact, however ill-established, that Americans are for freedom. Tragically, those calling Obama a socialist not only lack the freedom of thought, but their minds are contaminated with propaganda. But at base they are for something, and not just anything, but freedom, which is expressed through their use of language. At least, so far, they are for freedom, who knows where events may lead in the near future.
Some great commentary on the present madness is offered by Dennis Perrin:
Reactionaries believe that Obama is a foreign-born Islamo-commie intent on imprisoning patriots. Liberals still largely believe that Obama is one of them, compromised and undermined by evil forces in DC. Both sides believe that the corporate media is against them (true to a degree, but this includes us all). And each side uses the other's fantasies to reinforce their own. A splendid arrangement. Meanwhile, the owners maintain control.And the comedic cycle continues. I secretly think that comedians rule the world, and are making up the most retarded situations to be played out in America for comedic effect and of course, their salary. Or maybe comedians are the angels of our age and are visiting us to let us know that all life is a comedy, and there is nothing to worry about in the grand course of things. From Bruce to Pryor, to Carlin, Hicks, Rock, Stewart, Colbert, they all have told the truth and made it funny. And their popularity is evidence that the American psyche can take the truth, as long as a comedian delivers it. I wouldn't be surprised if someone like Al Franken ran for president and actually won. It is in the cards, that's for sure.
On a personal note, reading mankind's great writers is far better than taking any medicine to come to grips with the horror that is the modern world, and this is true whether you are young or old. Kierkegaard's journals have been in my cuffs since the beginning of this year. After mentioning how the truth is always in the minority, and that the strength of the majority opinion is illusory, Kierkegaard went on to say that the "clumsy monster, the public, etc. fares in respect of the truth in the same way as is said of someone travelling to regain his health; he always arrives one station too late."
Time is of the essence, as they say, but I disagree. I believe thought has a great deal more of a significance because it is timeless, just as time is thoughtless. When we get lost in our thoughts, time passes, and when we don't think it all the dreariness of time is made evident. So, one reason why the public "arrives too late" at the truth is because of their undivided attention to time, and you can see this in our blow-by-blow media age, where every second is counted but the pundits rarely have a second thought on any given situation. Kierkegaard at one point attributes the idea of the 'public' to Luther and notes that the public "is the most idea-less thing of all. In fact, it is the very opposite of the idea. The public is number." Strength in numbers is important in any war, but the battle for public opinion in an political fight is the most vulgar of all battles. But I have hope that the media's army will continue to dwindle, not as time passes, but as thought enlarges.
Last Thoughts
Some goofballs insist that the poster of Obama is political art, and a clever representation of the true face of the president. But what is lacking is an accurate philosophy behind the picture. It is nothing more than a cheap ploy to rile up a group of people who regularly criticize 'Hollywood liberals', yet still use their iconography. Nothing is more hypocritical than that.
Real political art is something along the lines of the work being done by the artist Troy Gua, whose interplay of Ronald Reagan and Ronald McDonald images, making 'Ronald McReagan', is more true than Obama's joke poster.
In an interview conducted by Brian Sherwin from My Art Space, Gua explains that his art plays with pop iconography, irony and satire. Asked to describe his work, he says:
The pieces portray famous and infamous cultural icons and public figures inter-layered with one another. They’re meant to challenge the viewer to visually decipher the image while making the connections within them.
For instance, I’ve got ‘The Boy King of Pop’, which is King Tut and Michael Jackson – both young boys forced into fame and both ending up in masks. There’s ‘The Ronald McReagan’, Ronald McDonald and Ronald Reagan – smiling icons and representatives of a society bloated by its own ego and consumptive indulgence.
Painting Obama as a socialist is just as intellectually wrong and idiotic as painting McReagan as the representative of free-market libertarianism. McReagan is still in the back preparing burgers, while Obama is at the cash register, asking us if we want fries with our bullshit. Drones on the left are saying "oh yes, please, thank you very much you cool breed of a black man, you serving me is the joy of my historical life" and the drones on the right are shouting back "Iz dem socialist freyes you got dere, boy?" And some moron in the back is yelling to the customers in line, "Dat no-good Kenyan spat his black spit on my burger, I knowz it, cuz Rush ate all his burgers and told me so."
