Linking Obama to King and RFK
The New York Times has an article that, with a totally straight face compares Barack Obama to Dr. Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy, who were assassinated within a few weeks of each other in 1968. Here is a sample:
I have an almost total recall of that period. The European student rebellion, in which I had a small, walk on, part was in full swing and the entire western world was in ferment. Everything was changing at breakneck speed, politics, sex, music and dope were all taking new forms daily. The effect was dizzying. King and Kennedy were symbols of what was the sudden and deeply traumatic destruction of the familiar. There was deep rage and fear lurking everywhere. To be a symbol of what was, in fact, a revolution was to have a target hung around the neck. Another icon of the period, John Lennon, ended up finally paying the same toll.
How can anyone compare our post-post- post, period to that one, or Obama's stream of vacuous platitudes to what RFK and King represented?
This is what gets me incensed, how ersatz this Obamamania all is... It's like comparing poor little Amy Winehouse to Stax/Atlantic.
http://seaton-newslinks.blogspot.com/
There is a hushed worry on the minds of many supporters of Senator Barack Obama, echoing in conversations from state to state, rally to rally: Will he be safe? In Colorado, two sisters say they pray daily for his safety. In New Mexico, a daughter says she persuaded her mother to still vote for Mr. Obama, even though the mother feared that winning would put him in danger. And at a rally here, a woman expressed worries that a message of hope and change, in addition to his race, made him more vulnerable to violence. “I’ve got the best protection in the world,” Mr. Obama, of Illinois, said in an interview, reprising a line he tells supporters who raise the issue with him. “So stop worrying.” Yet worry they do, with the spring of 1968 seared into their memories, when the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Senator Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated in a span of two months.In my opinion this should be accompanied by a disclaimer, "I'm Barack Obama and I approve of this message", because it is straightforward propaganda and a gross manipulation if ever I saw one. The message being that the "change" that Obama propose is in some way comparable to the kind of change that King and RFK were pushing for, or that the climate today in anyway resembles that of 1968.
I have an almost total recall of that period. The European student rebellion, in which I had a small, walk on, part was in full swing and the entire western world was in ferment. Everything was changing at breakneck speed, politics, sex, music and dope were all taking new forms daily. The effect was dizzying. King and Kennedy were symbols of what was the sudden and deeply traumatic destruction of the familiar. There was deep rage and fear lurking everywhere. To be a symbol of what was, in fact, a revolution was to have a target hung around the neck. Another icon of the period, John Lennon, ended up finally paying the same toll.
How can anyone compare our post-post- post, period to that one, or Obama's stream of vacuous platitudes to what RFK and King represented?
This is what gets me incensed, how ersatz this Obamamania all is... It's like comparing poor little Amy Winehouse to Stax/Atlantic.
http://seaton-newslinks.blogspot.com/
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Thanks, David, but didn't you get the memo? The new music scene is just as valid as the old ones, the post-internet post-9/11 is evolving at breakneck speeds, and while you think we're shallow and slacking off, we're really multitasking.
Of course there's nothing wrong with doing a mashup showing us with Che and Mohammed Ali and MLK/RFK/JFK just for the symbolism of the great new things we're bringing. I'm working on a new all-inclusive theme to beat back the multinationals and corporate AmeriKKKa, something like "Back to the fields! Grow your own rice! Make your own pig-iron!" Has a nice international touch, doesn't it? Needs work, but I think we'll get there. I have it on MyFace right now, but my cousin's trying to get it to Slate.
February 27, 2008 2:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Of the big changes that have taken place, the most exciting and life-changing is the Internet. It has given me a new profession, but I think before we go on, you should read an excerpt from Thomas Frank's classic, "Conquest of Cool".
After reading this, I think you'll understand Obamamania, and perhaps even yourself, better:
February 27, 2008 5:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
What I am pointing out, is that what once was fresh, startling and real has been repackaged and recycled until it stale and manageable. Most of this has been done by my generation (60+) who took over from bemused older. marketing executives who didn't understand "our" new culture. So now all this is being manipulated by elderly former hippies.
The most sinister thing about America is that it tames, absorbs, trivializes and somehow manages to package and market everything. This is what I fled from, but it promises to follow me to the ends of the earth.
Barack Obama is the first slickly packaged, political expression of Thomas Frank's theories. I am saddened by how his emptiness is taken for value. As if the voters were confusing Starbucks with Vienna' Café Sperl.
February 27, 2008 5:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
That is no different than it has ever been in cosmopolitan socities. It was the complaint of the elders in Alexandria. Every generation of youth thinks they are ther first ever to deal with what they are dealing with and the elders are continualy convinced that their youth was superior to the current youth. We did OK as did the generations before us and as the generations that folow will.
February 27, 2008 11:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
I assure you, if Obama is assassinated, he will be more canonized than either JFK, MLK or RFK.
And I think you missed the point of the article, which was to stimulate the assassination debate around Obama, for which they were rightly criticized.
As to his "change" that he may or may not represent:
In some European countries, the beginning of the 21st century is marked by an indifference of political sensitivies: It's now totally acceptable to spew racial hate speeches, by POLITICIANS, not only ultra-rightwing activists.
Well, bush jr. has effectively suspended the rule of law on a lot of different fronts. Habeas Corpus, no-bid contracts, Abu-Graib, Gitmo, the extreme 'self'-censorship by the MSM.
In short, Bush took power away from the people and gave to business.
If you think that to overcome that, is less of a change than RFK and MLK, then you're a political beancounter, a nitpicker. Both changes are crucial and perhaps incomparable.
I, for one, don't buy into that "everything used to be so much better" line. Just because you were present at the Sorbonne in the 60s and perhaps nailed (and I do hope so for your sake, because they are so fine) a French chick, doesn't make that era more ominous or more valuable. In a totally politico-socially kinda way. Of course.
February 27, 2008 8:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
February 27, 2008 11:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
The change that ws happening then was no gretaer than the change that we are seeing today. So far we are avoiding the violence ascociated with that change but that could change at any time. Let Obama be elected and assinated and see if our cities do not burn. People tend not to riot in economicaly secure times. Let us have another depression and see if the anti imigrant extreemist don't bring lynching back. The law of impermanace tells us that all things change and nothing lasts for ever not even our smug assurance of unending plenty.
February 27, 2008 11:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
TCEO, long time no hear.
First, RFK didn't change much - he died young. MLK did change much, and yes, much much more than "no-bid contracts". Perhaps I'm a nitpicker, but that certainly was an odd nit to pick.
David, perhaps you missed my tongue firmly in chic.
February 27, 2008 9:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
February 27, 2008 11:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Desidero,
You haven't heard in long time from me just because you didn't reply on my other thread?
Odd nit to pick? It wasn't so much about MLK, but more about RFK.
David:
You really gotta wake up here. If you think that changing back from this slippery slope towards fascism the USA and even Europe is now sliding too, isn't gonna be a big and genuine change, you got another thunk coming.
You can't be a little pregnant. You can't be a democratic country without habeas corpus, innocent till proven guilty, freedom from torture etc.
We too, have lessened the burden of proof regarding terrorism cases. Here too, the govts can more freely wiretap whenever some secret agent has a 'gut feeling' ... Oddly, there's never a gut feeling about blond people.
Now, just talking about an airport in a group, having maps of an airport can get you arrested. We didn't used to have "conspiracy to commit". Now we do.
Obama can move America away from all that, and for once I'll be glad to ape the Americans.
Increase the peace
CEO
PS. Unless I missed a joke of humongous subtlety, isn't is it tongue-in-cheek ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongue-in-cheek
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=tongue-in-cheek
February 27, 2008 12:33 PM | Reply | Permalink