If you would like to chip in to support public art in celebration of the future Commander in Chief of the world’s most powerful killing operation, here’s your chance.
Yes, yes I know…. It’s wonderful that an African American is going to have this kind of status and power. It really is. But, at the same time, there is zero reason to celebrate that the head of the executive branch of the U.S. Government is in fact a position of such exalted status, or to lose our democratic antipathy to massively concentrated power. The status of the President should be denigrated and the power of the office fiercely contested.
If this billboard happens, I pledge $10 to the guerilla mustache project.
You can purchase Gene Healy’s outstanding Cult of the Presidency: America’s Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power here.
HT: PL
Is the antipathy toward massively concentrated power really democratic? I would recommend that you read Bertrand de Jouvenel's On Power.
“If this billboard happens, I pledge $10 to the guerilla mustache project. “
That's incitement to the destruction of private property. How is that not Marxist?
One can only assume “guerrilla mustache” is an encoded endorsement of Che Guevara.
You mean incitement to the improvement of private property?
Yes. And I've read it.
Touche, dammit.
“[Obama] is a man of remarkable competence . . . He’s just the kind of guy I’d want as an executive, were I filling an executive position.” -Will Wilkinson, Sept 16, 2008
“And I think American voters picked a competent, decent, and sober executive officer.” -Will Wilkinson, Nov 5, 2008.
If both these things are true/accurate, what really have we to fear?
And to your statement, also from Nov 5: “McCain’s even worse with the 'fight cynicism through glorious collective commitment' crap, which is one reason I’m glad he lost”. What's ascribable here to McCain — and indeed it is, and it's loathsome — then it's twofold ascribable to Obama.
Will, I'll tell you what. Maybe instead of mustaches on the new Obama posters, we could just start a project to get one of any of the parodies posted on this page up everywhere on billboards. I like the Groucho Marx, the William Shatner, and the HP Lovecraft. The “Obey,” naturally, is a nice joke on that artist who originally came up with the Obama poster.
A huge exalted likeness of the president on a thoroughfare in a major city while said president is in power is creepy. Thus endeth the lesson.
After 16 years of embarrassments in the White House, is it so unbelievable or unacceptable that people project their hopes upon Obama. Events and Fox News hectoring will eventually probably disillusion most. In the meantime, how about you hold off on raining on our parade. Let us savor the moment for awhile please.
Robert,
I agree with Will's sentiments that such man-worship is rather creepy. The critique, as I understand it, is not really on Obama but rather his supporters.
> The status of the President should be denigrated …
Sorry, that word (along with many others) is no longer allowed in the New Era.
No, the critique should be on Obama for the creepy man-worship- more so on him than on his supporters. It's not enough to excuse Obama for being a politician. He's actively cultivated this man-worship. His victory speech was an Exhibit A manifestation of this. Evan Thomas got at this very point — on Obama's cultivation of a “creepy cult of personality” — a stunning admission, on the Charlie Rose. See here: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-balan/2008…
Robert, how can we hold the Big O responsible for Chris Matthews' skin-crawling public bro-mance? I mean, seriously? The MSM is doing this to themselves.
Only the most recent example of the MSM taking it where it doesn't need to go — I opened my NY Times today to find an entire section extolling Obama hagiography, such as this “Obama in the rain,” which must be making Chris Matthews' world.
Only the most recent example of the MSM taking it where it doesn't need to go — I opened my NY Times today to find an entire section extolling Obama hagiography, such as this “Obama in the rain,” which must be making Chris Matthews' world.