Thursday, June 11, 2009

• Does America Yearn For A Monarch?

Life Magazine fabricated a mythical monarchy in the early sixties by applying polish and airbrushing to John and Jacky Kennedy, elevating them into a Camelot. America couldn’t get enough of the magazine, and rewarded its uncommon “access,” to the JFK White House with financial success. The corporate strategy very successfully built an unprecedented, but mutually beneficial, relationship.

This was not the first popularization of an American President, but it was the most successful anointing of an almost-monarch. We all admire true heroes, however, there are many who seem to require more than honored heroes. To satisfy that craving, we create stars and surround them with irrational adoration bordering on veneration. The mainstream media (MSM) plays a role in the process, and has much to gain from it just as Life Magazine solidified itself, and its profits with the creation of the American version Camelot.

Life Magazine presented a glossy veneer of a young President and his family, because it could, and because it would not have been as profitable to have done otherwise. The public reaction was extremely receptive, and the oversized periodical continued to publish its principal stars’ immaculate images.

America has long succumbed to Hollywood’s very adept star manufacturing machine. Studios and production companies very effectively and profitably practiced the art of star production, as well as veneer creation, for a century. Whether the individuals in question believe their own press, matters little to the studios and the machinery that creates them. They are ephemeral creations that have no truth other than that of existence in the percepts of adoring devotees. They scatter nonsense, and often lies, and all utterances are gratefully accepted. Stars step into the light, feigning timidity, as they engage in absorbing gushing adulation. The star making process has been perfected and whether young, old, intelligent, rich, poor, educated or not, it seems that everyone is susceptible to its affects.

In 2009, the MSM has been provided a new President, whose natural tendency is already a well-prepared gleaming image, requiring little visible airbrushing. Obama’s promotional machine has had the added and unabashed advantage of having its subject well versed and practiced in the art of sermon delivery. Obama placed himself on a pedestal, and the MSM has delivered applause and sometimes infatuation. The zeal of this infatuation has translated into an abandonment of any application of journalistic ethics or common sense. The obsession has been transferred onto the population eager to satisfy a yearning for a monarch. This is not to suggest that America wants a king, because it doesn’t, however, there is evidently a vast portion of society that yearns for a personality that it believes will transcend it to a place where Camelots exist. America doesn’t want to literally revisit the anachronism of royalty, yet the British monarchy is as popular in the U.S. as it is in Great Britain.

In Obama, America found a willing aspirant on whom it consigned the cloak and stature of monarch, the ultimate iteration of star. Modern versions of monarchs however, have no effective power, but they enjoy fulfillment of ceremonial roles. Obama accommodates that role rather effectively and continues his cultivation of the “I,” unabated. As President, he has avoided the thorny details of assiduous analysis on the most critical problems facing America, and has used sweeping, but banal statements of obvious principals, while his appointees actually implement policies and programs inconsistent with the claims of the message.

Obama has filled the ceremonial role of monarch with enchanting voyages across the country and around the world, although the country might wish for more representation of America’s interests, rather than promotion of its leader as internationalist. While the public and the MSM might treat a monarch with reverence, a President should be treated as a politician, and challenged as such.

As President, Obama has yet to demonstrate any proclivity for practical leadership of the free nation envisioned by the unpretentious framers of the Constitution. As he insinuates government into all social and economic fibers of the country, the American taxpayer’s expectations of Obama’s heralded change will rapidly evaporate, the “self-evident truths” will become redefined, and the reality of the costs will become the new, overwhelming burden.

Now that the Congressional Budget Office has notified them that federal spending in 2019 will represent at least 25% of the GDP, all taxpayers should decide that a monarch just will not be injected into their futures in any form, and that their President should be challenged. There are enough stars floating out of Hollywood to satisfy desires of royalty.

7 comments:

  1. WapnersPC, Chicago

    I thought that we had already seen the worst presidency that any of us would encounter in our lifetimes. At least with Bush there were some checks and balances that kept him from running completly out of control; hostile press, hostile congress, his own lack of credibility. He was assentially a lame duck for 4 years.

    Our new administration is on track to wreak havoc on an unprecedented scale. Obama has a captive pet media that shields him from scrutiny and glosses over his failures. He was a a captive pet congress filled with like-minded zealots. Once he is done "sotomayoring" the supreme court over the next 7 years, there will not even be a real judicial challenge in the US.

    Yes, I just conceeded his second term as unavoidable. This is based on O's ownership of those who don't work; unions, government employees, the lowe middle class and the unemployed. These groups will not care if the entire country is worse off as long as big business and the wealthy are duly punished.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous, in Chicago,

    Well said, and appropriate observation. Bush was slammed by everyone including late night talk shows. He had little chance of achieving anything once the Iraq was became a quagmire.

    Today, NO ONE is watching with inquisitive eyes or listening with inquisitive ears. What he has just imposed on GM and Chrysler is passing without question by the MSM. That is really worrisome.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Laura from Buenos Aires.

    I completely agree with your article and the comments posted. Let me add that in my view, the media is exactly what "created" the whole Obama thing knowing that whomever was against him whould be marked as "racist". So no one can contradict him, exactly what is needed to achieve a Communist-type totalitarian government as I guess he´s intending to do, aided by his interested allies such as unions.

    He has already told that 4 years are not enough for "change". Of course! The idea is to remain in power for good! In the meantime, people is entertained with domesticated media sending only good news and merry pictures of the Obama family taking care of the garden.

    I sincerely hope that Americans do not follow the path of our third world countries, virtually "dominated" by marxist governments... The strong country that once fought against communist and won... Where else would personal freedom be defended?

    ReplyDelete
  4. I just found your blog, and read the last year worth of postings.

    I have to say; you are a refreshing voice.

    I live in the Chicago area; and told all my friends that Obama talked a great game - but wouldn't follow through on what he said. Someone genuinely interested in the welfare of Americans would not be:
    - extending the war in Iraq to Afghanistan
    - extending bailout money to the financial sector
    - spending like there's no tomorrow; to bankrupt our children's opportunities
    - doing what he's done to the auto industry
    - stuck with Geithner when he learned that he's another tax cheat
    - appointed the same ol'/same ol' - no integrity career pols (as an Illinois resident - bring back people like Paul Simon)

    Yet... the media continues to deify him; and most of the people I talk with think he's great - and the best thing that happened to this country. Bush was a moron; and sounded like one. Obama is supposed to be smart, and may well be, but its not about the people of the U.S. at all... He's not a liberal or a libertarian; he's a hard core statist power grabber...

    ReplyDelete
  5. Dave,

    Welcome aboard. The articles attempt to maintain an objective perspective if there such a thing, although I think that annoyance sets in when the MSM becomes too subjective and fails to challenge politicians.

    While I disagreed strongly with some of the most critical decisions that Bush made such as entering Iraq as you have read, I feel that Democrats generally received a pass on the creation of the economic / real estate bubble.

    We have yet to be provided evidence of the "smart" in Obama. If he's smart, he's not very inquisitive, and appears too self centered and self absorbed. Sorry, but being trained on constitutional law does not an intelligent person make. He should never had let Geithner and company run off with keys to the treasury, ... for starters.

    I look forward to more of your comments.

    ReplyDelete
  6. With the help of hindsight, it seems that America is too polarized to support a new king, a left leaning king anyways.

    ReplyDelete
  7. We don’t need no stinking monarch .. when we got a "sort of a God"

    ReplyDelete