Dec 21 2009

Bouncing the rubble: the pointless destruction of Brand Obama

(9 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

The progressive blogosphere has been reduced to what Churchill called “bouncing the rubble,” indulging in irrational overkill of the shattered remnants of Brand Obama. What the ProgBlogs don’t seem to grasp is that the truth they are obsessively reiterating is an impossible one: Americans will not abandon a symbol vital to their belief system, no matter how completely shattered its effigy becomes.

Brand Obama is not like Brand Tiger Woods. The unfortunate Tiger was expendable, since there are many other smooth athletic champions ready to carry the logos of the corporations. But Brand Obama is inseparable from delusional America, and no amount of brand trashing can break this delusional psychosis.

Brand Obama is the living embodiment of the invincible folly of American Exceptionalism. We make the rules because we are special. We break the rules because we are special. We are special because we are special. To repudiate Brand Obama means acknowledging that the entire American adventure has been a blood-soaked lie, a terrible, brutal story of greed, oppression, and deceit. This can never be acknowledged, and thus Brand Obama can never be destroyed, no matter how thoroughly discredited Obama becomes as a person, a politician, or a symbol.

The majority of Americans cannot accept that their sons and daughters serve willingly as paycheck killers in an endless war. They cannot accept that they are ruled by sociopathic corporations pushing our society toward a new feudalism. They cannot accept that their lifestyle is physically unsustainable. How can such people be persuaded that their champion is a weakling and that his policies are folly?

The demonstrated failings of Obama are numerous, obvious, and thoroughly documented. But the truth of his failings is the truth of America’s failure, and thus it is an impossible truth. My advice to Progressives is to save your energies for surviving the collapse of the Babel Tower of folly that America has become. Brand Obama is logically dead, but the pernicious, unkillable spirit of Brand Obama lives, and it continues to beckon America towards destruction.

8 comments

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    • Edger on December 22, 2009 at 00:33
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    the pernicious, unkillable spirit of reason and pointing out reality lives too, and it has always beckoned America away from the edge.

    • arendt on December 22, 2009 at 00:46
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    Are you saying that nothing the Progressives can do will stop the corporate juggernaut?

    Do you have a suggestion for some “indirect approach”, rather than continuing (our rather brief) frontal assault on Brand Obama?

    I liked your description of the mindset of America today – in total denial about all aspects of our nation’s policies. But, are you really saying that we will never break through that delusion until its too late? (That is, until some really unpleasant reality brings the message home in a nation-destroying way.)

  3. that the exposure and deconstruction of the corporatist brand is meaningless.

    I would contend it is vital for true change.

    Anything else is simple acceptance of an abusive relationship.

  4. This is not a hard prediction to make. Approval ratings are closely tied to the economic fortunes of the populace. Does anybody see fundamental structural changes in the US economy that will lead to near-full employment and rising prosperity? I saw a post, recently, that said the following:

    Roubiani (sp) in a throw away line two weeks ago mentioned that 25% of US jobs were offshorable in the next 3 to 5 years.  Four days prior the NYT had an article essentially suggesting that most Americans were overpaid within the context of a global labor market.

    An accelerated race to the bottom will make brand Obama = brand Hoover. Even the black community will not turn out for Obama enough to save his bacon in 2012, as suggested by this article:

    “In a state like Florida, which Obama won by two percentage points, a falloff of 10 percent in black turnout might have changed the result and given the state to McCain,” said Towery, who recently conducted a statewide poll showing the president with an astonishing 35 percent disapproval rating among African Americans in Georgia. Towery cautioned that the startling statistics might be a peculiarity, owing to the brutal economic downturn in a state that was only recently booming.

    “My best guess is that the current black polling numbers for Obama are somewhat unusual in Georgia because black professionals and the black middle class here have had to get in the unemployment line alongside younger workers who’ve only recently moved to the city and state; and many of them, too, have seen their houses foreclosed on,” Towery wrote in a recent column.

  5. See — same thing.

    Different pretty face, different rhetoric, keep a different set of citizens mesmerized.

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