December 23, 2009
Mr. President, We Hardly Knew You
Et Tu, Barack?
By RANDALL AMSTER
Randall Amster, J.D., Ph.D., teaches Peace Studies at Prescott College and serves as the Executive Director of the Peace & Justice Studies Association. His most recent book is the co-edited volume Building Cultures of Peace: Transdisciplinary Voices of Hope and Action (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009).
Less than a year into the Administration that was to save us from the perfidy of the past, it’s clear that business-as-usual still holds sway. Trillions for war, nothing for the poor. Trillions for banks, but the people -- no thanks. Trillions more in debt, and we ain’t seen the end yet. Trillions for corporate cronies, but who will show us the monies?
Obama is a brand, and -- even with the shine coming off a bit -- is still a strong one. “Barack Obama is three things you want in a brand,” said Keith Reinhard, chairman emeritus of DDB Worldwide, back in March 2008. “New, different, and attractive. That’s as good as it gets.” Indeed, Ad Age and the Association of National Advertisers selected Barack Obama as “Marketer of the Year” for 2008, even before he was elected President. In the end, which victory really matters more? Is there in fact a difference?
An incisive summation of the brand’s genesis from Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi appeared way back in February 2007, and still speaks very much to the tenor of these times:
“The Illinois Senator is the ultimate modern media creature
his entire political persona is an ingeniously crafted human cipher, a man without race, ideology, geographic allegiances, or, indeed, sharp edges of any kind. You can’t run against him on the issues because you can’t even find him on the ideological spectrum. Obama’s ‘Man for all seasons’ act is so perfect in its particulars that just about anyone can find a bit of himself somewhere in the candidate’s background, whether in his genes or his upbringing.... is strategy seems to be to appear as a sort of ideological Universalist, one who spends a great deal of rhetorical energy showing that he recognizes the validity of all points of view, and conversely emphasizes that when he does take hard positions on issues, he often does so reluctantly...”
In another feat of foreshadowing, Paul Street penned these prescient words in November 2008, on the heels of Brand Obama’s ascent to the highest office in the land:
“The Obama-based ‘rebranding of America’ in the wake of the long proto-fascistic, arch-plutocratic, and messianic-militarist Cheney-Bush nightmare comes with heightened popular product expectations at home and abroad. .... Obama will be relying heavily on his marketing and public relations experts to keep the bewildered citizenry’s hopes and dreams properly constrained and downsized. Popular thought coordination through mass marketing will be important to the governance period as well as the election phase of the Obama ascendancy. As Obama’s early and excessively candid foreign policy advisor and Harvard ally Samantha Power told the power-worshipping public affairs talk-show host Charlie Rose last February, ‘Expectation calibration and expectation management is essential at home and internationally.’”
Read the full article at:
http://www.counterpunch.org/amster12232009.html
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
