One of the labels for Obama that gets thrown out regularly is the label of the "messiah." Personally, I find this term offensive because I personally believe there is only one messiah. That messiah died nearly 2000 years ago. However, what angers me the most is that this is yet another example of fake outrage from the right. They came up with the term messiah and then attributed it to the left. I don't know any liberal that calls him that and still they use the term as a punch line. So, they manufacture the term and the fake outrage over that term. It's beautiful.
All of this stems back to a term that did originate in the Obama campaign. Most of you are probably familiar with the phrase, "the audacity of hope." Well, conservatives seized on that one and created their own parity, "the audacity of hype." All is fair in love and war I suppose, but the stink that the right is putting up shows they are definitely threatened. They are threatened by Obama because he does represent hope. Sure, hope may not put bread on the table or money in the bank, but it is a lot more appealing than what the conservatives are selling.
Several weeks ago, someone brought up The American President and the speech by Andrew Shepard. My favorite part of his speech at the end was his talk about his opponent and the fact that he thought that he didn't "get it." He came to understand that he did get it, but he just "couldn't sell it." I think there is more truth in that statement then we can imagine. The Republicans certainly have their fair share of populism. Sarah Palin and Ron Paul seem to be packing in the crowds pretty good. It isn't about popularity. It's about what is being sold.
The right's answer to Obama's hope is nostalgia. Put nostalgia in the right hands and it can sound an awful lot like hope. It gets people to harken back to a time when they perceived life as better. Memory can be a fuzzy thing sometimes. On the one hand, your mind can trick you into believing it was a better time and at the same time it will come through much more vivid and crystal clear than the future. Thus, nostalgia can seem better than hope.
I'd love to go back to my high school and college days. Those were the best days of my life (at least that's what my memory may tell me). Yet, at some point I must realize that no matter how bad I may want to go back to those days, I can't. A majority of Americans are also realizing that they can't go back. Once you realize that nostalgia can't be real then you look for the person offering you the best future. The future is hope. I can hope for financial security. I can hope for better health and a secure retirement. I can hope for a better world for my daughter. The beauty is that unlike nostalgia, these things can come true. Deep down inside we all know that. Mockery is the last refuge of the scared.
Oh that movie, Revolutionary Road. You are exactly right, quiet desperation.
And last night, I watched Madmen, which I find as compelling to watch as Revolutionary Road. Certainly, women knew their place.
As odd as it seems, given my age, I think the best is still ahead. It won't be perfect, but it never was.
i guesss the "good old days" are according to perspective. for example, my dad showed me an email he rec'd from a cousin, recalling the "good old days" back when they were kids (40's) and the italian mothers at holiday time were all hovering over the stoves in the kitchen and the uncles were drinking beer and playing horseshoes in the back yard. my mom commented that the trend died because the women got tired of lazy drunk men doing nothing while women slaved over the meal. my dad seemed hurt, because from his boyhood perspective his mother and aunts "loved" to do this and took great pride in the praise they rec'd for making the feast. i remarked that today everyone has a job for our holiday meal, even the children both boys & girls. and i reminded my dad that we never let him sit around and do nothing, a trend he accepted because it became a tradition (condition) my sisters and i started over 20yrs ago. guess we taught an old dog new tricks, but the email was an eye-opener for me on "nostalgia".
These are the same people who thought G.W. Bush's war for profit in Iraq was the "will of God".
The term Messiah implies that anyone who supports Obama is blindly following him based on his "charisma" or some other intangible, instead of a sound set of policy beliefs. Its a way of calling all of his supporters sheep. Its a wide ranging insult.
I personally have a friend that referred to Obama as the messiah and it wasn't about saying WE called him the messaih, it was about how they felt (correctly or not) that liberals thought he was going to magically fix the problems of this country. (This person was usually a liberal, but I believe was so butt hurt about Hillary not getting the nomination, he completely lost it)
Amusingly enough, they really did have about the same number of people that felt the same way about Palin.
Ahh the past, as portrayed in the movie Revolutionary Road. That movie was powerfully disturbing! Talk about men (and women) leading quiet lives of desperation!
The only time that REALLY exists is the here-and-now. The present is where we live. The past and the future are unreachable in the moment in which we exist.
As for The Messiah... isn't that a word reserved for Christians? And doesn't the right claim to be the REAL Christians? And isn't the left made up of atheists and people of all other "false religions"? So how can he be our Messiah?
It makes perfect sense. I had a less than happy childhood in terms of school (not family life). I catch myself looking back every now and then. I guess that's why I am a progressive. I don't necessarily look back at the past and see a bed of roses. However, I am doing better generally.
I agree, voice. The good old days were a long way from ideal. But our mind fools us when we take a casual look back. Then we start longing for the good old days "when life was at a slower pace and things were easy". Total BS ! We had to work harder to reach our understood goals, our salaries were lower while prices, especially during infalation cycles, were high and our money didn't go quite as far. Then we had to take on the second job or the wife (or husband) had to go to work because the second income was needed. Tell me, what was good about that ?
I get a lot of emails relating to nostalgic looks back. Most of these are for bits and pieces of our childhood or our teen years. Then theres some who long for simpler times, less pressure, less tension, that also, for most of us, really relates back to our childhood not to the years of our 20's, or 30's, etc.
There is the backward glances of our later years that is more of a wish for having done things different when we were growing up. Believe me, thats a trap, and not one you want to fall into. You have to remember that whats done is a fait accompli and you can't change it so why dwell on it. That brings me to John Greenleaf Whittier's The Saddest Words: "For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these
: 'It might have been!
Have I made any sense at all ?
The good old days really weren't. We have always striven for something better. The grass has always been greener somewhere else. It's amazing how good things look in a rear view mirror though. Even Phil Gramm and Newt Gingrich have made me feel a little nostalgic lately. ;-)
On second thought, not really.
I haven't yet seen a movie clip or a YouTube video displaying kids praying to a picture of Barack Obama. But I have seen one of children of right wingers actually kneeling down, praying before a picture of George W. Bush. (See: "Jesus Camp")
So, wingnuts, you tell me - which one is regarded as The Messiah?
This is like so much else these delusional whack jobs bleat on about. Totally contrived, totally false.
It would be funny if they weren't so dead serious - and dangerous.