Essays: The Marketing of An American President
by Dave Doc Rogers
It’s 2008 in the Year of our Lord,… unless that offends you then it CE or Common Era instead of Anno Domini, the Year of the Domion of the Lord Jesus, … unless that offends you. You see, I am never quite sure what is PC anymore. I used to think PC meant personal computer, but that’s not PC anymore. Well, to the point then, shall we.
It’s 2008 in the US of A. This means about 1/6th of the population will respond to civic marketing, wait in line, click a button or flip a switch or punch a card, and succumb to the firm belief and hope that they really did know what they were doing when they clicked or toggled or punched. Over 80% of the population will sit idly by and watch. If they are like most of those polled in my extremely unscientific polling process, they really had no clue who or what anyone really stood for. They just ‘believed’ this guy and everyone in that party – ’cause, you know they clicked that ‘all’ button – was it worth the effort to even get up that day? And, that is the state of most Americans at the voting booth, carrel, standee, machine, whatever it is now-a-days.
I have watched with interest 11 elections; which after counting them and writing this kind of makes me feel old. Not too old. I have been alive for only 12. Eleven presidential elections. The big whooptidoo on the television that fills up the prime time slots with news, events, debates, and discussions about what was said at anytime by the candidates for the lofty office of President of the United States of America. Purportedly the most power position in the world … according to news pundits in New York, Atlanta, Chicago, and LA. However, Paris, Moscow, London, Berlin, Beijing, and elsewhere may disagree with that statement. Pasty faced power boys from around the country backed by power brokers and those who want to be. Even fresh faced outsiders are lulled into the game at the promise of becoming a PTB later in life. Those that do not play are not re-elected. Then change, it was the 80s. New promises made that dwindled as a great man also dwindled. The 90s were about lies and a new century about deception and the looking for deceivers. Et tu Brute? In 2008 it is better to bury Caesar than to praise him, defile him too while you are at it, Cassius.
Watching the US news shows lately reminds me of Orwell’s book 1984. Side note, I read it in 1984. Punny, wot? Near the end of the story … I’m not giving anything away here … the television kept repeating the same deception that it always did. Our hero, after being fulling re-introduced into society sits watching the news. He says to himself if they lose just one battle then I will never give in but the next scene is him cheering the victory, a victim of their lies. How like our news today. It is sad to watch really. The psychological indoctrination is so subtle as to go unnoticed unless you are looking for it. CBS News with Katie has a panel of “undecided” voters for a post speech review. Careful screening of the audience allows her to steer the conversation quite well. She deliberates on those that have positive views of one candidate while “tossing” out a question to see if anyone had an opinion on the other candidate. Who is she fooling? Apparently most. I haven’t heard anyone decry such outlandish, one sided journalism. Oh, she did have one person speak on behalf of the other candidate. It was negative. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Let us tell you who to vote for.
A B C … I used to like that network. I mean, American Broadcasting Company. Great name … if you are from America. However, good news reporting and even journalism have gone away to glitz and flash story making. I loved their most recent post debate panel. No one was for one candidate and everyone was for the other. From the news anchor through all of the political “experts” they practically gushed over their favored candidate and lambasted the other. You would nearly think the guy must have been a criminal. Surprise, surprise, when the one candidate receives a lower grade but their favored one … just to make it close … gets a grade overall slightly higher. I mean, who do they think they are fooling when Georgie S, the former guy working in the White House who was given a ‘cush’ job by the pro-Demo party news team, is doing the ‘political’ analysis. Whatever. If you believe that was fair and balanced go downtown Manhattan and play 3 card montie. Your chances are better at getting a fair deal.
Oh … “fair and balanced” news network. They aren’t really. If you gloss to one side or the other then you aren’t fair and you aren’t balanced.
CNN … The news according to Ted Turner. I stopped watching them a long time ago.
I am disappointed at televised news and web news. I stopped reading printed news a l-o-n-g time ago. When you see pictures of one candidate in a darkened picture looking around at waving banners that you can’t read and you see the other candidate standing in front of a podium, slogan clearly visible, smiling fetchingly, right hand pointing outward which happens to be at the other candidate and the slogan talks about ‘change’, it should be obvious this photo was a set up. But no one said anything about that bit of news manipulation. That was on the web at MSNBC until the debate that evening. I went to get a copy of the pic and it had been changed already.
Channel 23 in the TV series Max Headroom was discovered to be advertising via ‘blip-verts’, which they determined later to be bad because certain couch-potato types would explode. They were using their tech to manipulate the audience into buying what they wanted. We go back to Orwell now. They too were controlling a demographic through repetition as if true. If all you hear is one thing and there is no counter to it, then eventually you can program someone, several someones, to believe whatever it is you want them to believe. Karl Marx said as much in regards to the youth of a nation.
I have no doubts that, like Lincoln, Obama began with good intentions a political journey. But, Obama will find that he owes so many so much for deals done for him that he will not be able to accomplish anything should he obtain the needed electoral votes. It won’t necessarily be the will of the people or even the masses. It will have been by the very slick and subversive marketing of the controllers of the information highway.
WR Hearst had no idea, my opinion, what he had wrought when he went about journalism with a new approach, sensationalism. It sold. It also fomented. Mock journalism became accepted over literary truth. Then others discovered that if you controlled the information highway you controlled the minds of a populous. With great affinity Hitler, Lenin, Mao, and Mussolini converted the masses to their way of thought. The frog was slowly boiled. I’ll explain that later. To great detriment to those societies did the infusion of “their” thought overcome the thinking of the individual, and the individual was replaced by the masses and their puppet masters. Oh to play god and not be!
The marketing of an American President is an insidious process. First, you have to manufacture a candidate. He has to be a certain heroic mix. He has to come from power or subservient to it. He has to understand it, to have tasted it. He has to be of a certain educational background, the “best” schools. He has to be sponsored, “mentored” in the “right” direction. He has to be flawed but not too greatly. He has to be trained to conduct himself so as to be seen correctly in the correct way in the correct environments. He will get a publicist. He has to be seen with the right people doing just enough to keep being seen with the right people. His speeches are tailored and well timed for maximum impact. He is well coached and well rehearsed. He is photogenic. It helps to have your own photographers taking shots you want taken. He is trained to comport himself well under pressure. He appears calmly assured, “presidential.”
In print, in press, in electronic media, in stills, he is presented in the best lights and backgrounds for his complexion, ethnicity, and agenda. In moving media, he is always presented in calm, presidential assurance speaking clearly and on topic. Comparative media, he is always presented in bright surroundings and candid joy. His opponents are in dark, disturbing, or awkward environments with facial expressions that run the gamut of emotions as long as they express a negative countenance.
Those with the power to do so, controllers of the information highways, steer oh so subtly, the minds, hearts, and emotions away from those things they do not like toward those things they want the numbed populous to see. It is the art of Copperfield and Houdini. Get them to look at what you want them to see while they are doing something else you do not want them to see. And, it is more insidious than that. There are some out there who fully believe they can do what they do because they can and there is no one who sees it or empowered to stop it. It all has plausible deniability. “I didn’t know that was going on, Mr. Chairman.” “I have no knowledge of that, Mr. Chairman.” The info highway loves that stuff. It’s less than 5 seconds and can be repeated easily on the web or in 15 second new highlight commercials.
So, unless honest media returns to the USA and otherwise intelligent Americans become benumbed by all of the subliminal imagery and messaging, #44 can only be Obama.
US citizenry will not have participated in an election of one who is to preside over the executive branch of the US government. No, the US citizenry will have fallen prey to mass media experimentation in mass population thought control, and it will have worked.
Now, as to who is better? McCain or Obama [sorted alphabetically and not preferentially]. I do not know and would not say so here.
McCain will fight and lose to a Congress that is entrenched along party lines and will not work with him because he is old, may die in office, will put her in office, is McCain the maverick, and 500 other reasons that require asking MCs and Senators for their ‘real’ opinion… not gonna happen. Internationally, he will be stymied and nothing will be accomplished. It might as well have been Wilson and Roosevelt pre-WWII for all of his effectiveness.
Obama will be tauted as a hero of Civil Rights in action right up to the point he starts thinking for himself instead of those who put him there. Then he will serve 4 years and is heard of no more. If he repays those who put him in his place then he will have 3 years of glory, 3 years of easy appointments, especially judges that are friendly to certain causes and bulwarks against others, even if it is legislation from the bench. The people will not matter. Internationally, everyone who is anyone or wants to be seen as ‘anyone’ will clamor to talk to this ‘golden anointed’ son of America. What looks good for prime time info highway will not be reality however. More will be harmed than helped. Military exacerbations will rise to the point of war and the next POTUS will have to throw his or her arms up in the air in … frustration or prayer … they won’t say which.
In my years of selling and working with and observing marketing, sometimes the hyped expectation doesn’t live up to the reality of ownership. They [MCs] won’t impeach because of the institution it represents, so which ever choice you end up with … ensure you sought out real information to support your 1:300,000,000 vote. Because if you do not know what you are doing those in power will only be too glad to ensure you do what they want you to do. Done.
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