Yesterday I posted a piece regarding my opposition to the Gore candidacy called Why Al Gore will not be…SHOULD not be…the 2008 Dem candidate.
In it I said…as I have said before…that I think there has already been some kind of deal struck between Hillary Clinton , the people who really own and control the Democratic Party and Barack Obama. and that it is going to be a Hillary/Obama ticket in ’08 unless something truly untoward happens. It may be a tacit deal, a silent understanding, but it’s right there in your face if you take a look at the (Ugh!!!) media.
I also said that I thought that Al Gore is essentially an untalented candidate and therefore a very bad one.
Both here and on My Left Wing I received mixed reactions. VERY mixed. Agreements, revulsion at the stark truth of political marketing, anger that I was somehow shilling for Obama and/or Ms. Clinton, reactions about how unattractive either or both of them are (Based on sexual/political understandings, mostly. Like “I wouldn’t want to sleep with them so they NOT marketable. So there!!!”), etc.
So I posted the reply below.
As y’all must be tired of hearing by now, I believe in the idea of “As above, so below.” That is, the concept that the laws that apply to any level of the universe also apply to all the other levels as well.
Well, that has a corollary, as all good laws must. It goes for side to side as well.
Marketing is marketing, whether it’s political marketing, automotive marketing, financial marketing or toilet paper marketing.
Read on for more.
Louisianagirl wrote:
To which I answered (In slightly expanded form here.):
And I think that SUVs and steroided-out looking Schwarzeneggermobiles of all sorts are absolutely hideous looking.
(2005 Chrysler 500)
Let ALONE criminally wasteful.
But massive advertising budgets have sold them. In the millions. To the same goddamned fools who vote.
They could NOT have sold Kucinichmoblies.
Not over the last several years. Too wimpy looking, given the red alert terror scam.
But Schwarzeneggermobiles???
No problem.
Now, however, they are selling slicker looking cars.
(2007 Chrysler 500)
Smoooooother.
Red alert’s almost over.
Time for the slicksters to do their thang.
Thus…Obamamobiles.
They sell what they can sell.
That’s the art of advertising.
So it goes.
Time for a NEW scam.
So it goes.
AG
P.S Goremobiles are also a hard sell these days.
Whereas Hillarymobiles
appear to be a a goddamned GROWTH industry.
So it goes.
VROOOM!!!!
I drive a ’94 Hipmobile myself.
Manual transmission, high end Japanese technology engine (Yamaha), cheap. fast. roomy, economical when you factor in the 200,000+ miles I have put on it since buying it new. One of the last sensible performance cars that America will ever make, probably.
Not much false hype, all go, lotsa testosterone.
It’s actually kind of a (Bill) Clintonmobile, come to think of it.
Right at home in the Arkansas back country, you betcha. Good ol’ boys drive ’em.
And a SERIOUS, 130 MPH+, 0-60 in under 7 seconds stealth car.
Bill Clinton.
Whatever happened to him?
I kinda miss him.
AG
If the reification of the culture industry in the realm of a commodified politics is your goal, then I guess you have much to celebrate here and in your other diaries. But if you choose to assume a truly critical stance, I imagine you will have to view Obama’s rise in politics through the lenses of my incredulous eyes.
blue in the face, louisianagirl,
On the blogs AND in my own artistic life.
To what end?
May as well spit into a hurricane.
I keep on spitting out of sheer cussedness, but at the same time I have learned that you do not need a spit shine to know how hard the wind blows.
OR in what direction.
It has blowing Hillaryward for several years, and it is plainly shifting quite strongly Obamaward as well.
North by northeast.
Hillary by Obama.
Bet on it.
AG
😀
No kidding.
You are posting on a political blog. Not many of us here want to be told what we are doing is irrelevant.
Even if it is. (Especially if it is.)
I am happy to see you fight this. Let us be glad we are not D.kos. We don’t have to root for the Home Team. We don’t have to root for ANY team.
What are we best at? Cutting through the endless lies of the media.
What are we NOT good at? Replacing the media.
No surprise there. It’s the media’s job to put the populace into a mental torpor in which they are subject to hypnotic command. Obviously, we cannot do that.
Probably, we do not want to. Remember, we are not media: We are samizdat.
But that does leave us with a problem. We still imagine a democratic politics in which candidates are selected for the skills and talents they have and the policies they advocate, and are elected by popular assessment of the strength of these talents and policies. Meanwhile, politics actually works by selecting candidates with a proven ability to sell pre-selected policies wanted by the main economic powers, and elected through emotional voter identification.
The process is as mindless as it sounds.
Whether Obama and Clinton are only being market-tested as a possibility, or are already selected, somebody has decided that the marketing time-line requires that they be introduced NOW. Their talents and virtues, from OUR OWN point of view, do not matter at all.
I know many people who already support Clinton who should know better. She is an imperialist–as ALL candidates acceptable to the media will be. (Those that aren’t imperialist will get Dean-screamed out.) Her job, if she is selected and elected, will be to conduct the War for Oil (presumably more competently) and to expand it (because there will be no choice). If you want peace she will not be your candidate.
If you want peace you will not HAVE a candidate. Facts of life. You will have to express you politics another way.
Will Clinton be elected, or will she be selected for the theaterof it–to run and lose? (It is still very important that Presidential elections seem to be a contest.) That is firstly a policy question that will be decided not by us, and secondly a media question that will be decided in focus groups and the choices of ad campaigns.
What can we do? Not much. We can try to wake people up, which is what we are doing. But once woken, people have to STAY awake, and not fall back to sleep. To argue over these candidates is positively a symptom of falling back to sleep. They don’t matter. As best I know, there is no harm in casting a vote. But really, they just don’t matter. Energy has to go elsewhere.
Where?
Anywhere that helps end the War for Oil. Since the war is built into the oil-consuming structure of the American Way of Life (TM), anything that gets us out of that way of life is to the good. Quit consuming, quit driving, start looking to local alternatives for food and clothing.
Oppose the War for Oil in all its forms. The easiest point of pursuasion is Iraq, since–whatever the powers that be may think–it certainly LOOKS like a disaster. But that is just one theater of the war. Build on opposition to that theater to build oppositions in other theaters. Keep in mind the Muslim Menace (TM), in all its forms, is completely bogus. There are no terrorists, only black ops, and most of them are ours.
Oppose Privatization in all its forms. You can be sure we will have no national candidate on this one, even local candidates will be hard to find. The context is that the US is now like a third-world country and is being looted out in the classic manner. Eventually people WILL notice. Help them notice now.
Make you own list. There are lots of possibilities, like promoting real music so people do not have to listen to corporate ersatz. And so on.
Have fun.
Yes Gaianne!!!
“Oppose the War for Oil in all its forms.”
Oppose the Virtual Society in all aspects of your own lives.
We have nothing to fear but conformity itself.
Peace.
It’s what’s for dinner.
You eat what you are.
Peace.
AG
Obama is not part of the hillary brigade. I saw a clip where she was asked about him and if her look could freeze…
obama is his own man. He operates in his own way. He would not sell out to hillary of all people
Hillary is a diva. She has enough trying to overcome Bill and doesn’t need Obama’s charisma around her as well.
that is just silly to think they are dealing together.
Gore will not run. It’s because he has never looked happier and freer than in the past few years. HE is free to be himself without worrying if he is stepping on some toes. he doesn’t care. He is able to be himself for the first time. That freedom is precious to him.
The deal does npot have to be friendly, vwcat.
Just pragmatic politics.
Neither can win without the other.
AG
I share your cynicism, Arthur, but try to stay out of that place because I do like these people and hope the best for them.
Thought you might enjoy this commentary on Gore as the Greatest Environmental Politician in the History of The World.
Merry Christmas and God bless us, every one.