Echo...echo....echo...
Here’s a thought. Maybe, just maybe, this whole “McCain’s pulling ahead” storyline is actually just a big steamin’ load of bullshit being served up by a media that, at the end of the day, loves nothing more than ratings.
Have a look at the photo above. This photo was taken at McCain’s rally today in Jacksonville. In a stadium with 18,000 seats, he managed to put asses in about 3,000. Take out the media and his staff and I bet it comes out to something more like 2,500. And it got me to thinking…
Every Obama supporter I’ve spoken to or read from lately is scared as hell because of the Palin surge. I’ve been telling them up and down to keep their cool. We’re putting too much fear and general negative energy out there. Fear breaks the ranks and causes disunity. That’s exactly what any opponent wants. And it’s exactly what the Republicans are getting right now. Take a deep breath and look at the picture above. This is what you’re scared of?
We should all operate under the 1984 priciple (No, I’m not referencing Reagan’s landslide, I’m talking about Orwell’s book). Don’t blindly trust the information you’re being given by any official source. It’s serving many powerful interests in various ways. Poll numbers, for example: Orwell could hardly have envisoned an easier, more ingenious means of mass mind control. Show a chart with a red line and a blue line converging and the whole nation simultaneously goes into spasms of joy or rage, depending on which color they’re rooting for. While the poll numbers drive all the news stories, what my two eyes tell me when I look at this picture is that the man at the top of the Republican ticket can’t put asses in seats. I was at Invesco and I can attest to the fact that Obama does not have that problem in the slightest.
Voting requires people to get of their asses and go do something. In general, Americans are loathe to get off their asses, as is evidenced by our staggeringly low overall voter turnout, not to mention the size of the average American ass. If people aren’t willing to get off the couch to see a candidate speak in their hometown, chances are decent they won’t make it to the polling station on November 4 either. And presumably, the converse is true too. If you care enough to go to a rally, you’ll probably be motivated enough to go down and vote on November 4 too. If my theory holds any water, Obama’s in fine shape.
Now, here’s the other part of the story. Our media is by and large a for profit business. The way they make their money is by keeping eyes glued to their content. For news networks, the elections are their cash cow. (Take it from a guy who’s paying all his bills with Obama Action Figures – there’s a lot of money that flows around these things.) The election is basically like a drawn out News Superbowl that only comes every four years.
If the Superbowl’s a blowout, most people tune out by the third quarter. Nothing the network can do about that other than hope for a close game. Do you doubt for a second that they’d rig the Superbowl to stay close if they could get away with it? Of course they would! When thirty seconds nets $2 million, even a saint would become a scoundrel. And there ain’t no saints in the offices on Madison Avenue. But the elections… oh my. Now that’s another story. The networks, in this case, DO have the power to keep the game close. They drive the whole story. And lo and behold – what a marvelous coincidence! – this election that was a surefire runaway for the Democrats has suddenly tightened up just as we’re heading into the fourth quarter.
Or did it? Let’s not forget too quickly the lessons of Iraq with its ass-kissing embedded reporters who hopped on board for the ride, and brought all of us along with them, without ever stopping to wonder why. Truth was the first casualty of that war. If we haven’t learned to question the veracity of the news, then we’ve learned nothing from the last eight years.
They do what they do because they know that what they’ve got is better than crack. Real-life drama! With really real consequences! And those same people who brought you embedded journalism and war under false pretense are now leading us on this magical roller-coaster ride of an election. I guarantee, in two weeks time, if you stick with the media narrative, you’ll be oohing and aahing as Obama’s blue line starts climbing back up that hill to the Never Never Land of fifty percent.
Get off the ride, Obama nation. Get your swagger back. We’re being played.
In the immortal words of George W. Bush, “Fool me once, shame on you! Fool me twice…. I won’t get fooled again!”
ART + ACTION = OBAMA 08, presented by Jailbreak Toys, is coming up on October 17th in New York City. ART + ACTION is an exhibition of custom Obama Action Figures by contemporary artists, graf writers, and toymakers. Visionary pieces by Mars-1 and Jason Alberto Garcia, edgy versions by Damion Silver and David Choong Lee, as well as completely reconstructed custom toys by Brin Berliner, kaNO, and so many more will line the walls of The Showroom NYC at Toy Tokyo. Ron English will be there signing his Abraham Obama posters. There will also be signed Obama posters for sale by legendary Obey-creator, Shepherd Fairey.
