I'm always on the semi-defensive when I walk into my local Barnes & Noble, as I am fully aware that they will have erected a shrine to something in there for my immediate visual benefit. Either it's global warming, replete with some ill-written tome on how I can be exactly like Ed Begley Junior, DaVinci Code knockoffs or the pantheon of atheistic drivel that masquerades as independent thought and rationality.
Today, however, I am treated to a Stonehenge-rivaling stack of books that bear the following dust cover to the right:
I don't care who you're voting for. The canonization of Barack Obama has finally hit sickening levels. The messianic gravity assigned to this man--especially by people who hate the real Messiah--is enough to trip my semi-antagonistic gag reflex (apparently, my attempts to lead a public prayer to the bibliophilic monument were considered uncouth, but I digress).
This complaint is not something dredged up by a right-wing talking points committee. We are talking out and out pathology here.
But I quibble using my own words. Quoth the Called:
"Many even see in Obama a messiah-like figure, a great soul, and some affectionately call him Mahatma Obama."
-- Dinesh Sharma
"A Lightworker -- An Attuned Being with Powerful Luminosity and High-Vibration Integrity who will actually help usher in a New Way of Being"
-- Mark Morford
"What Barack Obama has accomplished is the single most extraordinary event that has occurred in the 232 years of the nation’s political history"
-- Jesse Jackson, Jr.
"This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal."
-- Barack Obama
"Does it not feel as if some special hand is guiding Obama on his journey, I mean, as he has said, the utter improbability of it all?"
-- Daily Kos
"Not just an ordinary human being but indeed an Advanced Soul"
-- http://obamamessiah.blogspot.com/2008/03/not-just-ordinary-human-being-but.html
"I'll do whatever he says to do. I'll collect paper cups off the ground to make his pathway clear."
-- Halle Berry
"He is not operating on the same plane as ordinary politicians. . . . the agent of transformation in an age of revolution, as a figure uniquely qualified to open the door to the 21st century."
-- Gary Hart
-- Gary Hart
"Barack Obama is our collective representation of our purest hopes, our highest visions and our deepest knowings . . . He's our product out of the all-knowing quantum field of intelligence."
-- Eve Konstantine
"This is bigger than Kennedy. . . . This is the New Testament." "I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don't have that too often. No, seriously. It's a dramatic event."
-- Chris Matthews
"[Obama is ] creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom . . . [He is] the man for this time."
-- Toni Morrison
"Obama's finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don't even really inspire. They elevate. . . . He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh . . . Obama is, at his best, able to call us back to our highest selves."
-- Ezra Klein
"Obama has the capacity to summon heroic forces from the spiritual depths of ordinary citizens and to unleash therefrom a symphonic chorus of unique creative acts whose common purpose is to tame the soul and alleviate the great challenges facing mankind."
-- Gerald Campbell
"We're here to evolve to a higher plane . . . he is an evolved leader . . . [he] has an ear for eloquence and a Tongue dipped in the Unvarnished Truth."
-- Oprah Winfrey
“I would characterize the Senate race as being a race where Obama was, let’s say, blessed and highly favored. That’s not routine. There’s something else going on. I think that Obama, his election to the Senate, was divinely ordered. . . . I know that that was God’s plan."
-- Bill Rush
Just when I thought these people wanted religion out of politics, they go off and melt down all their jewelry and start dancing naked around the abortion plank. What's a theocratic upstart like me to think?
I for one, refuse to pray to the meme. If Obama's skin color alone has the redeeming power I'm supposed to think it has, then why isn't Condoleeza Rice considered his baptismal forerunner?
Sometimes, it seems, a little blasphemy is in order--especially when the god is a false one.
-R
NOTE: If one thinks I'm kidding about this, go here. You'll be treated to a chronicle of photographic canonizations that rival Renaissance-levels of halo gracing the Madonna--all in one place.
9 comments:
this is so disturbing.
wow- I knew it was bad, but not THIS bad. I can't help but wonder what is really going on here - something in the spirit that we are not aware of? I usually don't get upset about things like this, but when they said another chapter should be written in the Bible to chronicle this - that really put me over the edge. Are these people really listening to themselves? As one of my good friends said- it boils down to this: the last time I checked murder was still on the Top Ten List in the Bible and God still hates homosexuality. Not to mention bankrupting the nation and turning us into Western Europe....
Okay, okay. I'll admit some of these quotations about Obama are definitely kind of nuts. However, note that not all Obama supporters adore him with religious fervor. I'd venture to say that most, like me, are ordinary folks who, after weighing their options, just feel he's the best guy for the job.
I also would like to note that I was a kind of confused, if not a little put off, by the comment that there's some sort of subtext that "they" want you to think there is "redeeming power" in Obama's skin color alone. Granted, there are naive, presumptuous, ultimately condescending people who do believe that. But by no means is it the conventional wisdom put forth by people who support Obama in general.
It would be easy to assume that someone like me (see profile picture) would vote for Obama based on race. And though you aren't saying this in this particular post, I don't think, I just have to put it out there that if anyone does assume that about someone like me, it is the height of intelligence insulting. I'd venture to say that the overwhelming majority of people who support Obama, regardless of their race, know that the ability of someone to run a country, or the appropriateness of someone for the particular post of the presidency has 0% to do with skin color.
Hi Chantell,
Perhaps I went a bit strong on the skin color thing (although he keeps invoking the subject), but there is one inarguable fact about media assumptions--and that is Obama's skin color automatically locks up the black vote as a block--when it is in fact as stereotypically wrong as any other fallacy. This never seems to be offensive to anyone with a bully pulpit.
Same thing when it was also said that John McCain's VP pick was a "cynical" attempt to steal the women's vote. The assumptions and stereotypes in that unchallenged statement are amazing.
Anyway, skin color means nothing to me. Morays and prisms do. I, like you, am basing my vote on things other than the previous.
But my ultimate point is this: There's only One God, it isn't Barack Obama, and the very fact that the same people who have worked tirelessly to deprive my children from referring to their Lord with such reverence in the public square have had to hijack the Incarnation to promote their candidate simply makes me nuts.
-R
Ron,
You are right about the media's assumption that Barack's race automatically locks up the black vote, and that Palin's pick was an attempt to "steal" the women's vote. Both are highly presumptuous and highly annoying.
Good for you Ron! Your clarity, perspicuity and prescience is like the little boy who saw the emperor as he really was - and that's a good definition of discernment. Perhaps, like that little boy, your words will awaken some and goad others into stepping back and rethinking. I see evidence of that already beginning to take place. You've done us all a service.
Hey Ron,
Some of the posters on the site you linked to reminded me of pre war Soviet Union as they used images very effectively in promoting the socialist and then communist agenda. The themes of the common good, power to the people and loyalty to the state seem to be recurring today.
In the Hoover/Roosevelt years as well, the intelligensia used this type of propaganda to move the American citizen toward socialism. Mr. Obama is cut from the same cloth as the early 20th century brain trusters and the failed social and economic policies they tried. They led directly to the Depression and I see the same thing being advocated by the media and the liberal elitist that never saw a government program they did not like.
To make it all worse, God must be left out as He is the cause of all the calamity in the first place. Religion stands in the way of thoughtful, intelligent policies being implemented by the ivory tower thinkers.
So however we get God out of the public square (by the way, one way to do this is to make everyone a "christian" by asserting faith in public like Mr. Obama does and suddenly God is irrrelavent to the discussion since we are all "christians" here) is what needs to be done.
Brian Holiman
www.lifewithriley.org
Where do you live? Do you think it would be impossible to find a string of quotes from the Republican party that would read as racist? fanatic? fascist?
Who are these "same people" who "tirelessly work to deprive your children" and use the language of the incarnation? Is Halle Berry (from your list of quotes) one of these? It might be good to get out more. If you are concerned about your children's rights to have reverence in the public square without government control perhaps you should take a closer work at the party that so ardently supports the Patriot Act...
Just a thought!
Okay, Marjorie, I'll bite.
Quote:
"Where do you live? Do you think it would be impossible to find a string of quotes from the Republican party that would read as racist? fanatic? fascist? "
*sigh*
I live in Redding, california, and . . . and to your other question, these are a string of quotes from high profile people about ONE man in ONE election cycle. So if you think you can drag a box of comparative apples to my illustrative oranges go ahead. I don't think you can do it without spanning 200 years. Oh, and the Ku Klux Klan was started by democrats anyway.
Quote:
"Who are these "same people" who "tirelessly work to deprive your children" and use the language of the incarnation?"
Um, the ones I listed, but primarily the press. Sorry if that was confusing.
Quote:
"Is Halle Berry (from your list of quotes) one of these?"
No idea, but she does ascribe messiah-like qualities to Obama, which was my point.
Quote:
"It might be good to get out more."
If you didn't know where I live, how can you know whether I "get out?" I love the "you must be a sequestered idiot" implication that arises whenever I get into these debates with liberals. Oh, Just so you know, I can read, and my children have the appropriate chromosomal gaps.
"If you are concerned about your children's rights to have reverence in the public square without government control perhaps you should take a closer work at the party that so ardently supports the Patriot Act..."
And the patriot act ushered in . . . what exactly, besides reflexive hatred towards the Patriot Act? Specifically, please. How has your life been hindered by the Patriot Act? No platitudes, please.
-R
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