- Mark Andrew Dwyer
A cult of personality or personality cult arises when a country's leader uses mass media to create a heroic public image through unquestioning flattery and praise.
Wikipedia [1], edition of Jan 21, 2009 11:08:07 GMT
Many of us watched with disbelief how Barrack Hussein Obama decided to spend some $150 millions on his coronation at the time when the American economy was dangerously close to collapse, and prudent and hard working people were losing their retirement savings and equities in their homes.
What was even more surprising was the "mainstream" media's conspicuous lack of criticism of such extravagant expenditure at the time the country was in peril. After all, they did criticize Bush, and justly so, for spending about $40 millions on a similar occasion.
Here is a rationale that explains it well.
For most of us, the election of the president is all about the country. Most of us would like the president to protect the nation against its foreign and domestic enemies and provide the leadership towards stronger, wealthier, and free America for the benefit of ourselves and our posterity. And the last think that we had in mind while casting our votes was to reward an individual with the unparalleled power that the U.S. presidency has to offer.
Apparently, not so for Obama and his worshippers.
They seem to think that the presidential election of 2008 was mostly about Obama. They seem to think it was about rewarding him for being a member of "historically underprivileged" minority. They seem to think it was about serving "social justice" to those who suffered from racism and discrimination, kind of political Santa Claus event that makes their (and his) dream come true.
From this perspective it is not puzzling anymore why Obama and his wife were trying to indulge themselves as they did, as if the country did not face economic crisis of historic proportions. After all, they thought it was all about them, about their personal success, and about Obama’s making "history" as "the first black president" of the U.S. And it doesn't take an Einstein to figure out that with this kind of attitude towards the U.S. presidency, a cult of personality is likely to follow. And it does, indeed.
Despite the fact that the record of his accomplishments is made up mostly of his empty or unfulfilled promises, Obama is praised, by most of those who control what the American public is allowed see on TV news, as the Savior and Messiah, and is granted unequivocal trust of his presumed righteousness and infallibility. This bears striking similarity of the classic example of the cult of personality that Stalin commanded in the Soviet Union until his death in 1953. (I wonder if mass post-WWII immigration from the Soviet Union into the U.S. has something to do with it.)
Well, in the U.S. this kind of self-indulgence is appropriate for someone who won a NASCAR race or a Miss America contest, but not for the newly elected president, particularly under the circumstances when the future of America looks gloomier than at any time in post-Carter era. And having a narcissistic president (never mind his obviously left-leaning political orientation) in the White House doesn’t make our future look any better.
[1] Cult of personality
Jan 21, 2009 11:08:07 GMT
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_personality]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_personality[/url]
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