Wednesday, March 19, 2008
TENC Syndrome: the repetition of an idea or view as though it's true, despite obvious evidence to the contrary, derived from Hans Christian Andersen's classic fairy tale, The Emperor's New Clothes. (An emperor who cares too much about clothes hires two swindlers who promise him the finest suit of clothes from the most beautiful cloth. This cloth, they tell him, is invisible to anyone who was either stupid or not fit for his position. The Emperor is nervous about being able to see the cloth himself so he sends his ministers to view it. They see nothing yet praise the cloth. --Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor's_New_Clothes)
• "Barack Obama is a great orator!" say so many pundits and "folks."
Well, if you like smug, nasal, sentimental, platitudinous, punchy headline-copy delivered with a persisssstent, eardrum-piercing sibilant "s", then, yessssss, he'ssss your man. Having suffered what will be 8 years of GW Bush's verbal illiteracy, the thought of having another President who is unbearable to hear what with his hissing and whistling enunciation of profundity-lite leaves me hopeless.
• This race isn't about race. Hillary and Bill are playing the race card.
After Bill Clinton, smug, slime-bucket that he is in general, "reduced" Obama to Jesse Jackson status (i.e., winner in the S. Carolina primary in '84 and '88, who went on to drop out), the Black vote for Hillary has nearly disappeared. Who played the race card?
Essence.com: In South Carolina, the Democratic campaign took a negative turn with charges and countercharges of injecting race, yet the numbers are indicating that there was a record turnout. Clearly, South Carolina voters weren't completely turned off by the tone of the race in the final days.
Reverend Jesse Jackson: They were inspired by it.
http://www.essence.com/essence/lifestyle/voices/0,16109,1706948,00.html
• Obama can bring us together.
What is he waiting for? If he can't bring his own Party together, why would we think he can unite Republicans & Democrats, young and old, Left and Right, races, genders, whomever?
• Gender isn't an issue in this race.
"Earlier this [February], speaking at Tulane University, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, said this about the attacks coming his way from Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY:
'You challenge the status quo and suddenly the claws come out,' Obama said.
The CLAWS come out? Really?
...'I understand that Senator Clinton, periodically when she's feeling down, launches attacks as a way of trying to boost her appeal.'"
-- Jake Tapper, ABC News Blog, Feb. 16, 2008
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/02/is-obama-using.html
Frank Rich, an unabashed Hillary-hater, announced in his March 23rd New York Times opinion piece that, "Race has been America’s transcendent issue...." In its editorial of March 19, 2008, concerning Obama's Race Speech, the New York Times declared "race and religion[,] the two most toxic subjects in politics."
What could be more sexist and toxic than to ignore the toxicity of sexism in politics and every other realm of life in this world? Don't forget, All men are created equal...! Women didn't get to vote until 1920, 50 years after Black men. Sexism applies to 51% of the people in this country; Black or African Americans comprise 12.4% of the population (U.S. Census, 2006)--about half of whom are women. Sexism is the dirty huge secret of the United States. And clearly the "folks" are not ready to transcend it.
• "Barack Obama is a great orator!" say so many pundits and "folks."
• This race isn't about race. Hillary and Bill are playing the race card.
• Obama can bring us together.
• Gender isn't an issue in this race.
These are just a very few examples of the TENC Syndrome, spread and sustained by the major news media. Like the frightened tailors of the Emperor in Hans Christian Andersen's classic fairy tale, the pundits of the nonstop news cycle have fervently and uncritically spread the Obama campaign's claims; Black and white, male and female media monopolizers leap to his defense whenever his fallibility rears up. MSNBC, in particular, hates Hillary Clinton. Chris Mathews can hardly contain his revulsion of her, with his lip-curling, nose-scrunching expression as though he is smelling something fetid whenever he has to mention her.
Obama may be the better Democrat to placate the billion Muslims who rightly fear and loathe the U.S. for our destruction of Iraq, among other grievances. But he's winning on wishful thinking and the fear and loathing of strong, tenacious, outspoken women which lives on in this nation.
Repetition Compulsion as High Risk Behavior
Why the majority of the people permitted George W. Bush, a novice in national and international politics, to take power is why they will again vote for The Attractive Man to lead them, and qualifications be damned. Again.
When we recover from our swoon, we shall see that our Dreamboat, Barack Obama, is a highly skilled, business-as-usual politician of centrist commitment— much like our former Dreamboat, Bill Clinton, who served in somewhat less volatile times.
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Why the majority of the people permitted George W. Bush, a novice in national and international politics, to take power is why they will again vote for The Attractive Man to lead them, and qualifications be damned. Again.
When we recover from our swoon, we shall see that our Dreamboat, Barack Obama, is a highly skilled, business-as-usual politician of centrist commitment— much like our former Dreamboat, Bill Clinton, who served in somewhat less volatile times.
