cult - Blogs - TheBlackList Pub2024-03-28T19:02:19Zhttps://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/cultObama-Mania? Cult of Personality? Politics Or Theater?https://www.theblacklist.net/profiles/blogs/obama-mania-cult-of-personality-politics-or-theater2013-12-17T02:19:59.000Z2013-12-17T02:19:59.000ZNana Baakanhttps://www.theblacklist.net/members/NanaBaakan<div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align:left;"><blockquote class="tr_bq">Dear Crystal Lucas Perry,<br /><h5 class="uiStreamMessage userContentWrapper"><br /><span style="font-size:small;"><span style="font-family:inherit;"><span style="font-weight:normal;"><span class="messageBody"><span class="userContent">First, as 1 artist to another, I appreciate you &all the hard work that went into creating this. HOWEVER, what I strongly disagree with, is making the POTUS into a celebrity.Creating this mythos around a man whose job is to lead the country FORWARD. He's not a HOLLYWOOD STAR/ACTOR. I think it's disrespectful.Will he go down in history as a SUPERSTAR or someone who really moved the country forward? Allegiance to a man? American Idol? Exalt & Elevate integrity, peace, love & truth. Poetic License? <a href="http://youtu.be/c_d9mntKvGM" target="_blank">http://youtu.be/c_d9mntKvGM </a></span></span></span></span></span></h5><h5 class="uiStreamMessage userContentWrapper"><i><span style="font-size:small;"><span style="font-family:inherit;"><span style="font-weight:normal;"><span class="messageBody"><span class="userContent">M<span style="font-size:small;">y</span> comment on YouTube</span></span></span></span></span></i></h5></blockquote><br /><div style="text-align:center;"><iframe width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/c_d9mntKvGM?wmode=opaque"></iframe></div><div style="text-align:left;"></div><div style="text-align:left;"></div><div style="text-align:left;"><br /> I wish I could find the right words to express how uncomfortable it makes me feel. It's like some kind of cult or something. "The Cult of Obama" Obama-Mania. People are all frenzied, teary eyed, gushing like they are having orgasms over him. That last campaign with the Obama girl was really over the top. What is that? Why do people need to idolize him? How is that cool for a thinking, educated, civilized nation of people? What if they did that to Bush, whom they clearly did not like. What if the Tea Party wrote songs about John Boehner?<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align:center;"><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" frameborder="0" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/jp2VFN-w9d0?wmode=opaque"></iframe></div><br />Okay, political parody, satire, or even cartoons, but this romanticizing of the President is a bit much for me. They are so memorized they care not to look at the true picture, the real deal and that means they are dangerous. That Obama Kool Aid is really powerful.</div><div style="text-align:left;"></div><div style="text-align:center;"><br /><iframe width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ghSJsEVf0pU?wmode=opaque"></iframe></div><div style="text-align:left;"><br />Is this really poetic license or is it opportunism? The number of YouTube videos that are out with people singing to him, and the number of hits these videos are getting begs to question the real motive behind this type of "free advertisement".<br /><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align:center;"><iframe width="420" height="315" frameborder="0" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/i-2kYyr-GGU?wmode=opaque"></iframe></div></div><div style="text-align:left;"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><br /><i><b><span style="color:#FF0000;">I don't particularly agree with all that is presented in this movie, but the song does kind of say it all for me.</span></b></i></blockquote></div><div style="text-align:center;"><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" frameborder="0" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/sQoZs7iPcc8?wmode=opaque"></iframe></div><div style="text-align:left;"><br />It just don't sit right with me, and this is a very subjective assessment on my part. But idolizing another human being is a sure fired way to trouble. Look at the many other cult personalities that have lead people into serious trouble. Again this is subjective.<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align:center;"></div><div style="text-align:center;"><br /><h2><br /><span style="color:#FF0000;"><u><b>Cult of Personality Links</b></u></span></h2></div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div class="separator" style="clear:both;text-align:center;"></div><div style="text-align:left;"><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-clGeTpY_ye4/UKA7jQcgGuI/AAAAAAABRJE/PzKC9fTxbYw/s1600/nj+kids+sing+to+obama.jpg" style="clear:left;float:left;margin-bottom:1em;margin-right:1em;"><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-clGeTpY_ye4/UKA7jQcgGuI/AAAAAAABRJE/PzKC9fTxbYw/s200/nj+kids+sing+to+obama.jpg" border="0" height="148" width="200" alt="nj+kids+sing+to+obama.jpg" /></a>"A personality cult appears whenever an individual uses mass media propaganda to create idealized, quasi-heroic public personae arising from unquestioned flattery and praise. Personality cults aim to make the leader and the state synonymous, so that it is nearly impossible to make a distinction between them." Read more here <a href="http://gollygeeez.blogspot.com/2012/09/obama-cult-of-personality.html" target="_blank">GeeeeeeZ! OBAMA: Cult of Personality</a></div></blockquote><div style="text-align:center;"></div><div style="text-align:center;"></div></div><div style="text-align:center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0Vt22FqhZO4/UKA3F72u44I/AAAAAAABRIw/jnRkWkaFDxA/s1600/220px-1950s_%E6%AF%9B%E4%B8%BB%E5%B8%AD%E7%BB%99%E6%88%91%E4%BB%AC%E7%9A%84%E5%B9%B8%E7%A6%8F%E7%94%9F%E6%B4%BB.jpg" style="clear:right;float:right;margin-bottom:1em;margin-left:1em;"><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0Vt22FqhZO4/UKA3F72u44I/AAAAAAABRIw/jnRkWkaFDxA/s200/220px-1950s_%E6%AF%9B%E4%B8%BB%E5%B8%AD%E7%BB%99%E6%88%91%E4%BB%AC%E7%9A%84%E5%B9%B8%E7%A6%8F%E7%94%9F%E6%B4%BB.jpg" border="0" height="200" width="135" alt="220px-1950s_%E6%AF%9B%E4%B8%BB%E5%B8%AD%E7%BB%99%E6%88%91%E4%BB%AC%E7%9A%84%E5%B9%B8%E7%A6%8F%E7%94%9F%E6%B4%BB.jpg" /></a></div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><blockquote class="tr_bq"><h1 class="firstHeading" id="firstHeading"><br /><span style="font-size:small;">Cult of personality</span></h1><div id="siteSub"><span style="font-size:small;">From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</span></div><div class="dablink"><br /><span style="font-size:small;">This article is about the political phenomenon.</span></div></blockquote></blockquote><br /><span style="font-size:small;">For the song by Living Colour, see <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_Personality_%28song%29" title="Cult of Personality (song)">Cult of Personality (song)</a>.</span><div class="dablink"><span style="font-size:small;"><span style="font-size:small;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_personality">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_personality</a></span></span></div><div class="dablink"><span style="font-size:small;"><span style="font-size:small;"><span style="font-size:small;">A 1950s Chinese propaganda poster showing a happy family of five enjoying life under the image of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong" title="Mao Zedong">Mao Zedong</a>. The caption above the picture reads "The happy life Chairman Mao gives us".</span></span></span></div><div class="dablink"><span style="font-size:small;"><span style="font-size:small;"><span style="font-size:small;"><span style="font-size:small;">A <b>cult of personality</b> arises when an individual uses <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_media" title="Mass media">mass media</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda" title="Propaganda">propaganda</a>, or other methods, to create an idealized, heroic, and, at times god-like public image, often through unquestioning <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flattery" title="Flattery">flattery</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praise" title="Praise">praise</a>. <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociologist" title="Sociologist">Sociologist</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber" title="Max Weber">Max Weber</a> developed a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripartite_classification_of_authority" title="Tripartite classification of authority">tripartite classification of authority</a>; the <i>cult of personality</i> holds parallels with what Weber defined as "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charismatic_authority" title="Charismatic authority">charismatic authority</a>". A cult of personality is similar to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apotheosis" title="Apotheosis">hero worship</a>, except that it is established by mass media and propaganda.<br /></span></span></span></span></div><div class="dablink"><h2><span class="mw-headline" id="Etymology" style="font-size:small;">Etymology</span></h2><h2><span style="font-size:small;">The term Cult of personality or Personality Cult first appeared in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikita_Khrushchev" title="Nikita Khrushchev">Nikita Khrushchev</a>'s Secret Speech in 1956<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-1"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_personality#cite_note-1">[1]</a></sup>. Cult of the individual is a more accurate translation<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-2"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_personality#cite_note-2">[2]</a></sup>.</span></h2><h2><span class="mw-headline" id="Background" style="font-size:small;">Background</span></h2></div><br /><span style="font-size:small;">Throughout history, monarchs and heads of state were almost always held in enormous reverence. Through the principle of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_right_of_kings" title="Divine right of kings">divine right of kings</a>, for example, rulers were said to hold office by the will of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God" title="God">God</a>. <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_era_of_Chinese_history" title="Imperial era of Chinese history">Imperial China</a> (see <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_of_Heaven" title="Mandate of Heaven">Mandate of Heaven</a>), <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egypt" title="Ancient Egypt">ancient Egypt</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan" title="Japan">Japan</a>, the <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inca" title="Inca">Inca</a>, the <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztecs" title="Aztecs">Aztecs</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibet" title="Tibet">Tibet</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thailand" title="Thailand">Thailand</a>, and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Empire" title="Roman Empire">Roman Empire</a> (see <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_cult_%28ancient_Rome%29" title="Imperial cult (ancient Rome)">imperial cult</a>) are especially noted for redefining monarchs as <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God-king" title="God-king">god-kings</a>.</span> <span style="font-size:small;">The spread of democratic and secular ideas in Europe and North America in the 18th and 19th centuries made it increasingly difficult for monarchs to preserve this aura. However, the subsequent development of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photography" title="Photography">photography</a>, <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_recording" title="Sound recording">sound recording</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film" title="Film">film</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_production" title="Mass production">mass production</a>, as well as <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_education" title="Public education">public education</a> and techniques used in commercial <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising" title="Advertising">advertising</a>, enabled political leaders to project a positive image like never before. It was from these circumstances in the 20th century that the best-known personality cults arose. Often these cults are a form of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_religion" title="Political religion">political religion</a>.</span><br /><h2><span class="mw-headline" id="Purpose" style="font-size:small;">Purpose</span></h2><div class="rellink boilerplate seealso"><br /><span style="font-size:small;">See also: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_religion" title="Secular religion">Secular religion</a></span></div><br /><span style="font-size:small;">Personality cults were first described in relation to totalitarian regimes that sought to alter or transform society according to radical ideas.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-3"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_personality#cite_note-3">[3]</a></sup>Often, a single leader became associated with this revolutionary transformation, and came to be treated as a benevolent "guide" for the nation without whom the transformation to a better future couldn't occur. This has been generally the justification for personality cults that arose in totalitarian societies of the 20th century, such as those of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler" title="Adolf Hitler">Adolf Hitler</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin" title="Joseph Stalin">Joseph Stalin</a>.</span><br /><span style="font-size:small;">Not all dictatorships foster personality cults, not all personality cults are dictatorships (some are nominally democratic), and some leaders may actively seek to minimize their own public adulation. For<br />example, during the Cambodian <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge" title="Khmer Rouge">Khmer Rouge</a> regime, images of dictator <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol_Pot" title="Pol Pot">Pol Pot</a> (Saloth Sar) were rarely seen in public, and his identity was under dispute abroad until after his fall from power. The same applied to numerous <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Bloc" title="Eastern Bloc">Eastern European</a> <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist" title="Communist">Communist</a> regimes following World War II (although not those of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enver_Hoxha" title="Enver Hoxha">Enver Hoxha</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Ceau%C8%99escu" title="Nicolae Ceaușescu">Nicolae Ceaușescu</a>, mentioned below).</span><br /><div style="text-align:left;"><div class="floatright" style="clear:left;float:left;margin-bottom:1em;margin-right:1em;"><br /><a href="http://jayreding.com/archives/2008/06/30/barack-obama-of-the-brain-slug-party/" target="_blank">http://jayreding.com/archives/2008/06/30/barack-obama-of-the-brain-slug-party/ </a></div><br /><br /><b><br /><a href="http://www.spiked-online.com/site/article/6130/" target="_blank">Che Obama: the new cult of personality</a></b><br />"It is doubtful that anyone ever thought to wear a t-shirt with George<br /> Bush’s image splashed across it, except to deride him. Now, wearing the<br /> image of the president is not only popular, it has become almost<br />obligatory in some circles.<br /><table class="tr-caption-container" style="float:left;text-align:left;" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align:center;"><a href="http://www.spiked-online.com/images/obama_tshirt.gif" style="clear:left;margin-bottom:1em;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;"><img src="http://www.spiked-online.com/images/obama_tshirt.gif" border="0" alt="obama_tshirt.gif" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align:center;">An Obama T-Shirt</td></tr></tbody></table><br />Obama’s image is not just appearing on t-shirts. There are Obama hats, Obama pencil cases, Obama hoodies, Obama screen savers, Obama jewellery, Obama coffee cups and Obama street murals. And Obamamania hasgone mainstream. Today in DC we can buy metro tickets sporting Obama’s image. Numerous buildings are decorated with huge banners welcoming the new president. Even the National Portrait Galley has got in on the act, snapping up Shepard Fairey’s original collage for the gallery walls long before the new president’s official portrait will be commissioned.<br /><br /><p>Such is the strength of the cult surrounding Obama’s image that vendors at the inauguration were hard pushed to find new ways to commemorate the day. Many tried, of course. On my own walk into the city I saw Ben’s Chili Bowl on U Street, a local landmark, displaying a huge red, white and blue ice sculpture of the letters OBAMA. A church on 16th Street offered hot cocoa and a chance to be photographed with a life-sized Obama cut-out. On the Mall itself everything from Obama special inauguration bandanas to Obama dollar bills (with President Lincoln’s image replaced with President Obama’s) to my own personal favourite, Obama water, was on offer."<br /> <a href="http://www.spiked-online.com/site/article/6130/" target="_blank"></a><br /><b><a href="http://www.dinocrat.com/archives/2008/02/16/the-human-hula-hoop-2/" target="_blank">The media’s new Messiah is a mania and fad like the hula hoop </a></b><br /> <a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qB2sCor8sZ8/UKBDggBF-PI/AAAAAAABRJY/5vPm4j0Taag/s1600/cult+of+personality-bho.jpg" style="clear:right;float:right;margin-bottom:1em;margin-left:1em;"><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qB2sCor8sZ8/UKBDggBF-PI/AAAAAAABRJY/5vPm4j0Taag/s320/cult+of+personality-bho.jpg" border="0" height="320" width="238" alt="cult+of+personality-bho.jpg" /></a>“Obama’s finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don’t even really inspire. They elevate. They enmesh you in<br /> a grander moment, as if history has stopped flowing passively by, and, just for an instant, contracted around you, made you aware of its presence, and your role in it. He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh, over color, over despair.”<br />…Barack Obama just seems to get cooler and cooler. He’s the most popular topic on the New York Times <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/index.html">topics page</a>…Internet widgets allow you to see <a href="http://barackobamaisyournewbicycle.com/">what great thing</a> Barack Obama has done for you…on the New York subway Friday morning, one of our copy editors…heard one woman joke to another: “Obama, will<br />you pick me up after my noninvasive minor surgical procedure?” To which the other replied: “Obama, will you hold my hair back when I puke?”…<br />Many spiritually advanced people I know…identify <a href="http://www.dinocrat.com/archives/2008/06/08/the-lightworker/">Obama as a Lightworker</a>, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relatingand connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. Thesekinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul…<br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/us/politics/15clinton.html?_r=3&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1203042733-tr0M4PqX8j3T0BpLrPo8qg&oref=slogin">John Lewis</a>, the venerable civil rights hero and congressman, put words to this feeling recently. “In recent days, there is a sense of movement and a sense of spirit,” he said, suggesting that he might switch his superdelegate vote from Hillary Clinton to Obama. “Something is happening in America and people are prepared and ready to make that great leap.”…On <a href="http://www.facebook.com/">Facebook</a>, people <a href="http://www.actblue.com/page/beerfornewpolitics">write</a> about dreams featuring Obama. There is only one correct reaction to the will.i.am <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yq0tMYPDJQ">“Yes We Can” video</a> and that is to start chanting along… There was the woman in New Hampshire who <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2155121/">compared him with Christ</a>. There was <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-maria4feb04,1,4376318.story?ctrack=1&cset=true">Maria Shriver’s comparison</a> of the candidate with the state of California, with the rhetorical fervor usually seen only <a href="http://www.mynorthwest.com/?nid=76&sid=27720">after a preacher shouts, “You are healed!”</a>…“Be not afraid; for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people: for there is born to you this day in<br />the city of Chicago <a href="http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MWIzNWE3NzI2NTFhMWZiZDc0NTFlZGVhODVhNDUzOTM=">a Savior, who is Barack the Democrat</a>.”<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-etrAHDb3pp0/UKBFSJDr_dI/AAAAAAABRJg/RTLN8Sm9Dk8/s1600/super-obama.jpg" style="clear:left;float:left;margin-bottom:1em;margin-right:1em;"><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-etrAHDb3pp0/UKBFSJDr_dI/AAAAAAABRJg/RTLN8Sm9Dk8/s320/super-obama.jpg" border="0" height="209" width="320" alt="super-obama.jpg" /></a><br /><a href="http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2008/11/28/the-obama-cult/" target="_blank">The Obama cult</a> <br />"Recently I have noticed an interesting but disturbing phenomenon in New York City. On the streets, subways and buses, you can see people<br />still wearing Barack Obama buttons even though the election is long over. I wonder to myself whether these buttons express an inchoate political/psychological yearning. In some ways it reminds me of how people wore pictures of the fifteen year old guru Maharaj-ji, who counted former 60s radical Rennie Davis as one of his main followers.<br /><br />When I spoke to a fellow radical in my department at Columbia University about my concerns, his eyes lit up and he said:</p><div style="padding-left:30px;"><br />I know exactly what you mean. There’s this guy in my health club who wears an ‘Obama Knows’ t-shirt. The other day I went up to him and asked him, “Knows what?” He really couldn’t answer<br /> me.</div><p><br />At some point I will ask one of these Obama button wearers the same kind of question. What’s up with the Obama button? What are you trying to say? I once asked someone wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt the same kind of question. Trust me; they did not decide to wear the t-shirt after reading “Socialism and Man in Cuba”.</p></div><div style="text-align:left;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear:both;text-align:center;"><b><a href="http://seamlessbrand.blogspot.com/2009/02/obamamania-hits-ottawa.html" target="_blank">Obamama</a></b><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4COkM3u73C4/UKBHMp-geLI/AAAAAAABRJo/yNqrbj3AZG4/s1600/obamamania-the-english-language-barackafied.jpg" style="clear:right;float:right;margin-bottom:1em;margin-left:1em;"><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4COkM3u73C4/UKBHMp-geLI/AAAAAAABRJo/yNqrbj3AZG4/s320/obamamania-the-english-language-barackafied.jpg" border="0" height="255" width="255" alt="obamamania-the-english-language-barackafied.jpg" /></a><b><a href="http://seamlessbrand.blogspot.com/2009/02/obamamania-hits-ottawa.html" target="_blank">nia Hits Ottawa!</a></b> <br /><br />"Obama's popularity is clear evidence of a brand strategy that has succeeded beyond any strategists wildest dream and further proof that once you build a compelling saga and unleash it to the world, there is no telling how far and wide it will go. From a branding perspective, Obama may have become too hot too fast and now one of his biggest challenges might be dealing with the inevitable backlash created by the frenzied admiration from the millions of kool-aid drinking Barackolytes:"<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DeUYNYkLNJQ/UKBM9hAyK0I/AAAAAAABRJ8/CXkq1bcrSRc/s1600/ObamaHalo1.jpg" style="clear:left;float:left;margin-bottom:1em;margin-right:1em;"><img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-DeUYNYkLNJQ/UKBM9hAyK0I/AAAAAAABRJ8/CXkq1bcrSRc/s200/ObamaHalo1.jpg" border="0" height="200" width="198" alt="ObamaHalo1.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align:left;"><a href="http://themachoresponse.blogspot.com/2008/06/halos-of-barack-obama.html">The Halos of Barack Obama</a></div><div style="text-align:left;"><br /> More from Dorothy:<i>"I honestly don’t know whether to put this in religion or politics. I honestly feel the passion for Senator Obama expressed by most of his followers has equal elements of both - even if they deny it. But I suspect the moderators would move it here to politics if I put it in religion, so here it is in politics. I know this will make many people angry (primarily Obama followers), but I am not looking to debate. I just wanted to display some of the images of Obama because I find the whole media’s marketing - in this case, just<br />the visual elements- behind the man so fascinating.</i></div><div style="text-align:left;"></div><div style="text-align:left;"></div><div style="text-align:left;"><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OiUCYxY2nRY/UKBPUDNR9oI/AAAAAAABRKE/w_J-L_-sO3E/s1600/creepy-sitroom-20080215-2.jpg" style="clear:right;float:right;margin-bottom:1em;margin-left:1em;"><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OiUCYxY2nRY/UKBPUDNR9oI/AAAAAAABRKE/w_J-L_-sO3E/s320/creepy-sitroom-20080215-2.jpg" border="0" height="240" width="320" alt="creepy-sitroom-20080215-2.jpg" /></a><a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2008/02/15/cnn-repeats-smear-of-obama-supporters-as-creepy/142590" target="_blank">CNN repeats smear of Obama supporters as "creepy" and "cult-like"</a></div><div style="text-align:left;"></div><div style="text-align:left;"><br /><span style="font-size:small;">"CNN's Carol Costello said that audience response at a Barack Obama rally is "a scene some increasingly find not inspirational, but 'creepy,' " quoting columnists who have likened Obama supporters to members of a cult or described their enthusiasm as "creepy." On-screen text during Costello's report read: "OBAMA-MANIA BACKLASH" and "PASSION 'CULT-LIKE' TO SOME." <em>Washington Post</em> columnist Charles Krauthammer similarly cited other writers to make the same assertion: "ABC's Jake Tapper notes the 'Helter-Skelter cult-ish qualities' of 'Obama worshipers,' what Joel Stein of the Los Angeles Times calls 'the Cult of Obama.' "<br /></span></div><div style="text-align:left;"></div><div style="text-align:left;"></div><div style="text-align:left;"></div><div style="text-align:left;"></div><div style="text-align:left;"></div><div style="text-align:left;"></div><div style="text-align:left;"></div><div style="text-align:left;"></div><div style="text-align:left;"></div><div style="text-align:left;"></div><div style="text-align:left;"></div></div></div>