irish.lemon

when this story broke a week or two ago, i was in the midst of a heavy workload for both my internship at HSP as well as a hectic school schedule. in all the hysteria, i completely forgot to put in my two cents about the “satirical” cartoon by barry blitt that graced the cover of the july 21, 2008 edition of the new yorker. initially, i was completely enraged as a democrat. however, as someone who supports unfettered first amendment rights, i tried to dig a little deeper so as to get my head further around it. apparently, blitt intended for the cartoon to be just another satirical political cartoon that illustrated – literally – the fears that conservative and the vastly ignorant general public have about obama and his overall image. the media hasn’t helped…

as an avid reader of the new york times and viewer of cnn, i only hear the afterthought of such issues as the picture of obama in “traditional garb” during a visit to kenya. ironically, i first saw that image while flipping through the channels on fox news…i know, blasphemous of me to watch right-wing tv. given that i like to get all angles of an issue, i continued to watch the “report” that the image was allegedly leaked by the clinton camp, something i personally did not buy into. i suppose it was then that i asked myself and the rest of the american public the ultimate rhetorical question: who the fuck cares if obama is/was a muslim? i don’t care if obama ever practiced strange voodoo blood rituals while eating live-beating chicken hearts. as an american, he has the right to practice whatever religion he so chooses; i think they’re all bunk.

getting back to the new yorker cover, i understand where blitt is coming from. however, even i had initial misconceptions of the cartoon. my first impression was that of, “great…more conservative smear on the democratic wall”. who could argue? obama is dressed similarly to osama bin laden – who hangs on the wall above a fireplace incinerating an american flag – while fist-bumping wife michelle dressed to resemble a militant member of the black panthers, complete with afro and loaded ak-47. the issue remains that americans, no matter how “advanced” we claim to be, are so far behind the rest of other “developed” nations than we’d care to admit. and that moral high-ground conservatives stand on, well they lost that long ago when they leased that prime real estate to the multi-national corporations that now pull all the political strings.

leave obama to run his campaign without the smear. fox news claims to be so “fair and balanced” it’s sick. personally, all i smell is a bunch of dead and dying elephants scrambling to do whatever they can to reach the finish line before the cool black guy. i’ll take the cool black guy and the change he’ll bring…and i don’t necessarily mean change via his political “promises”, i simply mean so that americans will wake up and realize that we alienate our rights through our own volition.

by the way, i voted for clinton during the illinois primary…obama was never high on my list of democrats, but it’s inevitable that he changes america’s dynamic…inevitable. we’ve already seen it.