StormWarning’s Counterterrorism

Satire is tricky and very misunderstood, if understood at all. Thusly, “I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled…”

When Jonathan Swift wrote this as part of his “A Modest Proposal, 1729″ many people took him seriously. Even then, the true meaning or intent of satire was misunderstood or went very far over the heads of the general population. It still does. Leonard Pitts Jr. has it exactly right!

So, as absurd, as over the top, as utterly outlandish as the New Yorker image strikes the more sophisticated among us, there is a large fringe out there for whom it will represent nothing more or less than the sum of their fears.

Instead of the meek inheriting the Earth, however, it is the ignorant who have overtaken America. They have always been there. Its just that the Internet has given them their voice of equality. Thus, when I recently wrote, Pandering to the Least Common Denominator it fell on relatively deaf ears.

Jonathan Swift, Obama, satire

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I read it and thought, “no, it has to be a spoof.” All too often Jack Bauer’s show “24″ has been held by “some” people as proof of the coming American holocaust. Now I read that “President Palmer” (err, I mean Dennis Haysbert) believes that his role in “24″ enabled the candidacy of Barack Obama.

“If anything, my portrayal of David Palmer, I think, may have helped open the eyes of the American people,” said the actor, who has contributed $2,300 to the Illinois Democrat’s presidential campaign.

Two brief comments on this:

1) I think that Haysbert is either desparate for attention or is simply delusional
2) if the American public actually believes this then it is delusional and in need of serious psychological help.

Now, Haysbert was not the first American Black President in movies/television, and I am not the first to say that the concept is a s-t-r-e-t-c-h, at best.

Todd Boyd, an expert in African American cinema and culture at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts, said he was skeptical of the influence Hollywood may have on the 2008 election race.

“I’m a bit hesitant to say that because James Earl Jones or Morgan Freeman or Dennis Haysbert played a president on a TV show or in a movie, it means Barack Obama can be president,” Boyd told National Public Radio.

“I think that’s a bit of a stretch.”

Barack Obama may be a creation of the media, but he is no Dennis Haysbert (err, I mean David Palmer). Whatever has enabled a Black man to be the candidate of a major American political party is a social phenomena and a sign of the growth and evolution of America to overcome, at least partially, its racial bias. At the same time, substance should be what enables a candidate to become President. My opinion is that David Palmer’s writers (those of the show “24″) provided him a great agenda, and as an actor, he executed his lines flawlessly…as did Morgan Freeman in “Deep Impact.” Life sometimes parallel art. Art influencing life? Its a stretch. And besides, David Palmer was assassinated…the writers saw to that (I suspect so that Haysbert could assume his newest television role in the “Unit”).

Personally, I think that Haysbert is displaying verry self-important behavior and is delusional.

24, Haysbert, Jack Bauer, Obama

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