Queers Against Obama: The Audacity of Defiance

I've never read The Audacity of Hope. Come to think of it, I've never read the autobiography of any American president, senator, governor, state representative or alderman. Nor do I have any intention of ever doing so.

People who pay for the opportunity to read book length campaign ads befuddle me. They are just as much of an enigma to me as people who subscribe to trade publications by Apple for the opportunity to subject themselves to more advertising. And don’t get me started on faggots who regularly purchased Aberzombie and Fitch catalogs (do they still make those?) at 7 bucks a pop.

When I was a kid, advertising wasn't nearly as pervasive as it is today, so you could avoid most of it if you tried. Television commercials were used as an opportunity to go take a piss halfway through an episode of The Facts of Life, and those annoying inserts in the newspaper were crumpled up and tossed in the garbage (where they belonged) without receiving so much as a single glance. Advertising was mostly viewed as an annoyance we learned to endure as one of the consequences of living in a capitalist society. Note the word "endure". Kind of like you "endure" a root canal. Or an episode of The Real Housewives of Orange County.

Today, you can't even go to a fucking movie without being subjected to 45 minutes of "pre-show entertainment" complete with testosterone-laden car commercials and action-packed soft drink ads. Those "pre-show entertainment" ads forced upon us at the theater

are so painstakingly produced that the cost of each ad must exceed the combined GDP of every Caribbean nation plus Tuvalu. Somehow, though, we’ve come to accept a reality in which we have to pay for the privilege of watching a parade of goddamn commercials that are guaranteed to burn holes through your grey matter, much like MDMA or Carrot Top.

I can't remember when that trend started, but it enrages me even more than the sight of that cowardly blue-blooded CNN “reporter”, Anderson "I'll Never Tell" Cooper. I'm willing to bet girlfriend is on CNN right now reporting on a matter of grave national import. I can see it now:

Cue the frantic anxiety-provoking music that proved so effective at keeping viewers glued to the tv set during the first Gulf War. Now cue the graphic which proclaims “Breaking News!” As the graphic fades, we see our girl Anderson staring intensely into the camera with that trademark “this is a very important topic about which I am attempting to appear deeply concerned” look in his apparently “dreamy” eyes. Miss Anderson then informs us that CNN has learned that Kathy Griffith's autobiography was released today, and CNN will have an exclusive interview with her later that evening. Coincidentally, the book’s publisher happens to be a subsidiary of CNN's parent company, AOL Time Warner.

Et voila! Corporate cross-marketing succeeds in transubstantiating a mere advertisement for the one book in existence that probably should be burned (where is Sarah Palin when you need her?) into “Breaking News!” worthy of being broadcast worldwide.

I think I remember reading a prophecy in the Book of Daniel about something like that happening at the end of days. If Daniel was correct, expect the anti-Christ to begin rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem sometime later this year where he will then declare himself to be God. Oh, and stock up on antibiotics, because I suspect that plague of boils is gonna be a bitch. But, as usual, I digress…

During most presidential campaigns (particularly the last one), the American public is hammered incessantly with campaign ads on TV, the radio, and now the Internet. CNN and Fox scrutinize each candidate so closely they might as well be airing live colonoscopies of each candidate around-the-clock. Perhaps AOL Time Warner should devote a new channel to doing just that. If people are willing to watch that tabloid "news program" where Nancy Grace spends a couple of hours on CNN's Headline News channel each night being indignant with big hair, I think a 24 hour political colonoscopy channel might actually fly in this country.

The last presidential campaign went on for so long that I started to suspect that perhaps Andy Kaufman had come back from the dead to orchestrate the entire dog and pony show. The barrage of pricey political pandering during that campaign was so relentless that many of us desperately longed for a reprieve, even if that reprieve came in the form of an annoying, seizure-inducing commercial:

Frankly, I don’t have to read either of Obama’s book length campaign ads to know that they contain no information of substance about him beyond the sewage his PR team pumped out on a daily basis during the campaign. Nor do I require any further convincing that Obama possesses more than his fair share of audacity. Anyone who campaigns for 2 years straight on a platform of change change change and, after winning the election, boldly (and without a hint of embarrassment) reshuffles the deck of hawkish ruling class zombies from previous administrations to staff his own cabinet is nothing if not audacious. Also, I doubt that the word audacity even begins to describe the cojones required for a man to target the LGBTQ community non-stop with campaign ads like this:

and then officially kick off his presidency by lavishing the highest honor upon a man who has financial ties and personal friendships with groups of thugs that terrorize, torture and murder LGBTQ people across Uganda. Those of us who consider ourselves to be leftist/radical queers could stand to learn a thing or two from Obama about audacity.

We currently inhabit a moment in history where reactionary nationalism is more powerful than ever, yet it has been rendered invisible to most people due to a remarkably brilliant re-branding strategy and an aggressive PR campaign the likes of which this country has never seen. Obama is a bronze idol surrounded by a fortress of fanatical believers who have been duped and reprogrammed by the wizards behind the Obamania curtain with more success than Werner Erhard ever achieved in his most mindfucking est seminars (check out this link and notice the similarities). These believers will defend him with a ferocity that makes the bloodthirsty, delusional, flag-waving Iraq war supporters that emerged in the wake of 9/11 seem downright moderate and open-minded.

Do we have the audacity necessary to hold fast to our principles when confronted with the viciousness of "progressive" Obamaniacs ? Do we have the audacity required to do what is necessary to confront the delusional fanaticism of the liberal pawns who were so easily fooled by Obama's cleverly disguised inverted populism?

Speaking truth to (and about) power is much more dangerous now than during the Bush era. Remember that sweet middle-aged lady from Code Pink who marched next to you at that Iraq war protest? Criticize Obama and watch her pull An American Werewolf in London on your ass. Remember the contingents of friendly anti-war Episcopalians and Unitarians who participated in the massive protests against the invasion of Iraq back in 2003? If you accidentally say something slightly critical of Obama (perhaps something along the lines of, “It sure is fucked up that he intends to kill even more people in Afghanistan”) while they are within earshot, stand back as they collectively spin around like Linda Carter and emerge from the blinding flash of light as the Westboro Baptist Church.

We are going to have to cultivate some audacity of our own if we want to retain our integrity. We cannot give Obama a pass when he enacts policies that are virtually identical to those of the Bush administration or extends BushCo's draconian neoconservative agenda. We cannot be silent when Obama behaves like a warmongering imperialist if we previously took to the streets during the reign of BushCo, often risking severe beatings by police and indefinite jail time for doing so.

At the beginning of the Iraq war, we were mocked as “conspiracy theorists” and publicly condemned by much of the American public. However, there was some safety in numbers back in those days, even if many of us weren't exactly thrilled about having to interact with members of Stonewall Democrats Against the War. Predictably, though, the liberals and fake progressives reacted as though a revolution of some sort took place on November 4th, and they all scampered away to bask in the radiance of the mirage of "change" they think they see on the horizon.

That slight buffer of safety is gone now.

History proved us right about BushCo. In many instances, it has shown that some of us even “misunderestimated” the true depths of his administration’s depravity.

Well, we were right then, and we are right now.

Clearly, we must have the audacity to hope that the world can be a better place in order to conjure up the courage necessary to point out the Obama Obfuscations, which is an infinitely more perilous endeavor than cutting through the Bush Bullshit. But that is only half of the equation. In order to stand up against Obama and his delusional cult of liberal and “progressive” acolytes, we are going to need audacity of a different sort:

The audacity of DEFIANCE!

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