2008-11-27

A new aphorism

  • Egregores, memetic complexes, "wild ideas" - once summoned, they're nearly impossible to put down.

  • Capitalist media, like capitalist industry, specialises in massive overproduction of memes, which massively outlive their usefulness and even sometimes turn against their owners.


Case in point: the "PUMAs" (stands for Party Unity My Ass) - hard-core supporters of Hillary Clinton, whipped into a frenzy during the American primary elections into believing that Barack Obama was the worst monster in history (even to the extent of reviving repulsive "black man assaults white woman" memes). So much so that they adamantly swore to vote for the Republican ticket of Grandpa Walnuts and Caribou Barbie.

The funny thing is, this Frankenstein's monster is still shambling on now that Hillary is going to be a senior cabinet minister for President Obama. This is of course extremely similar to the massive amounts of Islamophobia whipped up in the Western mediasphere to justify the Iraq invasion - it's still churning along out there, producing hate-crimes and encouraging fascism in its wake, now that our leaders no longer have a need for it.

The most disturbing Frankenstein's monster / zombie idea out there is of course Sarah Palin, cynically propped up by the McCain campaign in order to attract the afore-mentioned PUMAs, who doesn't have the good grace to expire when she's no longer of use to her masters. I predict that Palin-zombies will continue to reproduce via massive media attention for the next four years, and she may well be a viable candidate in 2012 despite being totally useless at everything except dressing herself on someone else's credit card and reading a prepared script.

1 comment:

  1. no, no, dolores, you maybe don't understand the republican party. palin was the real republican presidential candidate; mccain was the cardboard prop, a most cynical of compromises cooked up in an election season where they knew they couldn't win. they intentionally threw mccain to the lions. that's why he went so screwy toward the end. mccain couldn't quite get bush's malapropagdandizing right. palin was the natural evolution (non-darwinian, of course).

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