REFER TO GREY: Contemplations by Robert Greigos © 2007-2024

The first two years of the Obama administration have been met with a significant increase in polarizing rhetoric by opposition voices. There is no one area of disagreement. Every single item in the Obama agenda has been heatedly opposed. The situation is highly reminiscent of the so called Council Wars under the Harold Washington Mayoralty in Chicago during the 1980's. In both instances, an historic first saw a hugely popular black candidate take office with a significant voter mandate to change an entrenched system that served a privileged few at the expense of the many. And in both instances, agents of the privileged few mounted a paralyzing resistance to change that confused and hobbled the workings of government and shook the confidence of all those many who had so enthusiastically voted for change. Further, both oppositions used largely the same tactics: edit the facts, magnify all that is uncertain, prophesy the worst, draw parallels wherever possible to horrific historical characters and events, and at all costs stir up and maintain the intellectual confusion of hysterical fear and anger.

It's hard to imagine that feelings of fairness, human compassion, concern for the general welfare, and civic responsibility motivate Obama's opposition. Instead, they seem entirely motivated by greed displaced by fear. Their insistence on unfettered opportunity to gather more of what they already have visibly overlies an intense fear of losing what they've already got. That unvarnished truth is remarkably plain to see in the editing of their propaganda.

But how does editing reveal motive? That's a lesson far too many average citizens seem to have missed within their education. And it's an intellectual deficiency capitalized upon by snake oil salesmen of every ilk. Obama's opposition are no different.

Let us take a lesson in propaganda from the potentially useful but currently unemployed image above. The time of day is either dusk or dawn, a period of transition and uncertainty. The vehicle we are left with is beaten and worn, calling to mind the spectre of unreliability. There are flowers for the fallen, perhaps trundled into the bed of our pickup, a portion of spear pointed fencing, recalling armed defense, and the symbol of hoped for victory, our flag. If a different time of day were chosen, a different mood would have been set. If a newer vehicle were chosen, the thought of unreliability would not come to mind. No fencing and no thought of fighting and defense is recalled. No flowers and there is no spectre of irreversible loss invoked. No flag and the call to solidarity is not heard. The message, the intent, is all in the editing, what is there vs. what is not.

May you never fail to clearly see the underlying motivations behind the message being propagated.