POLITICS MAY 15, 2008
-
Read Later
READ LATERAvailable only to subscribers. SUBSCRIBE TODAY
-
Listen
ARTICLE AUDIO
- Font Size
Relatives are wonderful. You can count on them to forward you all kinds of interesting political documents--especially, these days, letters about Barack Obama and his sinister intentions. There are quite a few of them making the rounds; some focus on his connections to Islam, some try to dig up examples of him showing open disrespect to Mom and apple pie, some retouch or recaption photos to make him look stupid or dangerous. Obama's mentioned them himself, and called them "a dirty trick that folks are playing on voters."
They vary in levels of smeardom, from attacks on his policies to simple character assassination to allegations that he may be, oh my God, who knows, an actual assassin. But a few themes recur: The deepest fears of the "forward this to all your friends" crew seem to be that Obama is somehow un-American, that he's actually a Muslim and therefore by simple logic wants to blow us all up, and, most of all, that he's one of those terrifying low-class dark-skinned types. (A photo going around of Obama in 1986 with members of his extended family identifies a black woman in a striped dress as "Washeteria.")
One of the more interesting emails, which seems to have surfaced in mid-April, concerns the idea that Obama is personally behind electoral unrest in Kenya. Now, the assertions in the message credited to Celeste and Loren Davis are all kinds of false; you can go to the generally reliable snopes.com for a thorough debunking, although Loren Davis, questioned about the message by PolitiFact, stood by it. Snopes has a useful page of Obama-related rumors; word is also going around that the Senator was sworn into office on a copy of the Quran--nope--that he hates "The Star-Spangled Banner"--false--and that the "Book of Revelations" describes the Antichrist as being Obama-esque--sorry, but thanks for playing. (In the words of the British satirists Half Man Half Biscuit: "If you're going to quote from the Book of Revelation/Don't keep calling it the Book of Revelations/There's no S, it's the Book of Revelation/As revealed to St. John the Divine.") And, as it turns out, the Davises have written some things promulgating highly unusual viewpoints before, such as that the five-pointed stars on the American flag are part of a Satanist plot.
Still, the more closely you read the Davises' message, the more clear it becomes that its real meaning is not literal but literary. It's a sort of mock-prophetic prose poem, whose narrative voice is a set of minds displaced in time, leaping from past to future and passing through alternate realities, desperately trying to communicate a message that comes out in horrifyingly garbled form, sort of like the schizophrenic, time-traveling superhero Star Boy, who lost his mind when he accidentally passed through a religion-obsessed parallel Earth. The first clue is the opening line: "Thanks for sending out an alert about Obama." (The first-person-plural narrators proceed from the assumption that we have already forwarded the message we are about to read for the first time.) "We are living and working in Kenya for almost twelve years now and know his family (tribe) well." Aside from the caution-unreliable-narrator-ahead race-baiting gambit of claiming that Obama's family is a "tribe," the shift in tenses mid-sentence should tip the reader off; so should the similarly tense-damaged phrasing and eight-year shift a few paragraphs later: "We have been working with them for 20 years this July!"
With that established, we can try to ferret out the true, science-fictional meaning of the Davises' letter. The narrators claim that, in Kenya, they're "fighting ... takeover from the outside to fit the new world order," and note that "Jesus Christ is our peace but the new world order of Globalism has infiltrated the church and confused believers into thinking that they can compromise and survive." Then, after a glancing reference to Jimmy Carter that appears in only a few variants of the text--perhaps a veiled allusion to his shared initials with Christ--they reverse themselves: "It won't be so."
Now, that "new world order" certainly isn't quite the Gorbachev/Bush Sr. version, and it may look at first more like the tinfoil hat version; the emphasis on Obama's bloodline--"[we] know his family (tribe) well"--above his actual actions and professed beliefs fits in neatly with the schizophrenic belief of the speakers that they're the only ones who can see reality and everyone else is a mindless pawn of heredity and conspiracy. But consider this: Perhaps what the Davises are speculating about is less a takeover of the U.S. government by a dangerous potential commander-in-chief and more the risk of Obama being replaced by an evil doppelgänger who looks exactly like him but is actually a ringer from a topsy-turvy alternate universe.
Keep that in mind, and the message's apparent errors and inconsistencies start to fall into place. In the seemingly counterfactual, hateful sentence "Obama IS a muslim and he IS a racist and this is a fulfillment of the 911 threat that was just the beginning," the slashless "911" isn't a reference to September 11, 2001; it isn't even slang for "emergency." It's a reference to the total number of parallel dimensions. The "Obama" they're talking about here isn't, of course, the Christian politician from our world who gave the "A More Perfect Union" speech in March; it's the alternate-universe version, who is naturally our Obama's opposite in every way--sort of like Ultraman, the evil Clark Kent of Earth-3. He also comes from a universe in which "Muslims" are some sort of bloodthirsty invaders who support the dimension-resequencing scheme, a bit of meaning-reassigning linguistic play along the lines of Tom Stoppard's Dogg's Hamlet.
In a brilliant extratextural reference to other Obama-rumor emails, the Davises throw in proof that the Obama their fiction discusses is the parallel-universe one, since his name is spelled slightly differently: "By the way. His true name is Barak Hussein Muhammed Obama. Won't that sound sweet to our enemies as they swear him in on the Koran!" Perhaps this is an allusion to the Biblical general Barak; it's hard to tell from the context. (Throwing in the extra "Muhammed," though, is a little over the top.) In any case, this is an amusing and cleverly constructed work of sci-fi; I'm grateful to the Davises for contributing to the ongoing parade of absurdist political fan-fiction to entertain Democrats in this exhausting electoral season, and I'm sure I won't have to wait long for them or others to circulate further installments via everybody's great-aunts and second cousins.
Douglas Wolk is the author of Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean and Live at the Apollo.
By Douglas Wolk
16 comments
This is depressing. It’s also a lot of bunk. Douglas Wolk is being a jerk in this article, not only for his glee and gratitude “to the Davises for contributing” (their garbage) but most especially for blaming the family members of the rest of us for perpetuating the garbage that he’s so ‘entertained’ by. Wolk can speak for his own family and leave ours out it. Blaming these emails on everyone’s relatives ("your uncle is forwarding at this very moment" and “via everybody's great-aunts and second cousins”) is rubbish. It's usually arrogant asses who distribute and keep these kind of ridiculous emails going, usually with lame, sophomoric comments like Wolk is making. After that, it’s usually co-workers who pass them on to us. Yeah, these folks are no doubt related to someone, but Wolk is way out of line in generalizing this to OUR families. Maybe they’re Wolk’s “uncle,” “great-aunts,” and “second cousins?” Again, Douglas Wolk is being a jerk in this article.
- p.
May 15, 2008 at 4:47am
The problem with Obama is that he’s an entirely unknown individual to most people world-wide. Another obscure public figure. He’s a creature of the Democratic Party and Public Relations campaigns (shallow, like most, mass-propagated advertisement campaigns): Beginning in 2004, and then revived again about January 2007, and revved up from mid January onward (thanks largely to the Clinton’s statements). Regarding his being mostly an unknown, and obscure, then in this regard Obama is exactly in the situation that Jimmy Carter was in, in 1976, and George W. Bush in 2000. In early 1976, I asked a guy from Alabama what he knew about ‘this Carter guy?’ He was hitchhiking home from the west coast and I gave him a brief ride (in New Mexico). He told me that he had heard that Carter was like George Wallace! Most of us in this country learned that George W. Bush had been a drunk at one time, but only toward the VERY end of the Presidential Election Campaign of 2000. Most of learned of his undistinguished and shabby National Guard service only in 2004! With Obama, like Carter in ‘76 and “Dubya” in ‘00, we get snippets about Obama as the weeks and months go along. If Obama was not such a COMPLETE UNKNOWN to the majority of Americans, or most anyone else in the world, then these ridiculous emails would never be circulating at all. They also distract from the fact that it is absurd that this not a presidential election, but the PROCEDURE established by the Democratic Party to select its candidate for president. This is a joke and a disgrace all leading up to another lousy-choice election year for Americans (in what is probably the shortest presidential election in American history, following the longest and most absurd nomination procedure yet). America will get the candidates that the political parties give us, via the PROCEDUREs that the parties developed and carried out. That’s not a “conspiracy theory.” It is a simple fact of reality. The nomination procedures of the political parties are purely man-made. They are not nature left to itself. Most of the countless “conspiracy theories” (that have exploded in number and absurdity in recent years, much like the 1970s and other periods in the past, but much worse) that are circulated are often idiotic (some few, from the past are interesting for their "synthesis" nature: i.e. their rationalization of a series of past events). But only an idiot mocks the idea that conspiracies never occur.
-
May 15, 2008 at 5:27am
Now if only you can convince us that his blank resume and advisory entourage of America-haters and Israel-bashers are also figments of our collective imagination, we'll all be reassured that it's we and not Barry who are suicidally delusional.
- morgan097
May 15, 2008 at 11:46am
Thanks for the warning - now when Obama is suddenly sporting a goatee like the evil Mr. Spock, we'll know the exchange has taken place. I got an email from the Clinton campaign today that linked to these letters as proof that she is the better candidate, because Obama doesn't fare well with "hard-working Americans, white Americans, batshit-crazy Americans..."
- dhauck
May 15, 2008 at 12:18pm
Holy obscure references, Batman! Star Boy! Kingdom Come! Ultraman! Finally, an article that synthesizes my love of comic books, politics, and bashing ignorant relatives! More punditry by comic book fans, please. Also, I think we should refer to the imaginary, evil, alternate universe Barack as Bizarrobama. Despair you can't disbelieve! Bizarrobama in '80!
- JRG
May 15, 2008 at 12:39pm
If you forward Obama is a Muslim e-mails to your loved ones, you might be a redneck. morgan097, you're doing a good enough job on your own of showing how "suicidally delusional" you are.
- Yoyo
May 15, 2008 at 12:49pm
P.: Douglas Wolk is being ironic in this piece. Lighten up. The phenomenon is out there. It is depressing but a little humor leavens the sadness that is humanity.
- liberal reformer
May 15, 2008 at 1:14pm
Hey there, sailor. Feeling a little too noodly lately when she ordered al dente? Tried Viagra and all you got was a headache and a face like you put out Reverend Wright's barbeque with it? Little Willie as forlorn as a button mushroom at a giant sequoia convention down there? Then you need a tube of ObaMaCain, the ointment that keeps pundits, bloggers, and C-average poly sci majors posing as major campaign players harder than a face-saving Iraq exit strategy. Just smear some ObaMaCain skunk on your junk and your funk will out-hunk all them other punks. Act now before it's yesterday! Send $19.99 (+ $35 S&H), your Social Security number and checking account PIN, and the cell phone number of that cougar mother of yours to greaseball@ObaMaCain.com.
- williamyard
May 15, 2008 at 1:25pm
I notice many of the rebuttals to this piece reflect the very same paranoia/suspicion/guilt-by-association that the anti-Obama missives perpetuate. It's amazing to think that the idiots who disseminate and/or receive/believe these vile, hate-mongering chain e-mails actually find their way to --and through-- a TNR literary criticism. "Bat-shit crazy" is right!
- Jacksonian
May 15, 2008 at 1:45pm
and what about the stories about John McCain as a Manchurian candidate? We know about the years in a POW camp!
- Suspicious One
May 15, 2008 at 2:00pm
Yes, I'm sure Obama is the first candidate to get unfairly slammed by rumor-E-mails. And I'm sure Clinton is NEVER unfairly slammed by these kinds of E-mails. Just like she's never unfairly slammed by the media. Cause obviously she is, as they keep saying, a race-baiter who continually points out (in code!) that OB is black so that she can prevent people from voting for him. Because clearly his being black has made him the underdog in this election. Etc. etc. (endless circle of sarcasm, you get the point)
- susan k. (NYC)
May 15, 2008 at 6:16pm
The alternate universe theory has precedent. George HW Bush once addressed the American Legion convention with a statement that September 7 was the anniversary of Pearl Harbor. Obviously Bush I came from a parallel Earth where Yamamoto had a different schedule.
- scorn
May 15, 2008 at 6:28pm
Since these e-mail chain-rumours have actually been debunked, I wonder how many of the *debunkings* have been forwarded on my your uncle/my uncle. Very few, I expect. These chain-letters say as much about the forwarding party, as they do about the original authors.
- Robert
May 19, 2008 at 8:03am
I agree with P. Wolk is relishing this exercise in fear-mongering and lying. "I'm grateful to the Davises for contributing to the ongoing parade of absurdist political fan-fiction to entertain Democrats" Sadly the chain rumors become compounded by iteration in the psyches of those inclined to think these falsehoods have a basis in truth. Reading the vitriolic and corrosive posts from the "believers" on the WaPo blog in response to "Record Obama Crowd, the Size of a City", I was actually shocked at their nastiness and misinformation. Barack is compared Odinga, Hitler and Mussolini, called racial epithets and Michelle is denounced as a working woman and worse. It makes me sick.
- Elizabeth
May 19, 2008 at 12:15pm
An interesting experiment: Someone at Unknown News sends in a small contribution to the Republican Party using one email address, so he can keep tabs on what they're up to. Somehow that email address (and ONLY that email address) ends up receiving hundreds and hundreds of those Obama smear campaign emails (i.e. "Obama's secretly a Muslim! OMG!"). Details here: http://www.unknownnews.org/080517-sd11Su-Max.html Meanwhile, the email address he uses for only Democratic emails? Nope, nada, zero, big surprise.
- mlhradio
May 19, 2008 at 12:57pm
"Regarding his being mostly an unknown, and obscure, then in this regard Obama is exactly in the situation that Jimmy Carter was in, in 1976, and George W. Bush in 2000...If Obama was not such a COMPLETE UNKNOWN to the majority of Americans, or most anyone else in the world, then these ridiculous emails would never be circulating at all." Wait a minute: Jimmy Carter and George Bush wrote best selling autobiographies, detailing their lives (and past mistakes, such as cocaine use) in intimate detail, before running for president? I never knew they were so famous! Wolk: I found your article, particularly the last paragraph, hilarious. A Revelation(s). I'll fwd it on to the whole family.
-
May 22, 2008 at 5:07am