I’ve pretty much gotten over my knee-jerk reaction to seeing Obama bumper stickers. I wanted to whack their windshields with a ball-peen hammer, and since that’s a bit unsporting I’ve done my best to swallow that urge. However, I’m still pissed every time I see one of these frikkin’ Obama t-shirts…
I don’t mean the simple Obama ’08 shirts. I’m talking about the airbrushed artsy-fartsy shirts that look like the oversized rapper portraits, and the stylized paintings that look like Warhol paintings, and all the HOPE and CHANGE and YES WE CAN bullshit slogans that look straight out of Soviet posters and Nazi propaganda films.
He’s the President-elect. He’s not a rap star. He’s not a Hollywood icon. In truth, he hasn’t done a damned thing other than get himself elected and recycle Bill Clinton’s cast-offs for his administration. Putting a giant airbrushed Obama on a size 5XL t-shirt on the same sales racks as the giant t-shirts of Tupac, Snoop, and Biggie takes away from the dignity of the office of President of the United States. This is the dude who is supposed to be the leader of the nation in a couple weeks, not some flavor of the week off of MTV or BET. There’s a certain sense of decorum that should be maintained, and to see his face plastered everywhere on cheap-assed bootleg t-shirts turns the Presidency into just some farce on par with a reality show. We may as well have elected Flavor Flav. Hell, Flav meets the requirements as well as Obama did.
Shit, half of these people sporting giant Obama shirts probably didn’t even vote; they just shouted the slogans and sat on their lazy asses waiting for this miraculous “change” to make their lives easy as pie. I myself have met plenty of people who said they wanted Obama to win, and yet never managed to make it to the voting booth. They wanted a change, yet couldn’t be bothered to make a change. But damn, it feels good to sport that shirt and look like you’re part of the in-crowd. Gotta sport some multi-colored Jordans, some giant-assed pants, and an Obama shirt. Gotta prove I was down with the Messiah when he said change was a-comin’ down the tracks. Change, baby. Don’t know what the change really is, but dammit it’s gonna come.
Maybe I’ll just hijack all the former Presidents and make my own t-shirts. Yeah, man. Millard Fillmore is my homeboy! I’m down with Chester A. Arthur. I’m chillin’ with Zachary Taylor. Werrrrrrrrrd!
Special thanks to Scott M. Bort, who took the two photos of the bootleg Obama shirts for sale at a rally. Visit his blog, complete with his excellent photography, at www.southsidebort.blogspot.com
1 comment:
I especially like Fillmore with all the bling.
I look at it this way. The constant overshowing of the President-Elect's face will surely cause the nation to tire of him that much sooner and end the honey-moon period. The press is all the more likely to quickly start being fair and unbiased.
And it helps the economy while taking $0 from my wallet.
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