An entry by April Rabkin in Mother Jones magazine's blog strongly suggests that the 'Hillary 1984' ad (viewed almost three millions times on YouTube) is bigoted and compares it to Republican Senate candidate Bob Corker's infamous racist ad against Democratic nominee Harold Ford, Jr. in last November's US Senate Race in Tennessee
Yep, it's brilliant. And lefty bloggers are cheering it as the advent of "open-source politics" because it's on YouTube. What none of them have mentioned is the reason why it's so effective: It exploits subconscious bigotry, just like the ad for now-U.S. Senator Bob Corker in October.
Rather than focus on new technology and marvel at the ability of ordinary citizens to disproportionately effect national political campaigns, the writer urges us to look at the larger issues raised by this brilliant, controversial ad.
Let me state at the outset that I am not a Hillary Clinton fan. I find her campaign devoid of passion, even principle, obsessed with tactics, and dominated by big-money corporatist interests. And other than the fact that her last name is Clinton, I can find few compelling reasons for the average voter to support her candidacy. I feel strongly that Al Gore is the best qualified and most experienced candidate to restore this country's international image and inject some sanity into its domestic policies. And, for those reasons, I enthusiastically support his entry into the 2008 Democratic Race. And I remain optimistic that he will do just that later this year. In case if you've missed it, I've written several diaries about it in recent weeks. Yesterday's USA Today/Gallup Poll puts Gore in 3rd place behind Clinton and Barack Obama. Not bad for a candidate not even in the race.
Rabkin accuses the left blogosphere of hypocrisy by not defending Hillary vigorously
Likewise, women weren't recognized as fully human in this country until recently, and modern society still has a taboo against women holding power. Lefty bloggers who don't think Hillary has the charisma to win the general election may be happy that this ad will derail her in the primary. But they look like hypocrites unless they stop cheering for a moment to mention that the ad exploits subconscious fears. That goes for you too, Arianna Huffington—author of On Becoming Fearless. "Hillary 1984" is as un-Democratic as the ad against Harold Ford was.
I think Rabkin clearly laments our endless fascination with new technological innovations and believes that we ought to be focussed more on the message itself. Which is that many men are threatened by the emergence of a (gasp!) serious female candidate and one who happens to lead (at least for now) all candidates in the 2008 Democratic field.
This trend - in which technology eclipses and trumps substance - is not entirely new in American politics. Marshall McLuhan, the famous Canadian educator and philosopher, is widely credited with coining the expressions "the medium is the message" and the "global village"
The slogan, "the medium is the message," is best understood in light of Bernard Lonergan's further articulation of related ideas: at the empirical level of consciousness, the medium is the message, whereas at the intelligent and rational levels of consciousness, the content is the message.
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McLuhan was commenting on the emerging technology of television in the 1960's and how it impacted the methods of communications. A question to ponder: have technological advances diminished and obscured the discussion of substantive issues in our politics? If so, is that necessarily a welcome development?
That, I think, is the larger issue raised by Rabkin. And I think it merits some discussion.