Ye gods.
Printed in a size that easily fits into pocket or purse, this book is an anthology of quotations borrowed from Barack Obama’s speeches and writings. POCKET OBAMA serves as a reminder of the amazing power of oratory and the remarkable ability of this man to move people with his words. His superb and captivating oratory style has earned comparisons to John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, and this historic collection presents words that catapulted his remarkable rise to the American Presidency. It is an unofficial requirement for every citizen to own, to read, and to carry this book at all times.
I’m stuck in a Poe’s Law-like quandry here. The website seems to be fully legit. They seem to be serious. But… I mean, come on. Really? Really?
Here’s a picture of the book from the sales page: Update: the image has been replaced. The webpage for the book has been wiped clean. Amazon still lists it for sale, though.
From this, it looks as if the book is *blank.* Which means one of three things:
1) The webpage is a gag
2) The webpage is just using some stock “book” imagery
3) It’s legit and an accurate photo… and when you get your little booklet of all Obama’s Great Sayings, you’ll find that it’s empty and blank. Thus being political satire which I could appreciate.
It’s sold only in packs of TEN, if that helps.
But assuming that this book is really packed with Obamisms, there’s really one desperately obvious reference that must b e made.
UPDATE:
Amazon.com now a has a page for selling these books. Sadly, it doesn’t help narrow down the satire vs. worship question, as it includes evidence for both.
8 Responses to “Obama’s Little Blue Book”
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http://www.amazon.com/Pocket-Obama-Editors-History-Company/dp/0978736842/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231259173&sr=8-6
I think… it might be real. Weep. Weep for our nation.
It appears to be a rushed-out work that’s intended to possibly play for both teams, though the general intent — based on the blatant patterning after the little red book, including such bits from the foreword as “In order to master the President’s ideology…” — is obviously satirical and meant to prey on well-intended people who are being set up to look like dupes. Certainly, I understand the deliciousness of making money off the people one holds in contempt, so I do give a bow to the wag who came up with this.
That said, it’s the imbecilic “OMG! Socialist!” reaction of true pinheads that drives the desire to see supporters waving little blue books in the air so that they can be ridiculed since, well, that’s much easier than actually confronting ideas. I just hope that eventually some of those people educate themselves to a level to realize how they’re being played by those farther up the chain.
The three entries under “customer reviews” (sic) posted yesterday and today are from people reacting with apparently tiny minds to the small amount of info there. At least two of the three comments (second and third) suggest the writers are people for whom even the few pages of mostly blank space presented in the “Look Inside!” section up top were faced with more reading than they were easily capable of.
Add to the info that we’ve barely begun the actual presidency and the speech snippets don’t include citations, and even if one was drawn to the idea of a book of Obama quotations this would be a poor choice.
I expect that it’ll be a race between the likes of Hannity, O’Reilly and Limbaugh – somewhere between a new Axis of Evil and Hell’s Three Stooges – to see who references this first on the air.
> mostly blank space presented in the “Look Inside!” section
Ah, yes, I see that now. It looks more and more like the book might be for real. And it’s every bit as inane as a book of Obama quotes could be.
> it’s the imbecilic “OMG! Socialist!” reaction of true pinheads
How about the “OMG! Socialist!” reaction of people who actually pay attention to Obama’s statements and actions and realize that often enough they are, in fact socialist?
I’ve often found that these self-professed “intellectual” O-bots aren’t nearly as smart as they think they are. Perhaps this book is a manifestation of that realization on the part of the “elite” stratum of the Obama die-herds (yes “herds” because that’s about the average intelligence level despite what they like to tell themselves). I wouldn’t be surprised if we start seeing the masses of O-bots clutching these to their breasts and treating them like rosary beads. “What? You didn’t clap when The Messiah showed us his Black. . .excuse me “Coloredberry” on television? That’ll be 72 “Obama raises hand, lifts a nations” for you on bent knee!”
OTOH, if I could produce something like that that fast to rake in bucks from the mindless Obamabots, damn betcha I would.
It’s time to put the screws to those pathetic little wussies and ream them for every cent they have.
Just as a “note” Scott ;o)
My parent had a “non-pocket” copy of an embossed flag covered book called something like “The Wisdom of Kennedy” which was filled with quotes and commentary, bio’s and articles by those who knew him before he became President. I found out later that there actually WAS a printed copy that was pocket size with red front cover that carried over to 1/3rd of the spine, white spine stripe (“carried” over from the white pages of course) and a blue back cover that was also 1/3rd of the spine. Nothing printed anywhere on covers or spine. Interesting comparison read as I recall since it was supposed to be the “readers-digest” version of the book my parents had, it read more like Kennedy was a god and we missed utopia.
One of the people here at work occasionally still brings in his copy of “Ronald Reagan: The Greatest President” he bought from an ad on Rush Limbaugh. Cults of personality built around Presidents, hell around leaders, celebrities and even nut-cases of various kinds have always popped up when said is elected, appointed, gets media time, or after they are dead. I suppose it’s kind of inevitable given some foibles of the human Psyche especially as polarized as politics in the U.S. has been getting.
I’m no happier about said “cult” that has been built up around Obama even knowing how it has come about, than I was about the one for George W. Bush. Or Reagan or Kennedy for that matter, but it is apparent that a ‘successful’ politician in the present time HAS to build a “core” of people around them who’s primary loyalty IS to politician above all else. Those people are tasked with also building and maintaining a “cult” of followers that are willing to attack any detractors and willing to defend even the most indefensible policy or statement from the politician.
Even if the ‘core’ group is cynical and more interested in personal goals than overall political goals or consider the Politician is “expendable” at some point, they must (and usually do) keep the “cult” people willing and able to consider law and ethics something to “set-aside” in order to meet the Politicians expectations or goals. (Watergate, Iran/Contra, and the Whitewater investigation quickly come to mind but I can probably think of dozens for each party for the last few decades)
They also have to be willing and able to “take-the-fall” for the Politician, or any of the “core” group if needed, even the “core” group must be willing should it be needed to take the bullet for the Politician. (Their “compensation” package is usually better than a cult members though :o)
And all we have as actual “protection” against this trend is the law, Constitution, Bill of Rights, and other documentary and judicial checks and balances the founders put in place to try and curb such abuses. I don’t see a way of reversing the current trend, the “system” is too easy to set up and once in place far too useful to NOT use.
I suppose the ‘scariest’ part though is this is NOT just one party or the other but BOTH parties, and worse yet the parties themselves are ‘loosing’ authority as the people within the parties themselves gravitate to towards more ‘idealistic’ stances by individuals or factions rather than overall party policy or platforms. As the “parties” themselves seem to be loosing their “usual” control over who does and doesn’t become a ‘candidate’ for office it becomes easier for the power-blocs to be manipulated and used by power brokers loyal to certain factions or politicians to use the party machinery to expand and use personality cults.
“Third” parties are not help, the Greens tactics and politics only work in nations where the parliamentary system is in place. The Libertarians picked Bob Barr for a candidate! (I asked a Libertarian friend how that came about an it turned out all the “real” Libertarian candidates were rejected by the party before the national convention in favor the choice between someone who was too “left” for the Democrats and someone who was too “right” for the Republicans :o)
Diluting the system with more parties hasn’t helped get more Americans out to vote, nor really to pay much more attention to the political process’ going on. But even getting Americans to actually pay attention to the on-going activities and trends within out political system won’t fix things they way they are going. So I guess the main question would be does anyone have any idea, (serious idea that is :o) what can be done short of waiting for things to get bad enough a majority of Americans actually stand up and demand change?
(Lest we forget which I doubt anyone here would given previous posts :o)
The “mantra” of change alone, with no actual promise or plan of major change other than getting the ‘current’ party out of the White House, was enough to get Barrak Obama elected. I’m talking enough “notice” that the American people or enough a majority of them at any rate want REAL change and they want it now….
The last time Americans wanted a REAL change that bad we had a little “War Between The States”….
Personally I’d like to think “we” learned a lesson from that, but I’m not holding out hope that we as a nation really often “learn” from history, usually we try to ignore the parts we don’t like :o)
Randy
[…] a followup to this posting: while I’m still uncertain as to whether the “Pocket Obama” Little Blue Book is […]
OMG, when you ‘buy’ this, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn I’ll let you have cheap