Bernie Sanders is proud to call himself a socialist. He’s happy to continue the ideological legacy of Mussolini, Peron and Hugo Chavez.
I know I’m not the only one who sees the photos of his campaign rallies, and imagines them debouching out onto the street to look for pockets to pick and (fill in the unfavored minority) to beat up.
And yet, I can’t help watch this spot and think “hell yeah!”
It takes my (far and away) favorite Simon and Garfunkel song, and wraps it around a whole lot of stirring images, and says absolutely nothing, and says it with glorious style.
Of course, it’s dishonest. Bernie Sanders loves “America”, provided it acts like Sweden (or like Sweden did, until recently). But it’s not Swedes he’s trying to convince to vote for him.
But who cares, really? I want fill up a bathtub with this ad, and soak in it for hours. The imagery, the videography, the intersection of picture and sound – all of them are absolutely glorious.
Glorious pictures and sound have a long history, of course. We’ve seen that before; all the way back to Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will), the signature movie by Leni Riefenstahl, the greatest female filmmaker of all time (that’s gotta sit just wonderfully with the Feminists) – a film (as opposed to a TV spot) that punches a lot of the same buttons.
And no, I’m not comparing Sanders to Hitler, at least as far as the whole “genocidal madman” thing goes.
But there’s little content.
There’s very little substance.
But oh, lord, the imagery and sound and cinematography. Is it any wonder that a nation of low-information voters turned out in droves back then, just as Sanders hopes they will now?
They’ve all come to look for America. And if they follow Bernie, they’ll find Venezuela.
It’s all how you package the message, not matter how distasteful it is.
Watched the Bern in Iowa last night. Laughed every time he struggled to stifle the “Proletariat rise!” that he ached to shout.
He did mention the need for a political REVOLUTION 3 times.
Still, it was disturbing to see the expressions of wonderment in the eyes of the students in attendance. Someone close to them should take them in hand and explain the history of Communism as it is, not how their professors said it was.
He took his honeymoon in Moscow in 1961. The height of the cold war. I wonder what the Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, Vietnamese, Cambodians, etc think about that. It would be like Bush 41 or Bob Dole, (or Jimmy Carter or even George McGovern), instead of being WW2 vets, would have been worshippers of Hitler. Vacationing in Berlin in the early 1940s. Then running for President 50 years later.
A low-information voter needs a high-resolution production in order to provide color to an otherwise institutional gray message. Remember, the key to selling the steak is the sizzle.
He took his honeymoon in Moscow in 1961.
Unless you were a spy or had an aptitude to become one, there was no way for anyone to slip through the Iron Curtain at that time. Un-be-freaking-livable!
The “Honeymoon in Moscow” ad is one reason I pray for the Bern to get the nod.
The scary thing is that too many of us have no memory of what Communism was. For that matter, having been in college at the end of the cold war, I know that even in relatively saner schools (Michigan State instead of Michigan), there was a strong left wing that didn’t entirely see Stalin as wrong. Scary.
The Czechs still remember Communism well. They even put up a museum to remind others of its abuses (humorously putting the museum on the second floor of building over a McDonald’s and across from a Benetton). http://thenightwriterblog.com/2016/01/20/at-the-museum-of-communism/
That is the whitest ad I’ve seen in 40 years.
DMA beat me to it. Was there a single PoC in that ad? I guess Bernie’s Amerika is Portland.
They say that the Nazi’s have a reputation for efficiency.
Well, back when Adolph was still an art student in Vienna, Stalin’s Cheka had already mastered efficiency in interrogations. They used to break the fingers of a person being interrogated until they confessed to having counter revolutionary thoughts. This could be time consuming when you have tens of thousands of suspected counter revolutionaries to interrogate. So they came up with the idea of putting a dozen suspected counter revolutionaries in one cell and making them watch while they broke a single suspect’s fingers, one at a time. When they were done, all of the suspects would confess.
Brilliant, eh? The inquisition had nothing on those Cheka guys.
Of course college kids love Bernie. He’s making promises that his Lexus mouth over ride his Yugo ass can’t afford.
He probably had the same starry eyed losers in the audience here today.
The Hilary crowd must be panicking that the next generation of drooling left wing sycophants won’t all be supporting her.
Mitch…perhaps a post on The Bern’s St Paul speech. He read a list of various Americans he hates. Stay classy Bern!
Having visited East Berlin in 1989, I can excuse going to a Warsaw Pact country. It was eye opening and informed me that I never, ever want to live under communism or even stricter socialism. So what part of standing in a bread line did Bernie not clue in on?
Oh, yes, college kids and communists are very simpatico – until the communists are in power. When it all goes how it inevitably goes, the college kids are usually the first on the barricades, and the first to die. (See Prague Spring, 1968).
Speaking of commies. No, this is not a headline from the Onion:
Pentagon defends use of Russian engines to launch satellites
I want to win all 50 states and DC clean electoral sweep go Bernie! #ifeelmypeebern
Last week there was a letter to the editor of my small town paper urging people to vote for Bernie because that way medicare would be extended to the old and disabled.
The old and the disabled, of course, already get medicare.
Go Bernie!