Did other Presidents use SO MANY frigging graphics???

[Crankie Avalon]

It seems like anytime he talks (or tries to talk) indoors, he's got these giant chyrons with "ENERGY" or "GROWTH" or "CONSUME" or whatever towering behind him. It's like that movie, "They Live."



How can anyone think that putting up a graphic with a silly slogan on it somehow outweighs reality? Has any previous President gone this overboard with this "OBEY"-type use of graphics? Seriously!

[Skidmore]

1. The graphic is the message he wants you to be convinced

you heard. It'll stick with you regardless of what he says later. I'd like it if some patriotic stage manager pulled a plug or spilled coffee in the machine during one of these events.

[FreedomAngel82]

25. Exactly

That's why they like sound bites so much and why people didn't "understand" Kerry. They didn't have pictures or little short phrases. Like Malloy says: at these rally's they sit there and agree with everything he says when it goes in one ear and out the other and when he's done speaking or makes a pause they all clap. So then when you ask them what Bush talked about they'll be able to remember from the sign. :eyes: It's really quite sad.

[tanyev]

2. Didn't they get a Hollywood set designer to design

the background set for something? Centcom?

Better governing through relentless propaganda!

Edit...Found it...
That somebody, White House officials and television executives say, is in fact three or four people. First among equals is Scott Sforza, a former ABC producer who was hired by the Bush campaign in Austin, Tex., and who now works for Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director. Mr. Sforza created the White House "message of the day" backdrops and helped design the $250,000 set at the United States Central Command forward headquarters in Doha, Qatar, during the Iraq war.

Television camera crews, meanwhile, say they have rarely had such consistently attractive pictures to send back to editing rooms.

"They seem to approach an event site like it's a TV set," said Chris Carlson, an ABC cameraman who covers the White House. "They dress it up really nicely. It looks like a million bucks."

Or as Mr. Deaver said he learned long ago with Mr. Reagan: "They understand that what's around the head is just as important as the head."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/16/politics/16IMAG.html?pagewanted=1

[Crankie Avalon]

7. Before this, I thought Reagan was the quintessential...

...all-show, perception-over-reality Administration, but I can't remember even Reagan ever constantly yammering in front of these platoons of "OBEY" signs.

What a world!

[electropop]

13. I was in a DARPA facility designed by Hollywood.

It was a fairly ordinary computing center in function, but it looked incredible. I almost caught myself saying, "Number One, make it so!" This place was in Arlington VA.

[TheFarseer]

3. Hey, I like affordable dependable energy

Maybe he's not such a bad guy after all :crazy::crazy::crazy:

[Crankie Avalon]

9. It was all just a needless misunderstanding...

...that the sign finally, blessedly, cleared up! Happy day!!!

[fertilizeonarbusto]

4. No

They could read at a sixth-grade level, at least.

[Stephanie]

5. Google Scott Sforza -

They have a huge WH budget for sets - it's so outrageous. I'll find the old thread we had about the Mission Accomplished banner, which they totally lied about.

*edit* Here's the Mission Accomplished thread - some of the pix are missing now, but you get the idea.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=606903

[Crankie Avalon]

16. Sets...incredible.

They may was well just make the Chimp repeat Charlton Heston's lines from all those blinding Technicolor "cast-of-thousands" movies.

[FreedomAngel82]

26. So they

are playing dressup? And it really is them acting? And Bush talking about energy? LOL! Isn't he an oil man?

[neweurope]

6. Nazis always like Graphics.

Paid for by your tax money.

----------------

Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

8. Maybe it's not evil...

Maybe it's a cue card for the idiot.

[tom_paine]

10. No, never, not even close to this scale

(if they ever did)

This is quite clearly the Orwellian Perception Managment Frank Luntz arena.

And it would not surprise me in the least if they said "OBEY" and "CONSUME" subliminally.

[peekaloo]

11. closed captioned for the closed minded

[AlCzervik]

12. he knows that his sheeple is stoopit.

[zippy890]

14. yuk, he's looking more like a lizard

with every new photo

I expect to see a flitting little forked tongue to come out of that gaping moronic toothless mouth

photoshop time!!!

[not systems]

15. They Live

definitely.

[Syncronaut Seven]

17. For insite of the power of graphics

and it's history as a political tool, join the Masons. Fascinating stuff.

Symbolism can be a powerfull means of communication, particularly in an illiterate society.

[Lisa]

18. a nice collection of Dubya's backgrounds here ...

It's mildly amusing that they sometimes re-use them (a few residual concerns about wasting taxpayer money?). But they seem to be churning out a whole new batch.


http://www.dubyaspeak.com/dim.phtml

[FreedomAngel82]

27. Something I wonder

is when they travel around do they take the signs with them or what do they do? I'd assume it'd be pricy to carry around all these signs.

[Lisa]

36. they take the one(s) slated for that day, I think ...

They do have an advance team that scouts locations days or weeks ahead of time, so they decide which sign to use (and whether they need to make anything up). They actually sent someone up to Canada a week before you-know-who's visit, to make a design, and e-mail it back to be printed in D.C -- the finished product was flown to Halifax and assembled in time for the speech.

On the US taxpayers' dime, of course. (I guess they assumed that we haven't got print shops and couldn't be trusted to make a proper background for Dubya -- it would have "imposter" repeated all over it, or something.)

[stanwyck]

19. It's part of the whole nationalistic

package. Very Reichwing. Plus, Bush has broken records with (tax payer money) PR. All those faked news reports. Yep, our money. All the banners and paid columnists. Yep. We paid for it.
The scary thing is, Rove and Co. are churning out more and more of these Nazi PR thugs through their special "schools".
We're in for a future of these storm troopers and their banners.
Mission Accomplished.

[VOX]

20. Ain't it the truth? Albert Speer couldn't have done a better job...

And now Schwarzenegger is pulling the same stuff in CA:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-video10mar10,1,4427658.story?coll=la-headlines-california&ctrack=1&cset=true
Aides Concede More Mock News Videos
Tapes praise governor's proposals on nurse staffing, teachers. Legislators plan probe.
March 10, 2005
SACRAMENTO — A week after Democratic legislators faulted Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for using taxpayer money to produce "propaganda" in the form of a mock news video, the administration on Wednesday acknowledged making several others to advance its policies.

A state senator intends to question officials today about the funding and distribution of the videos.
<snip>

[FreedomAngel82]

29. So what would happen

if someone did grafitti on it? Would they still be arrested? :shrug: Since we are paying for it that is. And go figure that the person who does the signs is from Texas. Is anybody in that administration (or works for them) NOT from Texas or connected? :crazy:

[stanwyck]

35. Interesting term you use

"connected". Tony Soprano and Co. could learn from Kove and his posse.

[Arkana]

21. Well, all our other Presidents could read

so they didn't need all the visual aids.

[Pupper78]

22. Great PR

How many daily newspapers run this same photo the day after -- picking it up off of a wire service. Joe B-Diddly Bobby Smith walks by a newspaper stand and sez: "By golly, I'm glad our President is out there standing up for Affordable Dependable Energy!" He doesn't actually read the article or seek out the transcript of the speech on the Internet. All Joe B-Diddly Bobby Smith needs is a photo to show him his president done good!

Effective PR Machine, the Bush Regime has.

[kuozzman]

23. I like this one: 02/28/01- "Debt Free America"

For this and a few more classics, go here: http://ignorantusa.tripod.com/id12.html

[DS1]

24. You don't say...

PUT THE F*CKING GLASSES ON!!

[Crankie Avalon]

31. WHOA!!! What an avatar!

Nice photoshop, too.

I gotta get a home computer and start learning how to do that kind of stuff--now that I'm being taught how important graphics actually are. ;-)

[Lautremont]

28. Did other presidents have such friggin' stupid supporters?

I thought not!

[jmowreader]

30. It used to be Really Expensive to make these graphics

Now all you really need is a Mac, a twelve-foot DisplayMaker printer, a few rolls of vinyl and a few drums of ink, and you're set.

Because believe you me, if Reagan would have been able to have a twelve-foot DisplayMaker (it came out during the Clinton Administration), he would have had these graphics too.

[baldguy]

32. Bush isn't a President, he's a product.

[soup]

33. Remember 'Boxgate'?

BoxGate:
The Sticker Shock of Bush's Economic Snow Job

Late in January 2003, George W. Bush celebrated the winter season by performing a snow job on the American people. As millions of Americans saw it on their television sets, Bush stood in a factory warehouse in St. Louis, surrounded by shelves full of boxes stamped "Made In U.S.A.".

In this wholesome, patriotic, blue-collar setting, he lectured his audience about how his program of special tax breaks for the rich would be "strengthening America's economy". What a great photo-opportunity it appeared to be. Standing behind the presidential podium in a factory located in America's heartland, with boxes of products made right here in the good old U S of A., Bush must have been there to talk to a crowd of America's workers, right?

bush tax cut fraudWrong. This is where Bush's snow job started. The audience he gave his speech in front of was made up of carefully selected government officials and business owners. American workers were not invited.

Of course, American workers were used to set up the display behind George W. Bush. Only, it didn't take as much work as it might appear. Here's where Bush's snow job intensified. You see, those boxes that seem to be stacked up to the ceiling behind bush aren't really boxes at all. They're made up, painted carefully on a canvas that appears to be real when photographed or viewed on television.
http://irregulartimes.com/boxgate.html

---


President Bush touts his economic plan standing in front of
"Made in USA" boxes that are nothing more than a painted prop.
Bush staffers taped over the "Made in China" labels on
the real boxes in front.


President George W. Bush came away red-faced from a sales pitch for his economic stimulus" package last month. At a St. Louis warehouse, his backdrop showed stacks of painted cardboard cartons proudly marked with "Made in the USA" labels.

The real boxes directly in front of the president, filled with flowered headbands, had labels that read "Made in China' " labels someone had covered up with tape.
http://www.iamaw.org/publications/spring2003/export.htm

---

This is still one of my favorites:

[Crankie Avalon]

34. Just read through both articles you linked and don't know whether...

...to laugh or cry.

We are doomed.