Roger’s Rules

October 6th, 2009 11:34 am

Annals of Nausea: Relief is at hand!

What was the most nauseating display of politically correct pap you have witnessed lately? My candidate, hands down, was the “I Pledge” video in which a gaggle of celebrities moonlight as part of Barack Obama’s public relations team.

Oscar Wilde said that a man had to have a heart of stone to read Dickens’s account of the death of little Nell without laughing. Similarly, you have to have nerves of steel not to burst out laughing at this pompous group of self-satisfied narcissists preening before the camera to the strains of pseudo Aaron Copeland pledging “to help end hunger in America,” “to be the voice for those that have no voice,” “to show more love to strangers,” “to reduce my use of plastic,” and — above all — “to be of service to Barack Obama,” “to be a servant to our President and all mankind,” because, after all, being President is “the loneliest job in the world.”

Yes, it’s funny, alright, in a gruesome sort of way, but most sane people will also feel a twinge of nausea as they guffaw at these preposterous people lining up to pay obeisance to the most politically correct, multicultural, apologetic President in history. I mean, really: watching Demi Moore pledge “to be a servant to our President and all mankind” is something that should come come with some sort of Surgeon General’s warning, no? And who was that horrible betattooed chap who kissed his biceps, one after the other, as he reverently pronounced the names “Barack” and “Obama”?

[UPDATE: A fellow cultural pathologist calls my attention to this emetic specimen at the Huffington Post. Your life will not be complete until you watch it, too.]

Well, fans, relief is at hand. For some clever and stylish folks have made two perfect send ups of the most recent stomach-churning performance. They prove that the art of satire is not dead and that ridicule is among the last best hopes for man. “We need to let Big government run our health care,” says one of the actors, “just like the Post Office, the IRS, and the DMV.” “When your child needs surgery,” says another, “is it really the time for hasty decisions? With Big Government in charge, you’ll have a few months to think it over. Emergency surgery? No thanks! Emergencies are too scary.” Says a bemused fellow: “Make my own health care decisions? . . . Why?”

Click and enjoy:

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19 Comments

1. Daniel Crandall:

Roger, kudos for linking the videos. For full disclosure: I’m in the “PSA – Listen to Overpaid Celebrities” video (I’m the bearded bloke with glasses). Those of us who put that together are not associated with CatholicVoteAction.org. We’re just a group of concerned citizens who are sick and tired of overpaid celebrities, who embrace Hugo Chavez, telling us how to live our lives.

Oct 6, 2009 - 12:15 pm 2. Pajamas Media » Nausea Relief: Mocking the Celebrity Health Care PSA:

[...] Read the entire article here. [...]

Oct 6, 2009 - 1:00 pm 3. Harris Tweed:

The group of B- and C-list celebrities is really very appalling. I have never seen such slobbering, fawning, sycophantic self-abasement and in public to boot.

The parody on the other hand is very, very funny — more please.

Oct 6, 2009 - 1:43 pm 4. RE:

Excellent job, Mr. Crandall.

Oct 6, 2009 - 2:41 pm 5. chicken thief:

I actually watched this about half way through yesterday and turned it off because I didn’t realise it was satire. The actors on this vinette were the same as on the original propoganda piece. Unknown faces. They also made as much sense as the original group. The only person I recognized was Will Ferrell, and only because he is such a poor actor. He remindes me of an old SNL skit “really bad conceptual art” with Dan Ackroyd

Oct 6, 2009 - 4:01 pm 6. Bobby Jo Statler, tennessee:

This is a sham of a scam of a travesty.

Sure as shootin’, big government is bad government. If anything will lead to our downfall, big, unwieldy government is going to be the culprit. What’s more, If healthcare were like the DMV, it would be on its deathbed.

Although I haven’t heard of these Hollywood actors that purport to speak for me, (except for Will Farell in the other video) I honestly don’t give a hounds tooth what they think or say.

One more thing, I voted for Barack Obama and I kick myself in the butt every time I own up to that horrendous misjudgment. He’s gotta grow up to be the worst President in the history of these United States.

Lies about earmarks.

Passes wasteful spending bills without anybody reading them and without giving the public a chance to see them. In fact, lied during the campaign about putting all bills on line 72 hours before the vote.

Secretly offers to hire media people during the campaign if they say great things about him.

Didn’t serve his country in the military or do any volunteer work because he hates the military, loves money and doesn’t talk to his generals except when the generals go public saying they need more troops in Afghanistan. This happened in August and the troops still aren’t there. Obama’s sitting on a decision and my brother gets wounded in Kabul because he’s flying too many missions.

Meanwhile, Obama talks like he’s a student of military strategy, but doesn’t know a dimes worth about it. Preened how we had lost the war in Iraq, then bad mouthed the surge.

This coot of a president then hires a racist judge for the highest court in the land, and accuses white males to be sub-intelligent compared to Hispanic women. If that’s not racist, I don’t know what is.

Then, without knowing any facts, Obama calls this cop in Cambridge stupid for arresting Obama’s professor pal. Then calls the whole thing some kind of learning lesson, which I have no idea what he means by that. Maybe it’s that Obama never has to apologize when he does something idiotic. Notice I didn’t call Obama racist, but I certainly could of.

Plus, Obama hires tax cheats, like Tim Gauthner. Worse, to head the IRS. If that’s not ironic, and downright idiotic I don’t know what is.

Then as attorney general he hires some moron who got BC to pardon Marc Rich who was on the FBI’s most wanted list.

Then this attorney general in his first week calls Americans race cowards. And drops an open and shut case when Black Panthers intimidate voters in Philadelphia on election day. Isn’t fair free elections supposed to be a sacred part of the constitution?

Then he sends Acorn billions in taxpayer money and they steal votes for Barack by the millions that help get him elected along with idiots like me who voted for him.

I’ve talked enough. I gotta go out and chop some wood to work off this anger.

Big government, ObamaCare and Obama. A threesome I can live without.

Fellow Americans, think small.

Oct 6, 2009 - 5:55 pm 7. Zacharias:

I wonder if Demi Moore and Kutcher rehearsed whether would it be more appropriate to touch their foreheads to the floor or bow when they reverently promised their pledges to Obama. The bow apparently won.

Oct 6, 2009 - 6:25 pm 8. Drew:

What? How can you quote those self-righteous narcissists in the “I Pledge” video without mentioning the most unintentionally hilarious line in the whole bit: “I pledge allegiance to the Funk, to the United Funk of Funkadelica!” Comedy Gold, man.

Oct 6, 2009 - 7:31 pm 9. Gaffe Prices:

Because, money grows on treeeeeeeeeeeeeze!!

Keep america more green.

Oct 7, 2009 - 4:31 am 10. Trainwreck:

A while back, there was a South Park parody of PSA’s that invoke “do it for the children” to pass certain PC legislation.

It ended with, “and if you vote against this, it means YOU HATE CHILDREN” while the skulls of the South Park kids flash across the screen.

I almost feel that the health care reform bill is headed in this direction: “if you are aginst health care reform, you are racist!”

Oct 7, 2009 - 6:07 am 11. tanstaafl:

“What was the most nauseating display of politically correct pap you have witnessed lately?”

Hmmm, that crowd of ideologically bent doctors flanking Obama in the rose garden on Monday ?

This “Insurance PSA,” paid for by and produced with MoveOn.org…

Obamacare’s spin doctors

The decidedly un-grass-roots sponsors of the Doctors for America launch were Democratic Sen. Max Baucus, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, and the left-wing Center for American Progress — which is run by liberal operative John Podesta and underwritten by far-left billionaire George Soros.

Tides Foundation, moveon.org, Soros organizations in general seem to be sponsoring most of this stuff, from the PSA video you link to that crowd of “Doctors for America” that donned the white coats in the rose garden on Monday.

Oct 7, 2009 - 6:20 am 12. Southern by the Grace of God:

I pledge to never see another movie, watch another tv show, or buy another song that any of the fools in that “I Pledge to serve Obama” video have ANYTHING to do with. They will never get another dime of my money. That is the biggest piece of cr@p propaganda I have ever seen in all my years.

Oct 7, 2009 - 6:24 am 13. pelaut:

Why did anyone have to see this to know that the Hollywood Lib crowd is nothing but stupid high school drop out body builders or beauty contestants who got started whoring early which sucked them onto the silver screen? Acting? You mean screen grabs pasted together is acting?

Oct 7, 2009 - 6:55 am 14. Andy:

1:38 or so…love the guy pointing with glasses while also wearing glasses….awesome! Sent along to my inlaws, I’m working on getting uninvited for Thanksgiving.

Oct 7, 2009 - 9:35 am 15. NC77:

The narcissists from Hollywood need an outlet to assuage their guilt.

Oct 7, 2009 - 11:52 am 16. DanO:

These videos are not surprising…unfortunately. Although the take-offs are hilarious.

Recently I’ve noticed similar pap PSA commercials on USA (Characters Unite) in which “characters” of various ethic backgrounds disclaim the so-called sterotypes they are supposedly associated with:

“I have never been a cab driver.”

“I’m not a gardener.”

“I don’t own a laundromat.”

“The view from the back of the bus sucks…”…???????

“I pledge because it’s 2009, not 1959″…?????

“The good old days weren’t the good old days”…

Etc. ad nauseum…

At they end, they all “pledge”…to what I am not sure…but “Join the Movement…”…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwUmSOHVfPM

And on my 10-year olds favorite channel, I think Disney, all the teen kiddie stars make the same sort of creepy pledge:

See “Friends for Change”…Save the Planet, blah, blah, blah…and, of course, at the end, “Join the Movement”…make the pledge…

Organized conspiracy?

No, just a “Conspiracy of Dunces”…”chickens coming home to roost”, the outcome of the dominant cultural ideas of the 20th Century…

As for me, it is SO time, I pledge to encourage people to “Move On” from MoveOn.org…

In fact, I get my best ideas on this site, so I’ve just registered a new domain, MoveOnToCapitalism.org…

Nothing there yet…but anyone who has any interest either post a response…or I’ll have it up and running soon…

“Thinkers Welcome”

DanO

Oct 7, 2009 - 5:41 pm 17. Jeannette:

The whole family burst out laughing in the original video, where someone (no idea who) pledged to reduce her use of plastic; she could barely move her mouth so I think it’s a little too late for her.

Oct 8, 2009 - 4:04 pm 18. WarrenH:

I have authored an in-depth article detailing the SOCIALIZED health Care that ALREADY EXITS IN AMERICA! It may be found at http://malum.org/?p=402 , and i hope it sparks discussions!

Oct 9, 2009 - 6:21 am 19. The Road Less Traveled:

Why, Why, Why, do so many of those stars have to be so ignorant. I do not want some tight faced plastic head telling me what to do.
I feel ashamed for buying so many Chili Pepper songs on iPod, because he is the idiot kissing his biceps. I think that is him. What a bunch of fools.
Hollywood is dead!
I am so thankful I can listen to Jimmy Vaughan sing “Why, Why, Why” and not feel nauseous today.

Oct 9, 2009 - 12:23 pm