A Cult of Personality

"I sell the things you need to be
I'm the smiling face on your TV
I'm the cult of personality
I exploit you, still you love me
I told you one and one make three
I'm the cult of personality
Like Joseph Stalin and Gandhi
I'm the cult of personality"

Classic song from Living Colour...you'll definitely hear this one rocking in my car from time to time.  The cult of personality isn't just a song, though...its a real thing...and an issue when it comes to politics and power.

A cult of personality arises when an individual uses mass media, propaganda, or other methods, to create an idealized, heroic, and at times god-like public image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise.

Hmmm...sound familiar?

Sadly, our current President is just the most recent example of a cult of personality taking control of a country through mass media and propaganda.  This has been happening throughout the years.  One notable cults of personality include:

~Juan Peron and Eva Duarte
~Mao Zedong
~"Great Leader" Kim Il-sung and "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il
~Joseph Stalin
~John F. Kennedy
~Adolf Hitler
~Benito Mussolini

The majority of those on this list have something in common...as I'm sure you caught.  They're dictators!  A cult of personality is a dangerous thing...when people all buy into everything a single person is saying, it's far too easy to fall victim to tyranny...far too easy to give up our freedoms in exchange for whatever the glorious leader is selling to us.

We are particularly suseptible to this in today's America...where the media has been a more than willing accomplice in perpetuating the propaganda of those in charge.  This isn't just an Obama thing...the Presidency has been a giant Cult of Personality for quite a while now.  We aren't voting to protect our freedoms, or for what we believe is best for our society as a whole...we're voting for whoever looks most like a rockstar up there, and whoever the mass media chooses to build up for us.

"The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one." ~Adolf Hitler.

I'm not exactly saying we're in danger of falling under totalitarian rule here in the U.S. just yet.  I just think its important to know things, to question things that appear before us in the news, and to make up our own minds about things...rather than blindly trusting the pretty man on the TV screen. 

Just something to keep in mind...