A 1950 Chinese propaganda poster showing a happy family of five enjoying life under the image of Mao Zedong. The caption above the picture reads “The happy life Chairman Mao gives us”. A cult of personality arises when an individual uses mass media, propaganda, or other methods, to create an idealized and heroic public image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise. Cults of personality are usually associated with dictatorships. The sociologist Max Weber developed a tripartite classification of authority; the cult of personality holds parallels with what Weber defined as ‘charismatic authority’. A special thank-you to the marxist news media for their support of the marxist democrats idealized public image of Obama!
A cult of personality is similar to hero worship, except that it is established by mass media and propaganda. However, the term may be applied by analogy to refer to adulation of religious or non-political leaders. While the cult of personality generally applies to the enhancement and promotion of a political or religious doctrine, it stands to reason that it is also asserted in everyday situations where popularity is used to advocate conformity to philosophies and lifestyles, even products and attitudes by way of peer pressure and herd mentality. That is why I refer to marxist democrats as zombies!
Throughout history, monarchs and heads of state were almost always held in enormous reverence. Through the principle of the divine right of kings, for example, rulers were said to hold office by the will of God. Imperial China, ancient Egypt, Japan, the Inca, the Aztecs, Tibet, Thailand, and the Roman Empire are especially noted for redefining monarchs as god-kings. The spread of democratic ideas in Europe and North America in the 18th and 19th centuries made it increasingly difficult for monarchs to preserve this aura.
However, the subsequent development of photography, sound recording, film and mass production, as well as public education and techniques used in commercial advertising, enabled political leaders to project a positive image like never before. It was from these circumstances in the 20th century that the best-known personality cults arose. Often these cults are a form of Political religion.
Personality cults were first described in relation to totalitarian regimes that sought to radically alter or transform society according to radical ideas. Often, a single leader became associated with this revolutionary transformation, and came to be treated as a benevolent “guide” for the nation without whom the transformation to a better future couldn’t occur. This has been generally the justification for personality cults that arose in totalitarian societies of the 20th century, such as those of Adolf Hitler. Have you heard this mantra before here in America? Are you beginning to understand what “Hope and Change” really means?
The criticism of personality cults often focuses on the regimes of Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Hirohito, Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh, Kim Il-Sung, Kim Jong-Il, During the peak of their regimes, these leaders were presented as god-like and infallible. Their portraits were hung in homes and public buildings, with artists and poets legally required to only produce works that glorified the leader and his regime. Other leaders with such cults include Siad Barre of Somalia and Enver Hoxha of Albania. America now has its own version of a personality cult in Obama, as defined and supported by the marxists media.
The term cult of personality comes from Karl Marx’s critique of the “cult of the individual” ”expressed in a letter to German political worker, Wilhelm Bloss”. In that letter, Marx states thus: “From my antipathy to any cult of the individual, I never made public during the existence of the [1st] International the numerous addresses from various countries which recognized my merits and which annoyed me… Engels and I first joined the secret society of Communists on the condition that everything making for superstitious worship of authority would be deleted from its statute.” Thus Marx was opposed to hero worship of authority or any reference to a cult of personality! Yet today’s marxist democrats and marxist news media are doing just what Marx opposed and Obama loves!
Nikita Khrushchev recalled Marx’s criticism in his 1956 “Secret Speech” denouncing Stalin to the 20th Party Congress: “Comrades, the cult of the individual acquired such monstrous size chiefly because Stalin himself, using all conceivable methods, supported the glorification of his own person. . . . One of the most characteristic examples of Stalin’s self-glorification and of his lack of even elementary modesty is the edition of his Short Biography, which was published in 1948. This book is an expression of the most dissolute flattery, an example of making a man into a godhead, of transforming him into an infallible sage, the greatest leader, sublime strategist of all times.” Finally no other words could be found with which to lift Stalin up to the heavens. We need not give here examples of the loathsome adulation filling this book. All we need to add is that they all were approved and edited by Stalin personally and some of them were added In his own handwriting to the draft text of the book.” Even communists knew the dangers of such glorification of the individual, however, the current marxist news media are more aware because after all they are the elite!
Some authors (e.g. Alexander Zinovyev) have argued that Leonid Brezhnev’s rule was also characterized by a cult of personality, though unlike Lenin and Stalin, Brezhnev did not initiate large-scale persecutions in the country. One of the aspects of Leonid Brezhnev’s cult of personality was Brezhnev’s obsession with titles, rewards and decorations, leading to his inflated decoration with medals, orders and so on. This was often ridiculed by the ordinary people and led to the creation of many political jokes. In today’s world Jay Leno knows how to tame the political beasts with ridicule and jokes!
Journalist Bradley Martin documented the personality cults of North Korea’s father-son leadership, “Great Leader” Kim Il-sung and “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-il. While visiting North Korea in 1979 he noted that nearly all music, art, and sculpture that he observed glorified “Great Leader” Kim Il-sung, whose personality cult was then being extended to his son, “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-il. Kim Il-sung rejected the notion that he had created a cult around himself and accused those who suggested so of “factionalism”. A US religious freedom investigation confirmed Martin’s observation that North Korean schoolchildren learn to thank Kim Il-sung for all blessings as part of the cult. Evidence of the cult of Kim Il-Sung continues into the 21st century (despite his death in 1994) with the erection of Yeong Saeng (“eternal life”) monuments throughout the country, each dedicated to the departed “Great Leader”, at which citizens are expected to pay annual tribute on his official birthday or the anniversary of his death.
Saparmurat Niyazov, who was ruler of Turkmenistan from 1985 to 2006, is another oft-cited cultivator of a cult of personality. Niyazov simultaneously cut funding to and partially disassembled the education system in the name of “reform”, while injecting ideological indoctrination into it by requiring all schools to take his own book, the Ruhnama, as its primary text, and like Kim Il-sung, there is even a creation myth surrounding him. During Niyazov’s rule there was no freedom of the press nor was there freedom of speech. This further meant that opposition to Niyazov was strictly forbidden and “major opposition figures have been imprisoned, institutionalized, deported, or have fled the country, and their family members are routinely harassed by the authorities.” Additionally, a silhouette of Niyazov was used as a logo on television broadcasts and statues and pictures of him were “erected everywhere”. For these, and other reasons, the US Government has gone on to claim that by the time he died, “Niyazov’s personality cult had reached the dimensions of a state-imposed religion”.
The current US “BigGov” supporters are really experts in this field. We see several things in common with Obama’s reign in the past several years that would place many of these minions into a cult of personality. Obama loves to make speeches with his trusted teleprompter, and the admiration of the crowds that show up for these events. The main street marxist media promotes Obama at the cost of becoming dishonest in their news coverage because they adore him and want to make sure that voters only see and hear the things that they distort or fabricate. The Obama staff lies to cover up Obama’s failures and make up signs and placards to promote a perfect vision of Obama. Obama’s decisions are ego driven and he does not like to be told that he is wrong about anything! This is typical behavior of someone who is pathologically obsessed with themselves.
This cult of personality explains why so many have a positive view of Obama even though he has made so many mistakes and is trying to turn America into a socialist country. When you add in the fact that most current democrats are really marxists and suffer from confirmation bias and as a result will never, never admit when they are wrong.
Because of this large following of admirers and the marxist news media Obama is starting his final push toward one party rule in the USA. Furthermore, the Republican leadership is doing nothing to stop this advance toward marxism! Obama has just issued a new Presidential Order number 13639 that will give control of elections to “BigGov” by taking this control from the States. Executive Order 13639, will establish a Presidential Commission on Election Administration “in order to promote the efficient administration of Federal elections and to improve the experience of all voters.” With democrats in control of this issue what do you think the result will be? I suggest that you look up the definition of marxism, which preached the necessity of social revolution to create a “proletarian dictatorship”. What do you plan to do because you know who will be in the elite groups and who will be in the gulag groups!
Today government grows at the expense of individuals: at the expense of their rights, their freedom, their wealth. The supporters of Big Government have always justified this by appealing to “the public good.” How have defenders of capitalism responded? Not by challenging the notion of “the public good.” Instead, we have accepted that notion and tried to persuade people that only capitalism can achieve it. Ayn Rand
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