Did ’24’ help Obama?

I’ve been watching with interest the whole Presidential race and election in the US. It’s obvious how jubliant many Americans are at the election of Obama as their new President. It is  fascinating  to think that this guy was such an outside contender for the position when the race first began – many people had never heard of him. At that time he was not really a prominent figure to the general public.

But a thought came to me the other night as I heard person after person tell reporters on news channels how much it means to them to have a black President (okay, yes he is bi-racial, we’ll just stick to black for this argument)  and how much it seems like a dream come true, that they hoped it would happen one day but didn’t imagine it would be so soon…I wondered, how much effect did the TV show ’24’ have in helping Obama get elected? Some might say none as it’s just a TV show. But TV does have an impact on the public consciousness. It’s happened with other social situations, as well as TV reflecting social trends.

So did ’24’ help to open people up to the idea that America could have a black President? For there are undoubtedly many, both inside and out of America, that would have said that America was not yet close to accepting a black man in that position. I think it ought to be considered that seeing a black President on TV could very well have done something to make it seem more acceptable to some of the general public. I haven’t heard anyone talk about this yet, and hope someone does investigate it more. It’s an interesting social study.

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Time to re-evaluate our values?

You can’t turn on the news these days without hearing about the economic downturn in various countries. America being the hardest hit with unemployment figures quoted today at 10 million.

There are many debates about what has got us into the current situation. Some blame big business, some blame the credit system, but whichever way we want to look at it, I think it is a certainty that one of the outcomes is going to be a re-evaluation of our values.

For so long our highly Commercial societies have put an emphasis on being able to have everything material we want – if you don’t have the money, you can get the money by way of debt. The focus in our public media is on getting more, getting the newest. And many have bought into that. How many people  feel less ‘worthy’ if they are not seen to be sporting the latest trend, or have the latest model of something, or the latest gadget? All for how others will perceive us.

Economic hardship is no fun for anyone. Nor would I wish it on anyone. It causes stress, physically, emotionally and mentally. But I feel that it will ultimately push people to consider what is really valuable in their lives – basic needs of food, shelter, love, friendship, companionship. We can live without the latest gadget, or in a smaller house, but we can’t live without those 5 things I listed. And maybe, in a society where the balance has tipped to far towards material acquisition, it can only take a stripping away of that in the extreme to make people realize that.

I wish it didn’t take that.

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