On Their Knees, Waiting for Obama to Arrive

President Barack Obama has not even arrived in Brazil and the demonstrations of submission have begun. Those responsible for various broadcasts have already started playing the role of tamed Third World domestics paying obeisance to American authorities.

As with Hillary Clinton’s last visit, where a depressing spectacle of fawning took place using underprivileged youth to parrot friendly hand-picked questions chosen by the producers, Globo and other affiliates have already headed out to the field where they are hard at work obtaining fawning statements from the masses in regards to Obama as if he were some kind of pop star idolized by Brazilians.

Obama was one of the biggest media frauds in recent memory and has frustrated many in the world who believed he would fulfill his campaign promise in undoing the negative image of his country. A country viewed as interventionist, imperialist, disregardful of human rights and a great risk to world peace. In reality, he has been even more of the same than past predecessors.

With low ratings in his own country, Obama has been facing the wrath of his own supporters during elections, many of whom were drawn in by the banner of significant change. In the U.S. he is seen as a lame duck, with no control of Congress and remote chances of being re-elected.

Fortunately for Obama, there exists those who will fawn over whoever the American president may be, those willing to extend the red carpet wherever he goes. There’s nothing like a visit to a country containing a press such as ours, one with an inferiority complex, to bolster the self-esteem of a president of low popularity, and he can rest assured that to the old Brazilian media he is still king.

I honestly do not have the stomach to watch these spectacles of submission and my remote control has been jittery. Globo plays the role of Otavio Mangabeira. For those who do not know Mangabeira, he was a member of congress who knelt down and kissed the hand of former U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower when he visited Brazil in 1946 — as can be seen in the image in this post, photographed by Ibrahim Sued. That episode still serves as a great illustration of the submission by the Brazilian elite in relation to the U.S. authorities.

It’s degrading to see a network that has spent decades trying to humiliate former president Lula for not being part of their elite group, cower down in this manner to an American president, thus sending a distorted image of the Brazilian people. I hope this event will help alert those Brazilians who still have self-respect about the intentions of certain media outlets, especially Rede Globo.

Buy bibs and knee pads and send them to Rede Globo; they must be in dire need of these accessories.