Obama: Live Long and Prosper

July 7, 2008

Threadless Declined Obama!

*Ammendment: Prosper has been declined by Threadless for copyright reasons!

WHAT THE HELL IS THAT ABOUT?

They sell Obama t-shirts and they even sell Star Trek T-Shirts, I’ve asked if it’s the font which is an open source .TTF - besides this is the 1960s Star Trek we’re talking here! It can’t be Obama, his image seems to be public property as far as I can tell. I’m ranting at them now, but any ideas or defence I can put forward to them before I submit the design somewhere else would be appreciated!

Live Long and Prosper With Obama! Yes yet again I am submitting another design to Threadless.com - it’s almost like a lottery to me, taking a punt, a gamble on my own talents. Threadless are asking for political t-shirts whilst the US political elections are running and so I thought I’d chip in. Besides I was inspired by the tees I featured at Thriving Ink and thought what the hell.

I know I’m British, I know it’s none of my business, I’ve probably annoyed someone or even everyone with this design but I’m not a great fan of politicians as it happens. I’ve lived through the Thatcher government and the Blair government here and now our current PM is telling us not to waste food, this isn’t The Blitz Mr. Brown, if only the idiot had managed to make good on some of Blair’s promises we might not be in this schtuck right now.

Anyway good luck with the elections USA, let’s hope whoever you choose doesn’t decide to start another war, besides the enormous ethical arguments, I don’t think we could afford another one. It’s easier and cheaper to declare war on poverty or obesity, or something abstract that cannot retaliate, and in general will actually kill anyone in the process.

If it’s of interest, I don’t think that Barack Obama looks like Spock, (although Spock would be a very cool politician - though he’d find the whole process of government highly illogical). I just think Barack would fit in really well on the USS Enterprise, boldly going where no African American has gone before. There are a lot of very t-shirts out there depicting Obama as everything from a Ghetto MC Superstar to a Pop Art icon to a monkey, he’s a politician, that’s all.

Yes he has a heart and politics doesn’t seem to have burnt out either his personality or sensibilities (yet), and he can speak to the people with a reverence you’d more likely expect from The Old Testament, but the guy is just another politician. The only thing the Media are so carefully making sure we all know, is that he happens to have dark skin. I’d like to think that the colour of someone’s skin or sex or any physical feature could redress the cultural, financial and ecological balance of the world; open the doors to negotiations across the Middle East, end the Cold War once and for all, enable China to accept more cultural integration and adhere to at least the fundamental basics of human rights, end world poverty, crime, and injustice, but he is only a politician. This isn’t Heroes, Stan Lee isn’t writing the script, this is real life.

Maybe I’m wrong, though I did just skim through a copy of Nostradamus’s book of predictions and there’s no mention of Barack, not even in the footnotes. Someone help me out here, am I missing something, is Obama the saviour of the world, or is just that Bush was so awful that anything better would be a miracle? I’m not one for prophecies, political or otherwise, but if he truly does end up changing the world for the better, I’m in.