Memes and Andy Martin

A meme is a social virus that spreads throughout the population. Andrew Martin is, according to the New York Times, the man behind the original charge that Barack Obama is a Muslim. Andy Martin spreads memes, as we all do. The difference is that his are more effective.

Kilgore Trout said that ideas have the ability to do great harm. Even harmless ideas.

Andrew Martin’s new claim says:

The public’s concerns fall into two areas: (1) questions about Obama’s birth and citizenship, and (2) questions about his early years as a college and law student.

The demands for information about Obama’s birth raise constitutional questions. We do not subscribe to all of the claims that have been made about Obama’s birth; indeed, we reject many of them because they are unproven. But we are still unable to express a definitive opinion about where he was born. Over four years after we began to study Obama, his origins are still opaque.

Obama’s own family has given conflicting information about the hospital where Obama was born. Obama’s presence in Washington State days after he was allegedly born in Hawai’i are troubling, particularly given the claim that his mother was “poor.” Maybe there are easy answers for all of these question. But Obama has been the prime mover in raising doubts about himself, and he continues to be the only reason the doubts have become a cloud on his election.

I’m posting this in full to give the words the representation they deserve, and to try not to conflagrate this discussion into uselessness.

Like it or not, these claims are now going mainstream. ABC News had a discussion about it over the weekend. The Chicago Tribune is picking the story up. It’s now being told through media outlets that people read as news.

I am very interested in memes. I’m interested in the way they start, where they start, and who spreads them. It’s been an interesting experience to see this one start some months ago and watch it gain ground and gather momentum. I’m not so sure it’s become fully mature – yet – but I imagine this story will get its day soon enough.

What does this say about American media? I don’t know.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 9th, 2008 at 2:53 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.