Polio Prez

Just because times change doesn't always make it right. Idiocracy, in my opinion, is very right in that society constantly is in a state of degradation.   One of the most interesting things to me is that we had a president, FDR, who had polio and from this was generally confined to a wheel chair.  This, to me, is the societal difference: For FDR a special podium was constructed and braces for his legs such that he could stand while giving addresses and what not.  To me this was honorable and makes sense.  In our current culture I feel pretty confident that we would simply make a podium for a wheel chair to go behind and call it good.  The interesting thing to me about it all, though, is that we were more in tune with the perception of power than we are now.  Now we are more in tune with empathizing with FDR.  The fact is, the president is a powerful man, and he should be portrayed as powerful.  A wheel chair does not convey power and they understood that.  That is the reason they made a special podium for FDR.  Now, all that said, I think that it would be difficult to conceal the fact that the president was wheel chair bound in this day and age.  Technology and cameras of all sorts are just too prolific.  I still feel, if we had a wheel chair bound president, it would be just as important today that he try to find a way to stand for addresses though. The projection of power is important to our world image.  In our empathetic/sympathetic/pathetic culture the projection of power is an art totally lost.