Posted on 01/16/2009 5:37:51 PM PST by WesternCulture
Swedish flatpack furniture giant Ikea has erected a replica Oval Office at Union Station in Washington DC this week in a bid to cash in on the inauguration of president elect Barack Obama.
Ikea's 'Embrace Change '09' campaign also extended an invitation to the Obamas to redesign and furnish any rooms in the White House with the help of the company's own team of designers.
Ikea said its Oval Office replica would enable commuters to take a seat in the bustling station and experience real change first hand.
A guestbook signed by visitors to the mock office would eventually be delivered to the White House, the company said.
On a campaign website designed to coincide with Obama's inauguration, Ikea urged customers to suggest "fiscally responsible home furnishings" for the new president.
Do they have a replica of Bill Clinton’s sink?
Has it been reported that anyone's opted to change races yet? i.e becoming "black" in honor of obama.
I’m not surprised it’s not written in their wacky Swedish names.
That’s another one down the hole for me. I think I will be supporting local businesses from now on. At least I know most of them and know where they stand politically. ;)
Seriously, as a Swede, I hate the idea of Swedish companies trying to profit from the fact that USA has elected an enemy of free trade for president.
As a friend of America and of Capitalism, I truly hope Obama, in his coming encounters with my part of the world, will pay more attention to the national traits that during the last 150 years turned Sweden into a breeding ground for so many multinational business success stories, rather than Sweden's ability to vend cheap furniture and faith in ridiculous PC/Socialist experiments to liberals and leftists all over the planet.
The success of IKEA, Atlas Copco, Husqvarna, ABB, Electrolux, Volvo, H&M, Bofors, SAAB, SKF, Tetrapak, Securitas, ABB, Koenigsegg, Ericsson, Skype, AstraZeneca (as well as Björn Borg, ABBA and Absolut Vodka:D) etc, etc has very little to do with the kind of nanny state concept of society which Sweden has gained a “recognition” for (by, for instance, Democrats like Clinton and Galbraith and furthermore by most post-war European politicians at large!).
Fact is, the very foundation for the success of these companies was laid long before the true period of “Swedish Socialism”, namely the 1970s - 1980s, when Sweden's economic growth was among the weakest in all of the OECD area and even our Finance Minister/Secretary of the Treasury deemed the tax system created by his own (Social Democratic) predecessors “perverse”.
These decades of stupidity and lack of national awareness constitute a tale that offers no other moral than that of Socialism equaling failure and - in the long run - suicide.
Sweden is known for having high suicide rates. This is mainly because Eisenhower in 1960, claimed that “sin, nudity, drunkenness and suicide” in Sweden were due to welfare policy excess.
Today, Sweden is a small but influential nation well aware Capitalism is the only key to national success, while many Americans at the same time, sadly enough, believe the future of their nation lays in adopting the very same principles countries like Sweden, Britain, Norway, Finland and Denmark has abandoned.
Don't get me wrong.
I definitely believe in America - my continent's foremost ally - it's Obama's empty promises I don't believe in. USA is still the strongest nation on Earth and its major asset is Americans.
By the way, the IKEA Embrace Change 09 site:
Is this solidifying my choice to not patronize an Ikea store?
I’d rather build my own anyway. Cheaper, smells good, and gives me a good feeling finishing a project.
Only problem is the finish will smell like crap and it’ll take a little while.
Obama mania was old months ago. This is going to be a tough time to live through, watching this guy get his ass kissed constantly for four years.
I think we need to come up with a new warning, something like (OAK) that stands for Obama Ass Kissing involved on this thread.
Thus, this thread would start out: “Ikea Creates Oval Office Replica - OAK”
Michael Jackson already did that, but in the opposite order.
I’m embracing the wince, 09.
Nazi youth embracing terrorist lover.
To add: I think we have gotten rid of most of our IKEA furniture from our move from the UK. Good riddance. It was horribly made and tacky to boot. I’ll stick to my antiques, thanks very much.
And yet we now see companies like IKEA and Pepsico completely promoting the snob, coopting his campaign iconography to sell the both the snob and their products. A complete synthesis of empty marketing.
The Pepsi logo HOPE banners I saw when I swung through DC last week were extremely disturbing. I felt like I was in a fricking William Gibson novel. What the hell is going on in this culture?
But I'm certain that nobody on the "thinking" left finds the corporate-sponsored iconography and adoration of a politician the slightest bit worrisome.
Oh. I can’t say I blame you. I wish I could afford old 2nd hand furniture!
LOL! That’s what most of mine is! Just lucked up in the flea markets! It’s a site better than that modern, pressboard, laminate $hit IKEA tries to pass off as ‘furniture’.
Good gawd...these people are so going to wake up with raging headache in about 6 months....
Don't you know the difference between sh!t and Shinola?
“these people are so going to wake up...”
If the purges are kept to a minimum. “First the Reds. Then the Whites. Then the Reds again.....” Dr. Zhivago.
I wanna be photographed posing in my PJ’s just like Prince John-John, peering out from under the HMS Resolute desk.
Is this display over by the giftee shoppe, the bar, or around back by the Sbarro’s?
The difference is that Ikea’s sh1tty replica is made from used cardboard, spackle and the cheapest pissed-on hobo plywood, with an enormous price tag.
All the Ikea stuff I ever saw was made out of this soft pine junk.
Be more sturdy if they used balsa wood.
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