I love comments.
Even when someone disagrees with my opinion, comments indicate someone out there is reading and has been moved enough to express themselves. That expression is truly a function of our 1st Amendment rights, isn't it?
Wonderful.
If you haven't read the two previous posts and accompanying comments, stop now and go read them. This post is an unprecedented "three-fer".
Commenter FlightFire had the cojones to stand up and speak his mind.
Ya gotta admire that..... it's more than many are willing to do.
And he may be on to something I hadn't considered-
We in the U.S. have done a really poor job of marketing ourselves.
He says we need to educate people, (and I'm assuming he means fundamentalist Muslims, because they are the folks that are blowing people up in Israel, Spain, Britain, Indonesia, and the U.S., along with causing chaos in Sweden, France, and scores of other places around the world).
He says, "We need to be sell (sic) America as the kind, generous and strong power instead of the angry, vengeful, defensive power."
A revolutionary idea, wouldn't you agree?
And an idea that certainly bears exploring.
We just need to do a better job of showing extremist Muslims who we truly are!
It set me to thinkin'......
(I know, I know! But bear with me here..... and remember, a lot of this thinkin' was done at 3 A.M.)
I propose an overwhelming, P.R. attack......
a multi-pronged, multi-media barrage, focused to show these fundamentalists we truly mean them no harm.....
that we are really just kind, generous, and strong, (but strong in a fuzzy bunny kind of way.)
And we need to enlist our most talented people in this educational process..... Experts that know exactly how to market what is best and brightest about our society.
Let me lay out my ideas to get us started down the road to peace with fundamentalist Muslims-
1. TV- America the Beautiful
I love the ads during the Superbowl. They command huge dollars, because they showcase the best marketing a company can do, in front of a huge television audience.
And no one does it better than Anheuser Busch!
Imagine the A-B wagon full of Budweiser, being pulled by those gorgeous Clydesdales, rolling down a desert road, so the Clydesdales can meet their distant cousins, the camels, and invite them to come to the U.S. for a visit, where they can teach cousin camel how to kick a field goal!
And after all the exercise, what could possibly be better than to relax with an ice-cold Bud?....
"The choicest product of the brewer's art".
Alternatively, you could produce an ad showing Mohammad, finishing up his prayers, rolling up his prayer rug, then poppin' a top on an ice-cold Bud Lite. He reaches for the phone, and to Omar, Abdul, Gamal, Anwar, and Ishmael says "WHASSSSUUUUUUUPPPPPPPPPP?", in Arabic of course! Funny!
2. Radio- What Happens in the U.S., STAYS in the U.S.!
Don't you love the Las Vegas ads? I know I do.
We could expand on those ads, showing that when Gemayel comes to the U.S., he need not fear that we'll be tellin' anyone about what he does while he is here.
There is a little problem here, with trying to hint what Gemayel might do while he's in the U.S., particularly in a town like Las Vegas, since that might offend a few fundamentalist Muslims, but a talented agency like the one that puts out the Vegas ads can probably figure a way around that.
3. Print- The Land of Opportunity-
I think this is a stroke of genius on my part!
We combine the talents of Playboy magazine,the Democratic National Committee, and President Clinton, and print fliers to distribute, showing that you can be born in a white-trash neighborhood in a little town like Hope, Arkansas, yet still get the education and opportunity to rise and grow to the point you have the job of leading the Free World!
And what benefits come with that job?
While at your desk, on the phone, dealing with Leaders from all over the world, you can be fellated by a Plus-Sized Jewish woman your daughter's age, (who is not your wife)!
What a country!
4. Other Thoughts- (Needs Expanding)
The National Organization for Women could educate wives of fundamentalist Muslims that beatings are cruel and WILL NOT BE TOLERATED.
Also, what's with this Burkha thing?
Get rid of that!
I think we need to enlist the help of the North American Man-Boy Love Association for their assistance in producing something to show that we are in fact a "Big Tent" country, willing to accept behavior that might be frowned upon in some fundamentalist countries, which might result in a beheading, or smacking of hands or something there.
In this marketing drive, we really need to show how we are terribly misunderstood as a country and as a people. These fundamentalists just have the wrong idea about us. If they truly knew how diverse and accepting we are as a country, surely they would realize how "generous and kind" we are, and how we are no threat to their fundamentalist vision for the world.
Now my question is, how and when can we start?
10 comments:
That post is just ... weird.
It's obviously supposed to demonstrate that someone's idea is wrong by going off over the top, but it makes an assumption that everyone is starting at the same place.
I know you're different from me, but as the post goes off weird almost from the beginning, the only way I can interpret it is that you see no reason to make an attempt to change the way the world looks at your country.
Much of the world hates the United States, much of the remainder is unimpressed. How should the blame be apportioned among, 1. the world 2. the way the United States presents itself 3. the way the United States is? Everyone has his own answer.
If you take the extreme view that the US is blameless and it's all the fault of the world, then going out into the world and killing those that hate Americans is an obvious strategy, but trying to present the US as a less hate-worthy nation might be a good back-up.
If you take the opposite extreme view that it's all the fault of the US and the US must change, then the same applies. Changing the image would be easier than changing the nation, and a changed image would help change the nation.
So this comment is weird, too, just because I'm not sure where you're starting from to completely discard the idea that our country has an image problem, so I don't know where to start.
Do you mean to say, "No, my country isn't incorrectly perceived, we really are as horrible as our enemies make us out to be"?
This might be overly simplistic, but let's take the image of a little kid trying to beat up an adult. The little kid comes along and kicks the adult in the shins unexpectedly. The adult jumps back, yells "Oww," and gets angry at the little brat. He looks down at his shin and realizes it's bruised pretty badly, but he can still walk fine. Now the adult has two choices. He can either maul the little kid and look like a complete jackass to the rest of the adults, or he can sternly reprimand the little kid, and continue to go about his business. Let's say he takes the high road and continues along his business, and the little dumbass comes back. He tries to kick the adult, but this time the adult is ready and catches the little kid and reprimands him again. Eventually, the kid realizes the futility of his attacks, grows up, and moves on to bigger and better things.
The US and Europe are the adults of the world. This may sound arrogant, but we are so far beyond the Muslim countries that we make them look like children. The nice thing about that is they can't really hurt us. I don't mean to diminish Sept 11th in any way, but in terms of military defeats it's a minor one and it in no way threatens our way of life...unless you let it. We responded to that shin bruising disproportionately.
Isreal has very effectively demonstrated how well a disproportionate response works when they mauled Hezbollah. Now sympathies almost everywhere have turned against Isreal. After Sept 11th. Instead of taking the high road, the US proceeded to maul the slightly larger 3rd cousin of the little kid because we were afraid. If you saw an adult do that, you would consider him an irrational jackass, and that's how the rest of the adults see us. And if you were the little kid, or the little kid's family, you would probably hate that person for the rest of your life.
This is why we have an image problem and why we need to do something to fix it, starting with apologizing profusely for Iraq and hoping the other adults can help us fix the mistakes we made there.
Flightfire:
I love the analogy, nice work on bringing it home and I think maybe you should get it printed in the paper to educate some folks. So when I fly to Hillbilly Georgia (backwoods, Deliverance type airport) (no offence to Georgians)I don't have people coming up to me in the FBO and asking if I am from Canada and then listen to them go off about how we are cowards and bad neighbours because we didn't go help and kick the 3 rd cousins ass when we were walking by.
That actually happened (the people in the FBO) in Georgia to a friend of mine. The lady got in his face pointing the finger and her husband had to escort her away.
Yeah the comment about being so far ahead of them was arrogant but at least you prepared us for it.
Marketing, FlightFire!
Marketing!
So, after we apologize for doing what the U.N. and the rest of the world rightfully should have done, how do we proceed?
Show me the way!
(And I'm therefore assuming you've changed your mind about intervening in Darfur, so we don't also eventually have to apologize there?)
Here is a good listen, from an American.
FD and others-
For those of you that believe that the U.S. is wrong in their actions and should be paying attention to world opinion about them, majority opinion is obviously VERY important to you.
You should be aware that public opinion of Keith Olberman is low. His show has such terrible ratings, there are many of us that wonder how it continues to air.
Interesting you'd pick him as an example of wisdom.
Few others do.
Not entirely true.
As the country shifted to disagreeing with the right, electing the left, and discarding the unfortunate decline our country has taken since the Republicans took power in 2000, so has their taste in TV programming.
Olbermanns ratings have increased by 41% from early 2005 to early 2006. He does remain a usual 4th in his time slot. But I think your comments on him are misleading. Anywho, without checking im pretty sure Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have pretty good ratings for their fake news shows. One of which pummels the current administration, and one that so cleverly lampoons the absurdity of defending their record.
Olberman, Neil.
Olberman.
And remember, 41% of almost nothing equals, what?
Ahh, yes. The dreaded extra "N". Shame on me.
People who tend to agree with Olberma"N" and those who might share some variation of his opnion, say to agree with Stewart, or Dobbs, just threw the republicans out of the house and out of the senate. His ratings are a non issue. His politics side left, and so did the elections, due to the failures of the right. My point is simply that the mantra used by the right that leftist commentators are all lying liars and raving lunatics and that the media is so heavily liberal loses some ground when the rest of the country decides that the right needs to be out on "time out". Someone, clearly, is listening.
After all, if a news outlet tells you things are going bad in the war under Bush, it would be discarded as "Liberal Media", when it is, in fact, simply reporting what is happening. It is this kind of contempt for the opinions of and entire political party, and this kind f hinging the wings that lost the right its election. (Not to mention, ..well, everything else.)
Speaking of Colbert, he said it best when he said "Reality has a well known Liberal bias".
I wasn't referring to your spelling.
I find John Stewart and Steven Colbert funny, smart, and entertaining. I was referring to the fact that my comment was NOT about those two.
Olberman(n) is a raving loon. He is not funny, smart, or entertaining, unless you are a Kool Aid drinker. Let's wait and see if his ratings emulate the fabulous Katie Couric.
And you forget, my friend, I've been down this road before. Our media did this same thing to me and my peers.
I have friends returning from Iraq, and I read military blogs. Almost to a man/woman, they HATE our major media because of the lies we are being force-fed.
Believe what you want, Neil.
We had Viet Nam won. But we gave up, mostly because of media lies.
Quitters lose, and our enemies now expect that behavior from us.
Thank you, democrats.
Thank you loonie Keith.
(And where's my friend, skeptical, bi-partisan Neil? This Neil sounds like a total leftie!)
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