Monday, January 09, 2012
Without a Second Thought
Canada's Oil Tar Sands mining in northern Alberta is one of the world's largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, and one of the dirtiest polluters of waterways on the planet. As a result of the Canadian Tar Sands, Cree communities on the Athabascan River have been devastated by disease.
Knowing all this, one is hard pressed to comprehend how the oil companies in Canada actually believed their television ad Ethical Oil could succeed in duping American liberals into believing the Tar Sands nightmare equates to a human rights initiative. Then again, it wasn't all that long ago that a candidate for US President ran on a platform of hope and change that had liberals swooning.
I could come up with other examples of phony PR campaigns that hoodwinked liberals into supporting such frauds as the wars on Iraq, but I think you get my point. No matter how fraudulent, immoral, or simple minded, Madison Avenue has the upper hand when it comes to baffling liberals. All they have to do is invoke saving the panda, children, women or whales, and liberals will fall all over themselves to support warmongers and planet destroyers without a second thought.
The interesting thing about manipulating consumerism and human behavior today is that not only can populations be so easily persuaded to buy what they don't need as well as refrain from opposing war and other acts of aggression, but also to be complacent about the corruption of governance. While intellectuals may be amused by the pedantry of propaganda like Ethical Oil or Clean Coal, humanists who find expression of their values in consumerist behavior like shopping or voting are remarkably easily manipulated by emotions that appeal to their sense of morality.
Where they were once content to be mindless consumers of tangible products, in their advanced liberal imbecility they now demand to feel good about themselves and their purchases, happily congratulating themselves on their politically correct idiocy retooled by Madison Avenue into morality. No matter how patently absurd, if it feeds into their fantasy of painless piety, they'll buy it--hook, line and sinker.
Knowing all this, one is hard pressed to comprehend how the oil companies in Canada actually believed their television ad Ethical Oil could succeed in duping American liberals into believing the Tar Sands nightmare equates to a human rights initiative. Then again, it wasn't all that long ago that a candidate for US President ran on a platform of hope and change that had liberals swooning.
I could come up with other examples of phony PR campaigns that hoodwinked liberals into supporting such frauds as the wars on Iraq, but I think you get my point. No matter how fraudulent, immoral, or simple minded, Madison Avenue has the upper hand when it comes to baffling liberals. All they have to do is invoke saving the panda, children, women or whales, and liberals will fall all over themselves to support warmongers and planet destroyers without a second thought.
The interesting thing about manipulating consumerism and human behavior today is that not only can populations be so easily persuaded to buy what they don't need as well as refrain from opposing war and other acts of aggression, but also to be complacent about the corruption of governance. While intellectuals may be amused by the pedantry of propaganda like Ethical Oil or Clean Coal, humanists who find expression of their values in consumerist behavior like shopping or voting are remarkably easily manipulated by emotions that appeal to their sense of morality.
Where they were once content to be mindless consumers of tangible products, in their advanced liberal imbecility they now demand to feel good about themselves and their purchases, happily congratulating themselves on their politically correct idiocy retooled by Madison Avenue into morality. No matter how patently absurd, if it feeds into their fantasy of painless piety, they'll buy it--hook, line and sinker.
