Sunday, February 08, 2009

Every Picture Ad Tells a Story, Don't It?

I didn't click on it. Still, though, it's a semi-truthful ad. It suggests that the primary purpose of the F22 is to protect aerospace jobs ... while I'd say that's probably more like the tertiary purpose. The real primary purpose is to secure corporate profits for Lock-Mart, Boeing, etc.; running a close second in the "purpose" race is the purchase of votes for Congresscreatures based on their success in delivering the bacon related to this thing.



Even so ... if we're determined to try to get out of a depression by borrowing vast sums, or printing them -- and good luck to us with that! -- maybe we could, you know, build sewers and wastewater treatment plants, or move our electric power lines and phone lines and so forth underground as a grownup country would, or ... even digging giant holes and then filling them back up again (rinse and repeat) at least doesn' kill other people. It just seems to me that the very worst possible welfare job is the one that builds insanely expensive death-and-destruction machines suitable for fighting enemies that pretty much don't exist right now. Although, just give our supervisors time on that last thing ... they're making enemies of every kind for us, just as fast as they can.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a sad reflection of our selfish society. As long as we can have good jobs to buy more toys, we don't care how many people die with what we produce.

Is there no one left in America who has principles - and stands on them?

Mimi said...

It's incredible! An appeal to sign a petition not to right a wrong or get politicians to address a problem or any of the other legitimate reasons to ask for action--but to keep those death machines coming. Where did you find this ad?

Jim Wetzel said...

Mimi, I was perusing a sports story at the Indianapolis Star site last evening, and that ad was located to the right of the story text, in a column with numerous other ads. I looked again just now, and that particular ad doesn't seem to be there; it's in a random rotation with other ads of the same size, and the ad changes each time the page loads. I've seen it elsewhere online, too, over the past couple of weeks, but I don't remember where specifically.

You can read about the ad itself here. Clicking on the ad takes you here, where you do indeed get a chance to "sign a petition" (email address required, phone number optional), and also a chance to send Obama some pre-written spam. Oh, yeah.

Jean, I really don't know the answer to your question. I think there are principled people in the U.S., just as there are anywhere else in the world. Probably more than a few, too. But I think they're also powerless enough that the Empire concludes, correctly, that it can afford to ignore them.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps people have been convinced that they are powerless, but I think that's really a copout for "not my problem." If people cared enough about something, and that something was in God's will, they'd find they have the power of the Creator of the universe behind them.

I can't imagine our founding fathers standing around wringing their hands saying, "There's nothing we can do."