The Ming Report

AND NOW A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR

March 2, 2006 - Between February 9th and February 22nd television viewers in Minnesota were treated to a blitzkrieg of advertisements extolling the war in Iraq. The saturation buy was funded by a so-called 527 group are intended to shore up sagging public support for the war. The commercials feature images of the burning World Trade Center and the aftermath of the subway bombings in Madrid and London as a back drop for returning soldiers and parents of soldiers who won’t return telling the viewer how important it is that we continue the mission in Iraq. During the period that the ads ran the average viewer saw 22 repetitions of the commercials. If the commercials prove effective in reining in the erosion of public support for the President’s Iraq war policy the group plans to take the program on the road.

The ads are designed to engender a bellicose spirit in the viewer; to indicate that somehow the civil war that has plagued Iraq since the mission was declared accomplished is between the righteous forces of good and the despicable evildoers that brought us 9/11, Madrid, and the London Underground. They are intended to make us love the war; to sell us on the idea that we should send our young people to die and spend our borrowed dollars with Halliburton because it is the right thing to do.

When the commercials sell us toothpaste we know that it is Procter & Gamble paying for the ad. When they are showing us a little lizard pushing car insurance we know that the ad was placed by GEICO. We know who pays for the Bud commercial. We know whose advertising budget pays to hawk Miller Light. We know where the money comes from to buy television time for Ford or Nissan or Subaru. We know who is trying to sell us on the idea that each of those products is essential for us to live the good life.

We don’t know where the money is coming from to buy the time to sell us on a war that most of us have concluded was and continues to be a big mistake. We know that the ads say that they are paid for by a 527 group and that the name of the group indicates that it is made up of families of soldiers who have died in Iraq. We don’t know who the members are or where the money came from to pay for the ads. 527 groups are not required to reveal either their membership or the source of their funding. It is a loophole big enough to drive a Humvee through and Karl Rove sure knows how to drive.

Righteous wars do not need to be sold. War is not a product to be flogged in the market place. War is a last resort not a first response and is neither beer nor toothpaste. As we pause in our war programming to hear a word from our sponsor we ought to be asking just who is sponsoring this war and why is it so important to them.