Frank Rich, advertising and the death of American democracy.

This weekend I saw what I think must be the most offensive and depressing advertising I have ever seen. It is a campaign that takes Milton Friedman’s “freedom of choice” to its lowest logical level by conflating democracy with the ability to determine the next flavor and package for a soft drink. At a time when young people (of all nationalities) are dying in Iraq for the faux freedom that the Bush regime proclaims, the makers of Mountain Dew have co-opted the storyline of V to sell more caffeinated sugar water on their website.

Shortly after seeing this appalling poster on the streets of New York, streets that are not filled with thousands of people protesting the outrage of our elected officials shredding the Bill of Rights, I found myself on the subway reading Frank Rich’s Sunday column in the Times. He wrote:

“In the six years of compromising our principles since 9/11, our democracy has so steadily been defined down that it now can resemble the supposedly aspiring democracies we’ve propped up in places like Islamabad. Time has taken its toll. We’ve become inured to democracy-lite.

…the executive branch has subverted the rule of law in often secretive increments. The results amount to a quiet coup…

…More Machiavellian still, Mr. Bush has constantly told the world he’s championing democracy even as he strangles it.”

So what does this have to do with the Dewmocracy campaign? In the way that Bush has subverted our values and numbed us to the subtle fascism that is overtaking our instituions, this advertising campaign makes a mockery of our values, turning the idea of government by the people into something as insignificant as choosing a new soft drink flavor. This is the democracy we have left. Aisles of endless choices of orange juice (pulp, more pulp, calcium, low acid, anti-oxidant, fiber, omega-3, organic, Vitamin D —— can I just get some orange juice here?). And no real debate or choice of ideas. Or candidates. Dewmocracy defines democracy down just as Bush’s Orwellian language does.

And no wonder we mock democracy. Because we know our leaders have made a mockery of it. I don’t know whether the people behind this campaign are clueless and valueless, or satirists of the highest order. I doubt it is the latter. Certainly when popular culture — and advertising — ridicules the bedrock rights on which our society was founded we are near the death of those values. As an advertising executive I am ashamed of my industry. And as an American, I mourn for my country.

Comments

[Amark]

Someone - Marshall McLuhan? Aldous Huxley?- envisioned a future in which our only choices are consumer choices

[Moi]

I'm shocked! Shocked!
Advertisers are pushing caffeinated sugar water" on consumers! My God! How long has this outrage been going on?
Worse, they have "co-opted the storyline of V". LOL.
The absolutely stupidest scene (of many) in V is the one when the gay guy who works in broadcasting is gushing about the illegal Koran he has hidden. I guess he never actually read what it says about homosexuality.