by Robert Wenzel
Talking heads and bloggers are gaga over Clint Eastwood's Super Bowl commercial for Chrysler. Msnbc.com users even said it was the best of the Super Bowl. I think the ad was a pile of propaganda, with Eastwood likely too dumb to understand what it was about. Throw Eastwood in the Ronald Reagan category, prop either of them up and they will say anything, and look good saying it. But the deep underlying message is that we all "need to come together" to fix things. Bull. The problem is not that America has been hit by some outside punch. America has been hit by massive government intervention that distorts the economy and creates massive business cycle waves. What's really going on in America would be the same as if during the Super Bowl game between the Giants and the Patriots, the referees were changing the rules of the game, as it went along, to favor one team or the other, depending on who lobbied the referees the most. We are not at some mythical "half-time in America", we are facing growing intervention and interference by government. It is suffocating the country. The solution is not to draw up some new half-time game plan, but to return to the plan that made America great. The of freedom, where regulations hardly existed and Americans minded their own business and, especially, stayed out of the affairs in foreign lands. To the degree Detroit's auto industry is alive today, in the form it is, is because of a bailout that benefited the unions and cost taxpayers billions. There was nothing free market about it. It was both an absurd and appropriate place as a backdrop for Eastwood to give his confused soliloquy.
The ad:
If ads were honest:
all I could think about was how me and my wife had to purchase medicare (even though we have private insurance) when her kidneys failed, and so far we have spent well over a thousand dollars on it (just medicare, I pay nearly $500/month for my cadillac plan they want to tax me on now), and they havent paid for anything at all for us. Of course, if I tried to explain this to a uaw worker, he likely wouldnt understand because he considers himself working class but makes $100,000 a year. An extra $110/month isnt much to a uaw worker, yet here I am carpooling to work. The county wanted over $400 to renew the registration on my van. Thats in excess of 10% of the purchase price, it is 20% of the money I had to borrow in order to get the transmission replaced, and here I am "still fighting" just like detroit. Basically my point is that every time I turn around, either an agent of the state is demanding hundreds of dollars from me and offering nothing in return, or some corporate hierarchy is destroying any hope of lower-cost competition WITH MY MONEY. If you want to expand access to medical care, stop threatening to assault, abduct, and cage medical professionals who dont have explicit state approval. Everyone knows, quality couldnt go down.
Remember Clint Eastwood didn't necessarily do that commercial because he believes in what he's saying. He's a professional director/actor. He asked his client what he wanted, took the money and set out to satisfy his customer's request.
If Government Motor Company told him to play the patriotic card, he simply did as he was told. Patriotism is cheap and works... Chrsyler cannot hope to beat the Japanese and the Germans (though the former aren't what they used to be) at their own game. They cannot promise the same reliability as the Japanese or the same sophistication as the Germans. They have remained behind in the game. They cannot even promote old fashioned American muscle cars because they don't make them anymore and fuel is so expensive (and they lack BMW's expertise in building engines with great specific fuel consumption). What do they have left? Wave the flag of course.
It somehow remembers me of the '80s, when the American car industry was getting knocked silly by the Japanese. Of course the Japanese product was clearly superior (so much Ford started building cars with Yamaha-made engines and transmissions) but this didn't stop Lee Iacocca & co from playing the patriotic card. Sure, our cars break down all the time, the electrics barely work, they guzzle gas and oil and have pathetic performances but they are made right here in the Good Old USA by God-fearing American citizens. It worked. It will work this time. Unless you are fortified by either knowledge, cynicism or common sense patriotism is one of the things that will convince people to abandon what little rationality they have and go with the flow.
Dr Samuel Johnson had it right.
Kakugo:Remember Clint Eastwood didn't necessarily do that commercial because he believes in what he's saying. He's a professional director/actor. He asked his client what he wanted, took the money and set out to satisfy his customer's request.
Uh...hence the entire second paragraph and the fricking title of the blog entry.
Kakugo:It somehow remembers me of the '80s, when the American car industry was getting knocked silly by the Japanese. Of course the Japanese product was clearly superior (so much Ford started building cars with Yamaha-made engines and transmissions) but this didn't stop Lee Iacocca & co from playing the patriotic card. Sure, our cars break down all the time, the electrics barely work, they guzzle gas and oil and have pathetic performances but they are made right here in the Good Old USA by God-fearing American citizens. It worked. It will work this time. Unless you are fortified by either knowledge, cynicism or common sense patriotism is one of the things that will convince people to abandon what little rationality they have and go with the flow. [Emphasis added.]
Not necessarily. You're making an argument from ignorance there.
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
John, to me the biggest irony is that Clint Eastwood apparently considers himself something of a libertarian.
Ignorance of what? The fact people are easily bamboozled? Or the fact most are brainwashed since they are 6 to act like Pavlov's dog when a flag is waved?
Kakugo:Ignorance of what?
The future. It's inherently uncertain.
PJTV's take
Perhaps my vision is clouded because I admire Clint Eastwood so much. I am a libertarian, but if I were a famous actor and director and a bailouted company offered me $$million for making an advertisment, I think I'd probably do it. And I think many of those who criticize Clint Eastwood would have done the same.Oh, and Clint Eastwood likes Ron Paul ideas. Proof:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUFbvUWbA_0
Your vision isn't clouded you're just a sellout.
The Anarch is to the Anarchist what the Monarch is to the Monarchist. -Ernst Jünger
So SaturdayNightLive even had a take.
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/Clint-Eastwood-Chrysler-Ad/1384640
That's exactly what I was thinking. Probably the best athlete ever in Congress. Definitely among the top 3 all time.
You also have this.
And this...
a clip from the 1983 Congressional baseball game. What's interesting to note is that Ron Paul is buried at number 7 in the batting order, even though the announcers admit he is the best power hitter the Republicans have! Of course, the Democrats also cut in to Ron Paul's chance to completely shine. In one at bat, they hit him with a pitch, in another the catcher interferes with his swing. This being Ron Paul, when he is not interfered with he is the star. He went 2 for 3 with 2 RBIs in this game. Dr. Paul is in the Guinness Book of Records for being the only player in the annual Congressional Baseball Game to hit a home run over the fence in a Congressional game.