More angst about this modern world

Arizona Daily Wildcat

At the same time, you'd think Tucson's local Earth Day committee would've figured that selling sponsorship of Saturday's awareness event to companies like Raytheon, a corporation with a historical link to environmental catastrophes in Pima county was a bad idea.

It just goes to show that in this modern world, every message, every image will be co-opted by politicians and marketers and advertisers intent on being better politicians or advertisers and marketers. Sometimes, as in the case of the re-opened Reichstag, the sad irony appears lost on the image makers themselves. More often, however, the so-called greenwashing of our local Earth Day celebration is the norm.

It would not be surprising if, for example, Archer Daniels Midland would sponsor Live Aid if that event were to occur today. Woodstock '99 (Yes, Virginia) features the sponsorship of GoTo.com. Where there once stood the message of the political left, there is now successful ad copy.

The right, as the Reichstag comic-tragedy indicates, is not nearly so rife with salable images. For example, Joe McCarthy and even, (Thank God) Ronnie "What's my name" Reagan are not the kind of people Apple would feature in those Think Different ads. After all, there is not much thinking, per se, that goes into the right wing. It's cynical, not vibrant. The American right's visionaries are pro wrestlers and anti-intellectual telemarketing preachers.

Yet, the savvy business person's take over of the left has lulled the general population into thinking the world has become a more tolerant place when the reality is if Barry Goldwater ran for president today he'd have a damn good chance. And in this way, we are screwed twice.

The state of affairs does explain why college-age people who might once have become clean-cut members of the ROTC are now dope smoking, guitar playing hippies driving around in Jeeps and BMWs. They're staunch capitalists through and through, but cover their pinstripes in patchouli oil. Even with the Grateful Dead bumper sticker, you've still been parked in by a BMW at your local watering hole.

The state of affairs has also led to the virulent fears of this nation's more mature white people that their neighborhoods are being invaded by "a lower class of people," as my intrepid colleague Al Mollo reported yesterday. And, we'll be damned, this government won't do anything about it. Which of course is a load of crap. This government has, in the name of mature, middle class white voters, (those who my esteemed colleague Mollo considers "Real Americans") declared open season on that same "lower class of people" in policy decisions from criminal justice to welfare reform, education to health care.

So anyway, as the Ned's Atomic Dustbin song goes, "Kill your television."