The commercial has been released to coincide with 2009 World Aids Day, but established HIV/Aids charities have distanced themselves from its message, saying that it could make life more difficult for sufferers.Yeah, just a bit, you think?
Actually, this ad's just one more specimen of the global left's culture of postmodern relativism. We just had the big uproar this last week over the World Wildlife Fund's despicable ad desecrating the memory of 9/11. As Darleen Click argued, this is how the collectivists kill morality. Social and political standards are reduced to a socio-economic leveling. Universal truth and goodness are abandoned. It's bad enough that the ad - basically a porn clip - is scheduled to run on German television. But the spot practically gives Nazi sex a certain cachet. It's got a fit and pumping Adolf, hammering away on a hottie, and it's not until the last moment in which we see the creepy grin and the message scrolled across the screen, "AIDS is a mass murder." There's a jarring incommensurability between what is a naturally-occuring pandemic disease on the one hand, and the ideology and regime that developed the world's most advanced system of industrial murder on the other.
Here we have Hitler as pop culture pitchman for safe sex. And as Ed Driscoll suggests, "there’s virtually no aspect of postmodern life that hasn’t become politicized." I would just change that last adjective to "demonized." It's all just so mind-boggling. It reminds me of the everyday blogging we see from the folks at Sadly No! and TBogg. Everyday evil, in easy-glide style. Repulsive.
9 comments:
This from a guy with a picture of Hitler in his sidebar, in an amateur "ad" opposing green jobs.
(But I'm sure it's all different when Cons like you use Hitler to advance their objectives, right?)
It's in bad taste (& probably counter-productive, as well) to use mass murderers to advance political or social positions, period. With Hitler and Nazi references you trigger Godwin's law and the "these people must really be desperate, if they have to resort to THAT kinda rhetoric" responses that I believe harm your argument more than you do the position you're arguing against.
Besides... Since when is opposing the spread of AIDS a leftist goal? Are you trying to suggest the right is pro-AIDS, because with all respect due your position as the wingnut blogesphere's Bill O'Reilly wannabe (& now that you're on a roll fixing the facts to coincide with reality-wise, you can correct that misleading quote in your header anytime), Dr Don, I think you're mistaken.
It takes a certain kinda person to see the Hitler in this ad as some kinda "fit ad pumping" hero or "pop culture pitchman," rather than as the villain of the advertisement.
Finally, I urge you to keep reading the definition of "analogy" until it sinks in that one can say two things are alike in one way without their being alike in every way. This concept trips you up entirely too often.
Repsac3: God, you're an idiot. That's an emoticon (not ad) in the sidebar, and it's satire, obviously.
The AIDS awareness Hitler ad is the real thing.
And who needs to work on analogies here?
The left is demonic. And you're defending this ad is classic RepMasterNihilism. Keep digging ...
You know, sometimes when someone has a really bad idea there has to be an adult in the room to say....Nah !
Um, no...
This ---> 8>) is an emoticon.
That green thing in your sidebar--called an "Iranicon" (part of the WebIcon.me family of applications created by Paste Magazine)--is a picture, and because it's "selling" a point of view, whether via satire or any other literary device, it is kind of an advertisement. And because it's Hitler you're employing to do the selling (a whole lot like the Hitler "selling" AIDS awareness that you're complaining about in this post), it does make you look a tad hypocritical. (I also question whether your "No Green Jobs" Hitler actually is satire, but you're welcome to explain the human vice or folly is that is being attacked through irony, derision, or wit by having Hitler oppose Green Jobs. Unless you're making fun of those who oppose green jobs by suggesting they're Hitler-like, that is... THAT would be ironic.)
As for which Hitler is more "real," well, one of 'em is a picture of the actual guy, albeit shaded green. The other Hitler is a guy in a situation the real Hitler likely never faced, portrayed by an actor who according to your all-too-vivid description doesn't much resemble the actual guy... So tell me again which is "the real thing," because I'm not so sure...
You also might wish to quote any lines in my initial comment or subsequent AmNi post that you read as a defense of the ad, because I just don't think you're correct about that.
The analogy bit speaks for itself, and unless you can explain what you believe I'm missing about the term, the way I did for you, I have no further response for your specious "I know you are, but what am I?" retort.
And, as I said in the Anonymous (but signed) comment from September 5, 2009 1:09 PM (eastern) that you deleted, I'll refrain from calling you an idiot, or twisting your name around. Whether good or bad, folks already see you for what you are, and they don't need me to tell 'em what they already know.
Norm: You're absolutely right.
I'm sorry, but I can't stop laughing at that commercial. Although, when it shows Hitler's ass I'm thinking, "That's not right."
Actually, I meant to write an "Obama-con", Reppy. But you're really stretching it to suggest that a satirical Hitler Obamacon - which obviously was designed as a partisan attack on Obama - is comparable to a German television ad campaign for AIDS awareness. It's not selling anything except the idea that this president is a freaking disaster. Is he a Nazi? No, and that's how humor works sometimes, even if it's not that funny for the target.
Again, you seem to think that if you find a simple error in my blogging that these invalidate the basic thesis.
So, yes, you're right. I should have written "Obama-con," which is what I meant to write. But no, you're not right to say that there's an analogy.
I've deleted the stupid Obama-Green-jobs-icon." It was for play, and for no message for AIDS awareness or anything else. So, you got me on that, but missed the big picture.
In other words, you're picking nits, since that's all you've got.
"But you're really stretching it to suggest that a satirical Hitler Obamacon - which obviously was designed as a partisan attack on Obama - is comparable to a German television ad campaign for AIDS awareness."
I guess it depends whether or not your objection to the AIDS ad is their use of Hitler, doesn't it? Because if using Hitler as a "pop culture pitchman" is wrong when it comes to AIDS awareness, wouldn't it also be wrong to use Hitler as a "pop culture pitchman" for partisan political attacks? Wasn't that your objection to "Bushitler," as well?
"It's not selling anything except the idea that this president is a freaking disaster."
"It was for play, and for no message for AIDS awareness or anything else."
A little inconsistent, don't you think? (I'll refrain from calling it a "rank double-standard" or "ignorant hypocrisy," though I could see where some might.) For the record, I think you had it right the first time. The message, or "sales pitch," if you will, is "a partisan attack" suggesting that "this president is a freaking disaster." And you were using Hitler to sell it, while simultaneously complaining about these folks in Germany using Hitler to sell their message. So, while you're welcome to call that a "nit" if it makes you feel better, I'm pretty sure that your objection to using Hitler as a pitchman was actually the basic thesis of your post.
I don't blame you for removing it, and applaud your decision to do so. (And kudos on ditching the one with the stereotype of Mexicans, while you were at it. Another good choice.)
Reppy: The Obama-Green-Job-icon was satire. The Hitler AIDS awareness is a serious advertisement. You don't contest the point. You applaud it:
"Are you trying to suggest the right is pro-AIDS, because with all respect due your position as the wingnut blogesphere's Bill O'Reilly wannabe"
So, the rest of your argument falls flat; it's a personal attack, not a intellectual one.
It was time for some new sidebar art. Your buddy Van Jones is down (thanks to the same radical ideology you espouse). But keep pluggin away with your nihilism. You're really winning over a lot of folks to the nihilist side!
|-{
(Just one of those emoticons, in reply to that completely non-responsive--and somewhat nonsensical--retort.)
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