Seriously folks...

[mrfuni]

had this email sent to me and I wanted to share it with our group....

"This commercial was done by a local young man. You have to watch the whole thing. When he finishes talking and walks away, you get a sense of how this could be the commercial of the campaign season.

Hi, My son, Joe, just did a commercial for John McCain. Please pass this on.

Thanks
Bob Cook

[Yellow Jacket]

I totally agree.

[unwind2]

Very powerful - thanks for sharing.

[rksaw]

Great commercial!!! Thanks for posting it.
Rich

[dakals]

Awesome!!!!!!!

[pirate]

Very cool.

I received the same e-mail. It was from my step daughter in Florida.

[bobt]

That was excellent... Thanks for posting

[mmartin]

I totally agree

[dantama]

This is kind of a book, but I didn't know how to say it in a short post. It is my opinion, yours is probably different, but try to have an open mind and see if there is anything of worth to you in my words.

There was a time when that would have been very powerful for me. But not anymore.

I've gotten better at seeing spin and propaganda, and this was propaganda and campaigning.

When a person opens an account on YouTube with the user name "We Need McCain" that is your first clue that it is guerilla marketing (Marketing that is supposed to look like it was just one of us, not paid marketers).

It was done very professionally, is nearing 5 million hits, and has an emotional call to action that will slip past most people's radar. In short, it works brilliantly, but paints an overly rosy picture that will help people shut out the nagging doubts that creep up. A fluffy make us feel good piece.

So should we blindly accept patriotic propaganda that is fed to us? (One more thing, the guerrilla marketing works best when regular Joe's pass it along on boards like this, not on official campaign sites). You don't get 5 million hits in such a short time without a concerted effort to have it passed along in emails and on boards like this. Do notice that it won't allow any negative comments in the comments section.

Perhaps there is another story to the war in Iraq. Perhaps Cognitive dissonance makes most of us want to believe what the ad said. Cognitive dissonance basically says that the more you invest in something, the more you want it to be true and will filter information (without trying or in many cases even being aware that your doing it) in such a way that you are shielded from, or discount information that doesn't confirm what you want to hear.

It is very hard to go and fight in a war, risk your life, lose a leg etc. and not have cognitive dissonance make you see it as a positive thing that you were doing. Who wants to lose a leg for nothing? It must have been for a greater good; otherwise it would hurt too much. The mind has wonderful ways of protecting itself from harm.

We do the same thing because it is our billions and our neighbors losing limbs and lives over there, therefore it must be a good thing.

The video made it look like we are doing wonderful in Iraq, and the people love us. A compelling expert told us so, and he sounded convincing. It must be true.

But there is another side of the story. What about tens of thousands of innocent people dying? And each one has a family that is morning and now hates us for invading and killing their loved ones? What about all the people that didn't die, but were abused in horrible ways? What about the people who had limbs blown off, but don't have cognitive dissonance to make it not hurt so bad (they don't have a greater good investment to make it seem worth it, they were simply invaded)?

Here are just a very few, out of the million ways that Iraqis will see this different than the guy in the video. Keep in mind, these are the relatively harmless examples, not the torture and murder ones.

Tricking kids into running for a bottle of water and laughing

Taunting Iraqi police

Taunting kids with an food.

Taunting kids teaching them English


Pretending to give a kid candy, but scares him with a grenade instead.

Picture having this country invaded, say the Germans during WWII. Picture you having your door kicked down and your family members shot and others hauled off (come on, really picture it, picture it in the streets of your neighborhood). Picture your husbands/brothers being hauled off to prisons and tortured who were innocent. Picture in a nearly best case scenario your children being taunted by Germans teaching them to say in German "FI_ICK the USA" but not knowing what they are saying till they come home and try to impress you with it. Picture your kids being taunted into chasing through the streets for a water bottle or being offered candy, but then it's a grenade (come on, really picture this happening to your child, not some Iraqi child).

It will look a lot different than the compelling emotional hook that was presented in the McCain video propaganda.

I have talked to soldiers who are rightfully ashamed of what we are doing over there. They have personally seen horrors, and innocent women and children murdered for no good reason. They know the hate that is being instilled in the larger population there, who were indifferent about us prior. They have seen the atrocities of war, the mocking, the hate, the abuse, and the waste. And somehow they have the strength to overcome the cognitive dissonance and admit that it is all a waste, isn't making us safer, and is killing Americans for nothing. And they come home and say it and are spit on for not making more propaganda like the McCain video.

We all have a choice here. We can blindly accept the propaganda, get warm feelings, pass it on....or talk to both sides, listen to soldiers who dare tell the other tale, look at the other YouTube videos, think and reason and be willing to endure the pain of knowing you were lied to, not made safer, and your money has been wasted.

There just isn't an emotionally satisfying to make that into a compelling video.

[misunderstood]

Well said Dan.

[mrfuni]

I appreciate your side of the comment Dan. I've had several discussions with my nephew who spent 2 tours in Iraq and he agrees with the commentary on the video. I am told most servicemen do also.
Joe

[dantama]

Originally Posted by Joe (mrfuni) #250

I appreciate your side of the comment Dan. I've had several discussions with my nephew who spent 2 tours in Iraq and he agrees with the commentary on the video. I am told most servicemen do also.
Joe

Joe, thanks for a calm response to a post that you don't agree with.

I don't want to annoy and upset people, but I do want to try and put a different point of view out there.

[misunderstood]

Nice to see opposing views considered by ADULTS acting like adults. Thanks guys.

[scion0]

+1