Pro-War Commercials

02/17/2006

Paul Munnis

The pro-war commercials airing on many MN television stations have people quite upset.

Whether it is parents of dead soldiers insisting that their children died for a good cause or attempts to link al-Qaeda and the Iraqi government, there is just enough political fodder in the ads to get peoples hackles up. No one likes to tell these families that other parents who have lost children in Iraq hold different opinions. Just ask Cindy Sheehan for example.

Using dead soldiers as pawns in a political campaign seems despicable behavior to us.

This is an example of a Republican trick, one mastered by Karl Rove, it seeks to divide our nation and to divide voters over an issue and then to manage to get a small plurality and then insist that the nation is really with them. It’s thus a form of illusion. Sometimes the plurality claim isn’t even true but is the result of polls that have technical problems or where the difference simply falls within the margin of error for the number of people who were polled. Sometimes the results are so small a difference as to make one wonder how the minority can be ignored since it is so large.

All of that aside though, when people see this commercial they may have different reactions than what many Republicans sponsors may have intended.

Some tell us they feel pity for the parents who have lost children to this war and that they have so little to show for it except bungled war management and an illusion created by the Bush Administration. That part of the commercial is thus boomeranging on the GOP.

Some have expressed outright wonder if the people speaking on behalf of the military in the commercial are reflecting the realities reported daily in the media by reporters who are on the scene, by our returning soldiers, and by the Iraqi field soldiers interviewed in Iraq. Some soldiers serve in capacities other than as line riflemen and some never see combat and instead they serve in service units that repair vehicles and run warehouses for example. They thus may see war through a different set of glasses than what a line infantryman does. Some are in the Iraqi theater but stationed in Kuwait. Some may not have have seen the face of war. We can’t tell who is who from this commercial.

Many could be Nationalists and take the approach: “My Country – Right or Wrong,” unable to realize that when America is wrong it has tragic consequences for our country.

When I hear this commercial I am reminded of the Purple Heart Band-Aids given out at the GOP National Convention in 2004, the defense of torture and abuse by GOP supporters of Bush/Chaney, the ‘Swift-Boating’ of valid American heroes and the abuses at Abu Gharib prison so vigorously denied by our military even as human rights organizations are demanding prosecution for this behavior. When I hear this commericail I hear an audience that is in support of all of that stuff and I am not overjoyed by the ethics of my fellow citizens.

Then there are those Republicans who think the best way to survive a political blizzard is to pretend that it is really nice weather.

In response to complaints, some TV stations are dropping the ads realizing they are alienating half of the audience that they seek to serve. Others don’t care and they just keep on running the ad. It’s up to listeners to send them a message. In the end they depend upon Neilsen ratings to sell ads that attract the public to buy products.

Listeners are also realizing that just because somebody says something on TV that doesn’t make it true.

Democrats need to ask the listeners to listen to each claim made by a person appearing in the ad and then ask themselves if what they are hearing is really true or not on balance. As people realize that the ad is mainly a set of false claims then the ad will rebound on the GOP and thus each time it runs it will be heard for what it really is – blatant propaganda – a voter turn-off.

That is what is happening for us and it is simply reinforcing our determination to vote DEMOCRAT come this November election and it is making us work harder to help others see the wisdom of turning away from a divided nation and instead find common ground on things that we all dislike so that we can fix the problems for the benefit of all of us in America. For example: we could work together to bring home our troops.

Remember: “A nation divided cannot stand.”