Ahmadinejad in Your Town: a Nation “Needing” a Villain, Why not Look Inside…………
“Washington. Have you seen Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad waving at you as you drive around your city? The Iranian leader -- or at least his photograph -- zips around the nation's capital on the side of buses. And he's also popping up on billboards from Miami to St. Louis. Ahmadinejad seems to be smiling and waving. But the words are deadly serious. "Iran makes a KILLING every day we wait" the ad says. The word "KILLING" is in all caps and dark letters next to a barrel of oil and a pile of American dollars. It takes a closer reading to learn the advertisement supports clean energy legislation pending in Congress and an end to U.S. dependence on oil imports from countries like Iran. "It's obviously a bus ad. You can't have a long essay," said Eric Sapp, executive director of the American Values Network, creator of the ads. "We wanted to get people's attention." Some of the estimated 1 million Iranian-Americans in the United States are paying close attention. And the National Iranian American Council is demanding the ads be removed, calling them insulting, simplistic and destructive……..”
This is silly: there has always been the “need” for an outside villain, real or imaginary. There is something tribal and "third world" about it. The real villain of oil addiction is not in Iran or Saudi Arabia or Venezuela. He or she is right here in the USA, coast to coast.
But this ad can be taken by many idiots (there is anecdotal evidence that there are a few millions of them) to mean a whole nation and culture rather than one oppressive regime. It really should be taken off the buses. They should be replaced with a composite photo of the whole board of BP and a few CEOs of US financial corporations who triggered this long recession the country seems unable to get out of (you might want to add a handful of senators to the photo mix).
Maybe a photo of Kim Jong-Il can be added, for aesthetic purposes.
Cheers
mhg
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