Althouse: "We're the people! They're not!"

August 15, 2011

"We're the people! They're not!"

There's some grotesque exploitation of children in political advertising, but this is the worst I've seen.

81 comments:

Alex said...: Alpha Liberals doesn't see anything wrong there.; 8/15/11, 9:45 PM
Carol_Herman said...: Feh.

My favorite ad with a kid in it, also had a puppy. It was for suntan lotion. And, the little girl was running on the beach. And, the puppy was pulling her bloomers down.

I guess now that's considered child porn, huh?

The stupid Jones creed? You can get kids to stand up and say just about anything. Let alone that they've passed the screen test to be on this one.; 8/15/11, 9:47 PM
Carol_Herman said...: When my son was five, he had a friend, (pre school, too.) Who was a real red head. And, he was able to read from about the time he was two.

He went to college on the money he earned from commercials.

So, there ya go.

All the kids in this video can read. All have agents. And, all of them get paid more than the minimum wage.

You might also recognize some of them as models for Sears. Or J.C. Penny. With back-to-school now a big come on ...

Jones has got to compete.; 8/15/11, 9:49 PM
Peter V. Bella said...: Corporations are people. Businesses are people. From the most menial employee to the CEO/owner. Do these inhumane government supporting poltroons and macaroons think businesses and corporations are robots?

BTW, Obama is calling for more tax hikes. Again. The government just gave him a brand new shiny luxury state of the art armored bus that cost over one million dollars. A per
fect example of government waste. Someone has to pay for his new man toy so its got to be us.

We all should demand that bus be sold on ebay.

Maybe a poll is in order.; 8/15/11, 9:50 PM
Shouting Thomas said...: Note that the producers have adopted the corporate diversity tactic: one of each type of race, gender, etc. (God, I did a lot of that shit when I did corporate video!)

This is an old tradition for the left where I live (Woodstock). The children of the old commie left were called Red Diaper Babies, because their indoctrination started in the crib.

The indocrination even included summer camps in the Catskills. Ronald Radosh has written a great book about this.

President Obama is a Red Diaper Baby, although he grew up in a different environment in Hawaii.; 8/15/11, 9:54 PM
traditionalguy said...: Hitler Youth.

The Nazi cult is back.; 8/15/11, 9:55 PM
Chip S. said...: "Woe to the country in which political hypocrisy first calls the people almighty, then teaches that the voice of the people is divine, then pretends to take a mere clamor for the true voice of the people and lastly gets up the desired clamor."

--Francis Lieber, On Civil Liberty and Self Government

(from Ronald Reagan, The Notes, which I recommend highly); 8/15/11, 9:56 PM
J Allen said...: No different than Gore telling a bunch of kids that they really know more than their parents. Let me think where I have heard that before...Hitlerjugend maybe.; 8/15/11, 9:57 PM
Shouting Thomas said...: Althouse, I'm still waiting for a review of Ann Coulters Demonic.

You're going in circles around the issues she's addressed:

1. The left's constant appeal to the mob
2. The left's love of sloganeering

I've read the first chapter. I'm going to download the book to my desktop Kindle and read it.; 8/15/11, 9:58 PM
Ann Althouse said...: It can be cute for a kid to be saying lines that he can't possibly understand. But when it's political propaganda put in the kid's mouth, it's really disgusting.; 8/15/11, 9:59 PM
Carol_Herman said...: If everybody eats leftovers, does that mean we've been indoctrinated to the left?

I've never heard of right-overs. (Unless you count the answer you put on top of the wrong ones.); 8/15/11, 9:59 PM
Chip S. said...: I've never heard of right-overs.

Well I'll be.; 8/15/11, 10:02 PM
Anonymous said...: I note that the video was probably filmed on a digital camera (made by a company),

with set lighting used (made by a company - electricity made by a company, using turbines made by a company),

and probably edited on a MAC (made by a company),

using software that was made by a company,

and put on a web server (made by a company), on a hard drive (made by a company),

and browsed by viewers (browser made by a company, on machines made by a company),

You know, Van Jones has a point.

These companies are enabling illogical, delusional sh-- to flourish.; 8/15/11, 10:04 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "You're going in circles around the issues she's addressed...."

The book is kind of like blog posts, read late. I'd rather get this kind of material in blog form. In any case, it's well-done propaganda, with everything fit into a template. It's not what I'm trying to do with this blog, so if you're waiting for me to circle in on that, you'll wait forever.; 8/15/11, 10:04 PM
traditionalguy said...: Carol...Would you restate that last comment. It went over my head.; 8/15/11, 10:04 PM
Ann Althouse said...: About those kids... some of them have really shiny hair. They'd be great in a shampoo commercial. The same thing is creepy in a political commercial. As tradguy said, it's Hitler-y.; 8/15/11, 10:06 PM
Shouting Thomas said...: It's not what I'm trying to do with this blog, so if you're waiting for me to circle in on that, you'll wait forever.

Too bad. I had expected you to comment on Coulter's book. The themes seem uniquely connected to the events of the past months in Wisconsin.

Coulter hits hard. In her weekly column format, she's a hilarious satirist.; 8/15/11, 10:10 PM
J Allen said...: Edelweiss and lederhosen might help to….wait we’re talk Van Jones here, so the kids should all have their Uncle Joe pins.; 8/15/11, 10:12 PM
Shouting Thomas said...: Coulter certainly doesn't need any help.

Demonic is currently #16 on the NYT Best Seller list.

The hilarious part of that is that the NYT resolutely refuses to review Coulter's books.; 8/15/11, 10:13 PM
Anonymous said...: I'll personally pay $1000 to Van Jones if he can produce and up-load a similar video using only equipment that he and his cronies have designed and manufactured themselves, as private individuals or sole proprietors.

Hey Jones, do you know the formula for silicone?

You better get cracking so you have time to design and bug out your n-p junction isolations.; 8/15/11, 10:16 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "Too bad. I had expected you to comment on Coulter's book."

I just did comment!

What I'm saying is I'm not attempting to be like that. Your comment suggested that she's getting to some point that I'm only circling around. I'm telling you that I do what I do and it's not that.

8/15/11 10:20 PM; 8/15/11, 10:20 PM
Phil 314 said...: A part from the distasteful, "lets use kids for propaganda" I'd bet these kids are child actors/models simply doing a paid gig. (My kids did that for awhile.)

And I thought there were just 10 points; that last point seemed to have three in it.

I also missed where they wanted to take over the media for a fair picture of the news, enforce clean energy use, etc; 8/15/11, 10:21 PM
Anonymous said...: Some of the people Obama has running green, are similar to Van Jones, maybe not quite that 'driven.'

The country's in good hands.; 8/15/11, 10:22 PM
edutcher said...: Al always said that when someone told him they opposed him he laughed and said it wasn't a problem because he already had their children.

He also made sure said opponent's name was forwarded to Himmler and Heydrich.

This sort of thing has always been a feature, not a bug, of totalitarians.

PS The "Yes, We Can" video should have tipped off some people.; 8/15/11, 10:22 PM
Shouting Thomas said...: This unity of tactics employed by the corporate world and the left amazes me.

The Jones video is done in a style that would make any corporate media department proud. The Diversity ideology behind it is pure corporate speak.

The perplexing part, at least to me, is that the leftists then turn around to condemn the corporate world.

A peculiar tangent along these lines: In Woodstock, the hardcore leftists refuse to work except at jobs that are "sustainable," or "hip," or... whatever. Years ago, when I still spent much time with these people, they would rail against the "homophobia" of the corporate world.

They were always surprised to discover that the corporations that I worked for had been offering spousal benefits without regard to sexual identification for a decade.; 8/15/11, 10:22 PM
bagoh20 said...: "The hilarious part of that is that the NYT resolutely refuses to review Coulter's books. "

I bet the NYT editors saw a video where some kids said Coulter is evil. The kids just know evil when they see it. They're like dogs with aliens. They just know.; 8/15/11, 10:24 PM
Shouting Thomas said...: I just did comment!

Yes, but I was anticipating a bit more breadth in the comments.; 8/15/11, 10:24 PM
Chuck66 said...: Hey kids, go to Ms Althouse's link, but check out the other video on the page. Remember the creepy Obama cult kids from 2008? They have that video there, but it is the North Korea remix.; 8/15/11, 10:26 PM
Chuck66 said...: Shouting T...I used to work for a big corporation that had multi-racial quotas on everything. We used to mock the marketing people if we spotted a photo in an ad that didn't have all 5 classes checked off.

Black
White
Asian
Hispanic
Gay

2 females, 2 males, and the gay guy.; 8/15/11, 10:29 PM
bagoh20 said...: When I see kids doing this stuff, my first thought is: Why didn't they think I would buy it without the kids?

If I see a propagandist trying to feed me, then fine, I don't have to swallow it. When I see kids trying to feed me, I get mad, because I know they got force fed before they got to me. It demonstrates a lack of conviction and an understanding of the dishonesty to resort to this. Hiding behind children is desperate.; 8/15/11, 10:32 PM
Wince said...: Disclaimer: no remotely ugly children were used in the making of this propaganda.; 8/15/11, 10:32 PM
Chuck66 said...: Ann, agree. I have no problem with a kid getting paid to be in commercials for a product or a non-political cause.

Having a kid read a political message....well, especially commercials that are anti-something.; 8/15/11, 10:32 PM
Shouting Thomas said...: I'm gonna beat up on this even more.

In my years in the inner sanctum of the corporate world, doing media for the CEO of a huge publishing company, I found the corporate environment to be overwhelming leftist. Particularly at the policy making, executive level.

The corporation I worked for was obsessed in its PR with the standard lefty template... environmentalism, women's issues, the gay activist agenda, diversity mania... you name it.

One of my constant internet correspondents is a guy who used to work for one of the weekly news magazines. He tells me that the environment there was even more lethally leftist. He's a standard Manhattan liberal, and the extremity of the leftism in the work environment finally became too much for him to bear. He gratefully accepted a retirement package.; 8/15/11, 10:33 PM
Chuck66 said...: Shouting T, I can confirm what you say. Big Corporations are very liberal. Some examples?

Best Buy bans the word Christmas and any traditional American Christmas symbols. You can't get a gift card there that says "Merry Christmas", but you can get one that says "Happy Kawanza".

I just about made a purchase at Target the other day, but the cashier had a red Target gay pride shirt on, so I decided to go elsewhere (not that there is anything wrong with being gay, I just didn't want a political message at the checkout).

And most companies are obsessed with the word "diversity". Although I think a lot of it is buying protection services from the hard left.; 8/15/11, 10:41 PM
bagoh20 said...: I think most corporate image is not leftist by preference, it's just the safer route and big business is nothing if not cowardly. There is too much at stake for too many people to get uppity with it. You rarely have to defend being PC, and if you, do it's easy. The media is not gonna go after you.; 8/15/11, 10:41 PM
Econophile said...: The kids are all entirely too cute and proper looking to have been raised by lefty parents, so I'm guessing they're actors whose parents are just happy to see them get a gig.

What's really strange is that this video was, it seems, intended for adult consumption. Kids under 12 usually don't know what the #$%! a tax bracket is so either MoveOn is not targeting 5th-graders or they just don't know how to effectively indoctrinate children. Whatever the case, it's creepy. A pre-teen paid actor has never seriously challenged my worldview (yet?), but maybe this works for MoveOn's intended audience.; 8/15/11, 10:48 PM
Shouting Thomas said...: Here's a story line that would make a great novel... if only anybody was actually interested in reading novels... and if only you could get paid to write the damned thing.

The staff in most Manhattan offices in the 1990s was... guess what?... hippie veterans of the sixties in their late 40s and 50s. We had all been involved in the antiwar movement, and many were movement-aholics who had participated in every lefty cause imaginable.

Then, in the mid-90s, the kids who had been indoctrinated in the colleges by the lefty professors started flocking into the offices... determinate to eradicate racism, sexism and homophobia!

My colleagues and I were astonished. What the hell! we wondered. Do these fucking kids have any idea what we've been doing for the last 40 years? Who are these little shits calling us racist, sexist and homophobic?

Answer: No, they didn't have any idea, and they didn't want to know. It was a comedy, when it wasn't a tragedy.; 8/15/11, 10:50 PM
Palladian said...: Jesus, do you miserable old bastards ever stop bitching?; 8/15/11, 10:53 PM
Econophile said...: On the corporations being more left than right comments: I think another reason--beyond some of them playing it safe by being PC--is that corporations want handouts and favoritism from government just like a lot of other constituencies and they left favors philosophically the kind of big, intrusive government that can deliver what they want.; 8/15/11, 10:54 PM
Shouting Thomas said...: Jesus, do you miserable old bastards ever stop bitching?

In 30 years, you will understand what a vicious little brat you've been, Palladian.

By then, another generation will have come along and it will beat the shit out of you.

And, you've got it coming.; 8/15/11, 10:56 PM
David said...: The new totalitarians, except it's not new.; 8/15/11, 11:06 PM
Mark said...: The perplexing part, at least to me, is that the leftists then turn around to condemn the corporate world.

But you are fundamentally mistaken in one respect. Real Leftists can't get it together to throw a barbecue. Community Organizers will figure out how they're going to get their vig and THEN get the poor fucks and true believers to do the work.

Getting people to do the work for free, and getting paid for it. That's a skill.; 8/15/11, 11:08 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: I'd like to see a kid's video where Jones makes the kids eat their peas.; 8/15/11, 11:16 PM
Cedarford said...: traditionalguy said...
Hitler Youth.

The Nazi cult is back
=========================
The Nazis just got their youth indoctrination camp ideas from the socialists and the Soviet communists. They were impressed with how well the Young Pioneers and Young Communist Internationales did their mission. So the Hitler Youth was born. Another extremely effective youth indoctrination tool.
The Nazis were very effective borrowers from the Bolsheviks...their slave labor and prison camps were also copied from what Yagoda and the Berman brothers created.

The difference was that the Nazis were defeated and their youth indoc camps were closed down. The Communist and socialist ones stayed open for business.

Dems tried using it and with the little tykes in Hope and Change shirts and singing praises of Dear Leader Obama - justly were compared to the NORKs.; 8/15/11, 11:17 PM
Darleen said...: There is an insidious and deliberate design in using children to deliver such a political lecture

To make it nearly impossible to critique the arguments without laying oneself open to charges that one is "attacking children".

It happened in 2004 at the Democrat Convention when a 12 y/o girl ridiculed Vice President Cheney from the podium. Among many, Dennis Prager criticized the crass move and was immediately attacked:

But what most infuriated my liberal correspondents was my writing, "This girl has accomplished nothing compared to Dick Cheney. She has no wisdom, no humility and no knowledge beyond the leftist platitudes spoon-fed by her parents and schools. She is a mere child, more foolish than most, in that she actually thinks she has earned the right to publicly ridicule the vice president of the United States."

He then quotes from some of the profane laced emails he received.

http://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2004/08/10/on_criticizing_a_12-year-old_girl

Van Jones isn't stupid. He's daring people to expose themselves to the charge of beating up on kids.; 8/15/11, 11:34 PM
Carol_Herman said...: It's political satire.

Doesn't change minds.

Even the kids in this video are just doing it because it's a commercial.

And, kids show up in droves to compete for commercial jobs.; 8/15/11, 11:37 PM
Carol_Herman said...: An OLD story! Going back to the 1960's. When I worked at Ted Bates. And, the account was MARLBORO.

Anyway, one of the head guys smoked. And, one day he said (because teachers told kids to do this!) To take out their parent's cigarette pack. And, draw black lines about a 1/2 inch or so below the filter part.

The dad saw this. His kid was going up to bed. And, the dad was surprised. So he asked his kid "why."

And, very seriously his son told him, because I want to see you, alive, dad, in the morning.

Kids always get used to "send messages."

Even Sesame Street's commercials were designed to get the kidlings to ask for cereals that would pass as hay ... in most bowls. But got sugar coated.

You can get kids to ask for everything.

And, at supermarkets ... these items are shelved "kid's eye level."

You reach customers any which way you have to.; 8/15/11, 11:42 PM
ic said...: Unfortunately the people have to work for the not-people. Sad. Of course the People-in-Chief has to raise taxes on the not-people to hire the people to work for the humongous not-people, the Fed. Complicated, no?; 8/15/11, 11:53 PM
Methadras said...: What do you expect from leftards. They will stoop to the lowest levels imaginable to forward their ideology. They don't care about anyone or anything but that. As long as the goods of government keep flowing, using children to sway the unwashed masses is the ends justifying the means. This is who they are, this is what they do. At this point if you identify yourself as a leftard, you are a party to this, are to blame, and are culpable.; 8/16/11, 12:34 AM
Methadras said...: Darleen said...

To make it nearly impossible to critique the arguments without laying oneself open to charges that one is "attacking children".

Leftards will use children as human shields for their ideology. They will use themselves as human shields for their ideology. They will allow themselves to exploit and be exploited at any cost to further their aims for they view that which they claim to represent as political fodder for their cause. They are debased malcontents without a shred of decency or honor. They deserve nothing and should get less in return.; 8/16/11, 12:36 AM
Steven said...: It's not that they wanted to use kids; it's just that it was taking too long to train the parrots.; 8/16/11, 12:36 AM
Titus said...: I would do Van Jones.; 8/16/11, 1:13 AM
Methadras said...: Titus said...

I would do Van Jones.

Of course you would. It would satisfy your affirmative action, diversity fuck.

Double Rainbows.; 8/16/11, 2:24 AM
jimspice said...: Wow! Semi attentive Alhouse! Impressive!

My bid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkWAhuXtalw; 8/16/11, 2:40 AM
Freder Frederson said...: You have a very strange vocabulary. This is somehow "exploitation", yet when the government tortures people you suddenly have no idea what the word means.; 8/16/11, 2:51 AM
Anonymous said...: When the government tortures people, it's called torture. It's not called exploitation. Silly Freder.

By the way, Gunatanamo is still open for business. And we are still at war all over the place. Where is your fierce moral urgency?

Is it Bush's fault? Probably. If not him, Reagan. Right?; 8/16/11, 3:20 AM
AllenS said...: I'd like to see a kid's video where Jones makes the kids rip off their band-aids.; 8/16/11, 5:12 AM
Triangle Man said...: For propaganda to be the creepiest ever it needs to have kids singing. Something like this:

"The sun on the meadow is summery warm
The stag in the forest runs free
But gathered together to greet the storm
Tomorrow belongs to me"; 8/16/11, 6:51 AM
Shanna said...: This video reminds me of south park. Vote Yes on Prop 10 or else You Hate Children. You don't hate children, do you?

PS The "Yes, We Can" video should have tipped off some people.

Especially when Obama stole his slogan from Bob the Builder.; 8/16/11, 7:07 AM
KCFleming said...: "Here a year or two ago me and Loretta went to a conference in Corpus Christi and got set next to this woman, she was the wife of somebody or other. And she kept talkin about the right wing this and the right wing that. I aint even sure what she meant by it.

The people I know are mostly just common people. Common as dirt, as the sayin goes. I told her that and she looked at me funny. She thought I was sayin somethin bad about em, but of course that’s a high compliment in my part of the world. She kept on, kept on.

Finally told me, said: I don’t like the way this country is headed. I want my granddaughter to be able to have an abortion. And I said well mam I don’t think you got any worries about the way the country is headed. The way I see it goin I don't have much doubt but what she’ll be able to have an abortion. I’m goin to say that not only will she be able to have an abortion, she’ll be able to put you to sleep. Which pretty much ended the conversation."

Cormac McCarthy
"No Country For Old Men"; 8/16/11, 7:14 AM
The Dude said...: Quayle, since you mentioned n-p junctions, did you mean to write about silicon rather than silicone. They both produced valleys, but that was long ago.; 8/16/11, 7:16 AM
crypticguise said...: Van Jones doesn't care whether or not he's exploiting children with half-truths and lies.

He is an avowed Communist, and "...the ends always justifies the means..." with Marxist murderers. Stalin starved and murdered his own people; Mao slaughtered tens of millions also; Pol Pot was a tyro, killing less than 3 million.

So what is a little, lying, exploitation of adorable tykes. If Van Jones was on the Russian front and told by a Soviet commisar to blow their brains out he wouldn't hesitate.; 8/16/11, 7:18 AM
KCFleming said...: "We're the people! They're not!"

Great; thanks for the tip.
Then we won't make Soylent Green out of them.; 8/16/11, 7:27 AM
turtle said...: What's worse than a government picking winners & losers in a free market?

A government that picks only losers and won't admit it.

Change, like your worst nightmare.; 8/16/11, 7:40 AM
Anonymous said...: Quayle, since you mentioned n-p junctions, did you mean to write about silicon rather than silicone. They both produced valleys, but that was long ago.

Yes

I'm a a bit of a doping.; 8/16/11, 7:41 AM
Erik Robert Nelson said...: "I think most corporate image is not leftist by preference, it's just the safer route and big business is nothing if not cowardly."

Businesses choose the safe route, and I can't blame them. The truth is, Liberals seem to need this public reinforcement of their ideology when they, for example, go out to buy toothpaste. Conservatives don't, probably because they rarely get it these days and because of their individualist rather than communitarian political identity.

It costs companies little or no conservative business by adopting the PC tack. On the other hand, it *does* cost them the business of liberals if they are not seen to publicly endorse liberal PC tropes.

Given the propensity for liberals to picket/protest/publicly harass companies that don't do things their way, and the general ineffectiveness of the rare examples of conservative boycotts, it's no surprise what direction companies choose.; 8/16/11, 7:46 AM
jerryofva said...: Ann is showing her academic disdain for someone outside academia with different views then hers.

Got news for you Ann, The other Ann[Coulter] is as credentialed as you are. She has just chosen a diffent career path. While Coulter is part political satirist and entertainer, she has a national audience and is quite influential in political circles. I think you are jealous.; 8/16/11, 7:48 AM
Jack Shaftoe said...: What Shouting Thomas said (re: Corporations being very, very leftist).

Part comes from corporate culture that is obsessed "the next generation" of consumers. Part comes from the aging hippies who invent words like "stakeholders" to replace "shareholders."

But don't discount the quasi- (or outright) extortion of leftist activist groups.

"Nice company you've got here. It'd be a shame if any bad PR happened to it. Maybe you should sponsor our road race, implement our pre-packaged diversity training program, and hire a bunch of our trainers..."; 8/16/11, 7:51 AM
Phil 314 said...: "do you miserable old bastards ever stop bitching?"

Isn't that what we're supposed to do?; 8/16/11, 8:02 AM
Anonymous said...: Enough with the "it's just advertizing" bullshit.

Selling a product is one thing.

Selling an ideology is quite another.

An ideology that removes the freedom to buy and sell products, and replaces it with issued products.; 8/16/11, 8:06 AM
Franklin said...: The worst was: "Tax Wall Street - if Wall Street pays a teensy tiny little fee on every transaction we can raise...". "Teensy tiny"

The phrasing is so child-like and yet condescending.

That is absolutely grotesque.; 8/16/11, 8:15 AM
Scott M said...: Van Jones isn't stupid.

Ah. You must not have heard him waxing philosophical about the fact that a janitor and a doctor should have roughly the same lives, that they should be interchangeable.

Sorry. Van Jones is exceptionally stupid.; 8/16/11, 8:17 AM
Shanna said...: I think you are jealous.

This is stupid.

BTW, not everybody likes to read political books.; 8/16/11, 8:33 AM
Mary Beth said...: What an anti-show tune bunch. "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" was written for Cabaret, it wasn't really a German/Nazi song.; 8/16/11, 8:38 AM
Anonymous said...: Is Van Jones stupid?

....only his hair dresser knows for sure.

I guess it depends on how you define it.

I do know one thing for sure-

He is cunning

they all are.....; 8/16/11, 8:51 AM
I'm Full of Soup said...: "do you miserable old bastards ever stop bitching?"

Asked by the youngest curmudgeon I know.; 8/16/11, 8:54 AM
JamesH said...: How did 7 points become 10? Did I miss something?; 8/16/11, 9:27 AM
BarryD said...: Contract on the American Dream; 8/16/11, 11:39 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: I put this on my Facebook page and the liberals responded with, "Yea, Van!"

I hate Facebook.; 8/16/11, 12:37 PM
Anonymous said...: The local Tea Party Patriots group here in my county famous for it's wonderful County Clerck and her magical computer, have parties for kids in which they are read to from "patriotic"children's books and given"patriotic " Tea Party coloring books.; 8/16/11, 5:59 PM
Largo said...: watching that made me throw up in my mouth a little.; 8/17/11, 5:05 AM