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Debunking Bumper Sticker Slogans |
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Saturday, 02 February 2008 |
Bumper sticker political slogans are incredibly important to American political discourse (unfortunately). Those who wish to get elected know they will do best by summarizing or distorting their plans and positions into a neat little sound-byte that sounds truthful in a way that can't typically be debated as concisesly as the original slogan can be repeated. I guess when you're running for office, votes are more important than an informed electorate having an intellectual discussion of the issues at hand.
"Fight them over there / So we don't have to fight them over here" Makes sense, huh? Sure, if you ignore the last fifty years of American military intervention in the Middle East and pretend that everything started on 9-11. In fact, the first time we had to worry about "fighting them over here" was about fourty years after the CIA overthrew the democratically elected government in Iran. This first World Trade Center bombing in the 1990s happened after America had been involved in Mid-East politics for generations - from the Shah in Iran to the monarchy of Saudi Arabia, we had made our friends with the tyrants and autocrats of the region. Democracy was dangerous: It has the potential to threaten our business interests and might cause nations to act in their own independent self-interest. You can almost imagine, twenty years ago, some militant Islamists trying to imagine a way to get the U.S. out of their backyard: Maybe one of them said to the other, "Hey, let's try fighting America over there so we don't have to fight them over here." I don't think that worked out as they had planned. "Imagine what we could do with (insert company here)'s profits" Exxon, Chevron, and BP are the great targets for this bumper sticker slogan. $40 billion a year is a tempting number, and all sorts of would-be do-gooders can think of great ways to use this money: usually calling for more education, medical access, or something along those lines. But really, who is that money coming from? Greedy insider CEO's? Not quite. In the Exxon example, only about 5% of the company's stocks are owned by insiders and executives. The vast majority is held in institutional and private investment accounts, meaning that in all likelihood this money would be coming out of working class pensions, 401ks, and mutual funds. Here's an idea for spending those profits: Better put it all in social security, because by taking the money, you just jeopordized a few million peoples' retirement.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 09 April 2008 )
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