Tuesday, March 01, 2005

anheuser-busch ad

If you watched the Super Bowl, I guess you saw this ad.
For some reason, it really moved me -- got tears in my eyes when I saw it.

posted by Rob @ 11:25:00 AM   5 comments

5 Comments:

At Wed Mar 02, 02:36:00 AM PST, Blogger Stephanie said...

That ad really annoyed me. I felt it was manipulative propaganda. We've got kids dying over in Iraq so Bush can get more oil pipelines laid and make Halliburton some more money!! That's NOTHING to clap about! And now let's all have one big patriotic beer.

Busch - Bush. Hm.

 
At Wed Mar 02, 06:44:00 AM PST, Blogger unca said...

I was also greatly moved by this ad (easily the best from the SB). What made it so effective was its understatement. I think it also transcended the concerns that Stephanie has (we can debate those points later). It wasn't pro Iraq War so much as it was a tribute to dedication and duty in the face of great odds and very real danger. Thanks for posting this.

 
At Wed Mar 02, 10:15:00 AM PST, Blogger Blogball said...

I thought this ad was effective as well. I remember when our troops came home from Viet Nam. There was little to no appreciation for their sacrifice of life & limb not to mention the physiological baggage they will carry around the rest of their lives. Some Americans even called them baby killers.
Even though the Iraq war is different in many ways I think the United States learned from that experience. As Unca so eloquently stated: This ad “was a tribute to dedication and duty in the face of great odds and very real danger”
I believe no matter how we feel politicly about a war or a conflict that we should always repect and appriciate the sacrfice of our troups. This is something the Viet Nam Vets deseved but very few received.

 
At Wed Mar 02, 01:39:00 PM PST, Blogger Stephanie said...

At some point however the troops need to be held accountable as well. Should the German troops who perpetrated Krystallnacht be given a standing ovation for their "dedication and duty" because they were "just following orders" - the orders of a madman?

Now Bush is no Hitler but his pre-emptive strikes border on rash imperialism and set a dangerous precedent. All this hoo-ha over how the Vietnam troops were treated is just one big excuse to silence the debate over whether we should be over in Iraq in the first place! At some point if the war is unjust enough, the troops themselves need to take a serious look at what they are doing and whether they want to be a part of it. Obviously there is a fine grey line here in Iraq but there have already been quite a few soldiers who have quit because they felt what we were doing was quite wrong. Where's the applause for them?

If this country ever steps over into fascism, it'll be helped along by images like this ad and people going on and on about how we need to "support the troops."

Danger, Will Robinson, danger.

 
At Wed Mar 02, 02:37:00 PM PST, Blogger Rob said...

i appreciate all your thots. i also don't like/approve of the iraq war, but for me (like unca) the ad transcends that. i think it can be seen as a simple salute to people who are risking their lives to do a hard and dangerous job.
stephanie, i feel your pain, but i respectfully disagree with you on what constitutes a soldier's duty in this case.
if you're going to have an effective military, it can't be run as a democracy -- soldiers must follow orders, unless they are clearly wrong. the orders to deploy to iraq may have been troubling, but they were not "clearly wrong" enough to compel the troops to all fall on their swords.
imho, there was a case for iraq -- i didn't agree with it, but i feel that accepting those orders was a far cry from krystallnacht.

 

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