No, we’re not talking about the board game from Hasbro. This is real life and it’s real serious. Just before the holiday, the FCC voted 3-2 (with Republicans obviously in favor) to lift a 30-year old ban on federal law that prevented conglomerates from owning both print media and radio/television networks within the same zip code; meanwhile dismissing testimony from packed public hearings nationwide. In fact, Kevin Martin suggested it was never up for debate when he submitted an op-ed to the New York Times prior to some hearing dates. A Times editorial touches upon the detrimental FCC decision and Martin’s unilateral approach to the vote. Moral of the story: Bush crony #5734 paid off by big business to serve the interest of big business.
Dec. 24 marks the anniversary of Apollo 8’s symbolic venture around the moon and the footage gave Americans more than just a glimpse of the moon’s gloomy surface on Christmas Eve. With patriotic symbolism and theological rhetoric, the charade propagandized the space program in a world where science and religion are at odds. Astronauts Bill Anders, Frank Borman and Jim Lovell recited excerpts from the Book of Genesis, implying the mission served more than the curiosity of man and the hubris of NASA. Interestingly, according to the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, the NASA budget was just shy of $5 billion when they took flight in 1968; today, in 2007, it burgeons at $16 billion. Since the space program’s inception, NASA has shelled out nearly $420 billion. But what do we have to show for it? A cure for cancer? A cure for climate change? A cure for war and hate? God must be terribly proud. Here’s a cure: spend that $420 billion toward the world’s impoverished and then, perhaps, we’ll no longer feel the need to search for better life elsewhere in the universe.
Nearly a 3-minute epic, Chevron released this commercial in reponse to the mounting pressures of the green ‘movement.’ The company’s $15 million green marketing campaign kicked off in September 07′ with the airing of this ad during a 60 Minutes segment on CBS, contributing to the branding of Chevron while humanizing one of the most attacked industries of our day. It’s profound, dramatic and optimistic but offers no evidence of green practices. Chevron may be no Exxon-Mobile but, seriously, this is the last industry deserving of sympathy from consumers. A surplus for swanky propaganda: just another luxury of price gouging at the pump.
