Health Care and the War: Getting the Point across a Different Way
I think Americans all over the country share my disgust at the Bush Administration and those that are perpetually at their beck and call, like my Congressman Randy Kuhl. Supporters of universal health care for children can’t figure out why the President is spending countless billions on the war for oil, but won’t spend a miniscule portion of that to ensure that all children (and, yes, maybe an adult or two Randy) gets free health care.
This logic is faulty in today’s world. Even if we weren’t spending billions to kill thousands, the Bush administration wouldn’t spend millions to keep thousands healthy and alive anyway.
A lot of anti-war activists take great pains to show all the wonderful things our government could be doing with our money instead of spending it on killing people. We could pay for lots of medicine, feed starving people, fund scientific research (but not on stem cells… heavens no.)
The problem is that these things aren’t really tangible to the ordinary American. They’re not sexy. They might not reap immediate rewards, or making watching football on Sunday any more enjoyable. It won’t save next week’s episode of The Hills. Therefore, Americans don’t get fired up about that kind of argument.
While listening to NPR the other day, a do-gooder was following the above line of reasoning with respect to war funding. But then he came up with a number that really has the potential to grab the attention of the average inattentive American. The war in Iraq is currently costing the average taxpayer $4500 in taxes. (Click here for the article.) By the time the war is over, another source says, it will likely cost each American taxpayer $10,000.
Here’s something we can work with.
Instead of showing people what the total expenditure of the war could be doing for the good of humanity, we need to show people what that $4,500 could do for their living room.
I pretended that I had that $4,500 to spend, and thought about I might do with that money if I got to piss it away, much like the government is doing, except without wasting lives. I went online to Circuit City, a place that I and many of my fellow Americans go to piss away that occasional $4500 windfall.
What I’d really like is large screen plasma TV with a bitchin’ sound system. Oh.. and a TeVo too if it’s not too much. It turns out I could buy a low to mid-end LCD TV and surround-sound system that would meet my needs just fine, and not come close to spending my $4,500.
So I decided to go large. A Panasonic 52” plasma TV that would just freaking DOMINATE my living room wall. That’s around $3,000. Then a top of the line 7.1 speaker surround system by Denon. That’s around $1,000. Throw in a TeVo and maybe a year of cable and we’ve effectively pissed away our $4,500.
Let us imagine these things in our living room for a while… Send folks en masse to Circuit City to view this beauty for themselves unfettered by the older more expensive sales staff the company so disdains.
Now that we’ve got a mental lock on those cool toys, take them away. A commercial could show an empty living room, or one with a simple old-fashioned TV and crappy sound system.
If you really wanted to go for a visceral one-two punch, the commercial could replace that beautiful home entertainment center with the mutilated bodies of Iraqi men, women and children. Or flag-draped American coffins if the press is ever allowed to show them.
That might be too much though. We’ll leave the hard-hitting and thought provoking stuff to MoveOn.Org. What a great Super Bowl ad that would make. If there were a network that had the balls to show it.
Filed under: Politics on November 3rd, 2007
I’m lazy I didn’t read the linked to article. The 4500 is that actual allocations or the full estimated cost with interest. The 600 billion cited by the media ignores that we are taking out loans to pay for the war, and loans have interest. But who cares about that, oh wait your kids thats who will care.
Exactly! Another friend pointed that out to me, but I didn’t want to include that in the post because it was such a buzz kill. In the same way though, the bitchin’ plasma TV and home theater system would likely be paid for on credit. So, as long as everyone is burying their heads in the sand by ignoring debt… it’s all good.