Have we become so ridiculously green and politically correct that we can now say that the millions of SUV owners actually support terrorism? Author and columnist Arianna Huffington, came up with the idea to run this idiotic campaign:
“This is George,” a girl’s voice says of an oblivious man at a gas station. “This is the gas that George bought for his S.U.V.” The screen then shows a map of the Middle East. “These are the countries where the executives bought the oil that made the gas that George bought for his S.U.V.” The picture switches to a scene of armed terrorists in a desert. “And these are the terrorists who get money from those countries every time George fills up his S.U.V.”
A second commercial depicts a series of ordinary Americans saying things like: “I helped hijack an airplane”; “I gave money to a terrorist training camp in a foreign country”; “What if I need to go off-road?”
This is like saying when you buy a sweater, you support sweat shop work conditions. Or that when you buy an electronic gadget, you support dumping chemicals in a river. Or that when you buy milk, you are “hurting” a cow.
Get over it! What are we supposed to do? Nothing? Eat nothing? Buy nothing? Sure, lots of things we do in this country have adverse affects. and sure, there are some things we can do about it. The station wagon is gone, The minivan sucks so we buy SUVs because they carry lots of stuff and like it or not, Americans have a lot of stuff.
Huffington’s argument falls flat on it’s face since all cars use gas and therefore every one in this country that owns a car supports terrorism.
Should we have cars that are less reliant on fossil fuel? Of course. But do we need radical tree huggers to say we support terrorism? There’s nothing wrong with the message of buying an SUV wastes resources. But to blame SUV owners for terrorism simply goes too far.
Give it a rest.
NYT: TV Ads Say S.U.V. Owners Support Terrorists
UPDATE: Here are the ads
