I suspect this is supposed to be funny. This kind of fascism should neither be amusing nor admirable.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq58zS4_jvM&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
(HT: Andrew Bolt)
Update: What the ad might be saying
As long as it’s my neighbors and not me being hauled off to reeducation camps and I can still drive my cool car, I’m okay with things.
An effective ad would have been
This ad would have been awesome if an ’67 stingray roared to life and broke through a green police barricade while the driver chomped on a cheeseburger and gave the cops the finger
It’s a strange ad, because it looks like it’s mocking the “Green Police” mentality, but then declares their car to get a pass. Mixed messages.
Fleeced
9 Feb 10 at 8:32 am
Fascism?
Is there a problem here sorting fantasy from reality?
Due to converging currents there is a place called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch – it’s about twice the size of Texas.
Is the ability to toss rubbish out of the window a definition of freedom?
rog
9 Feb 10 at 8:59 am
Sinclair, I don’t think we’re supposed to be laughing along with the environazis in this ad; they are portrayed as tyrranical and ludicrous. The ad definitely makes fun of green policies; and also taps into widespread resentment in the US of the phasing out of the light-bulb.
The implied message is:
“drive this car and those irritating green wankers will leave you alone.”
daddy dave
9 Feb 10 at 9:29 am
“drive this car and those irritating green wankers will leave you alone.”
Now, that’s what I call a powerful selling proposition.
ken nielsen
9 Feb 10 at 9:44 am
Is the ability to toss rubbish out of the window a definition of freedom?
There is a world of difference between a law against littering and what is represented in that ad. BTW, what is represented is not fascistic, nor is it authoritarian, but it is the sort of thing you would expect from the politics of faith which seeks to promote the establishment and maintenance of a substantive state of affairs by means of a comprehensive order (what we otherwise call totalitarianism).
dover_beach
9 Feb 10 at 10:06 am
Not even The Onion could have dreamt this up:
Rajendra Pachauri arranged for his sex novel to be promoted by BP.
C.L.
9 Feb 10 at 10:47 am
Media Watch responds to the sickening vilification of Lord Monckton and his Graves disease…
… by attacking Lord Monckton.
C.L.
9 Feb 10 at 11:08 am
I think that’s what the message is meant to be DD, but there’s another one in there too – “Irritating green wankers have gone too far!”
As I commented on Tim Blair’s site, good satire is ordinary people making fun of the smug and self-righteous. This ad is the smug and self-righteous making fun of ordinary people. It doesn’t work.
TimT
9 Feb 10 at 11:36 am
The ad would have been brilliant, if at the end the Audi driver broke through the blockade, leaving a trail of rubber and a plume of blue smoke in his new V12 R8. I know what they were trying to achieve, but it doesn’t quite work.
Infidel Tiger
9 Feb 10 at 11:48 am
Yeah, the ad fails. Great concept for a V8 or a 4WD, though.
C.L.
9 Feb 10 at 11:54 am
Yea, it should have been a R8 in the ad. Fucking Audi are such dishonest pussies. They own brands with huge engines and they’re pretending they’re oh so green. Lying douches.
JC
9 Feb 10 at 12:27 pm
C’mon Sinclair – any company capable of producing this ad deserves some credit.
Oh – I forgot, they did not.
Andrew Reynolds
9 Feb 10 at 12:47 pm
Andrew – I didn’t realise that ‘ad’ was a spoof.
Sinclair Davidson
9 Feb 10 at 1:32 pm
Which – the one I posted in comments or your lead ad?
Andrew Reynolds
9 Feb 10 at 2:28 pm
The one you posted.
Sinclair Davidson
9 Feb 10 at 2:30 pm
Is the ability to toss rubbish out of the window a definition of freedom?
.
Yeah and an excuse to take it away. Good illstration of the dependence on ethics of people at liberty. If you create chaos with your freedom than they take it away.
.
It’s like that and that’s the way it is.
Adrien
9 Feb 10 at 2:41 pm
Yeah and an excuse to take it away. Good illstration of the dependence on ethics of people at liberty.
No, it isn’t. Firstly, see my response above. Secondly, civil laws allow people of different ethical backgrounds to live together peaceably.
dover_beach
9 Feb 10 at 3:50 pm
“Andrew – I didn’t realise that ‘ad’ was a spoof.”
Really?
Catallaxians daily diet of spoofs and historical jokes (aka lies) are sufficient to arouse the collective War Cry:
FASCISTS! NAZIS!
As I said before, “Is there a problem here sorting fantasy from reality?”
rog
9 Feb 10 at 5:52 pm
Rog:
Shouldn’t you be the last one making any sorts of accusations like that? The hypocrisy just oozes out of the screen.
JC
9 Feb 10 at 5:59 pm
You better get your own house into order mister potty mouth.
Credibility is a commodity that you shorted.
rog
9 Feb 10 at 6:12 pm
Rog argued a few weeks back that my blog header – which says The Currency Lad was founded in 1832 – is a lie.
He got me. It wasn’t really founded in 1832.
Rog has also argued that “100 percent” of Labor and Green party members are Nazis.
C.L.
9 Feb 10 at 6:17 pm
rog – I’m sorry that we’re such a disappointment to you.
Sinclair Davidson
9 Feb 10 at 6:22 pm
hahhahaha
Rog
What can people do here to live up to your high and exalted standards?
Should we wear more make up? get breast implants?
What exactly, as I certainly don’t want to be a disappointment to you.
JC
9 Feb 10 at 6:30 pm
Ed Morrissey:
“Green police” ad: good marketing for Audi?
C.L.
9 Feb 10 at 6:32 pm
Not my standards – you fail your own.
rog
9 Feb 10 at 6:53 pm
Dover try not to take me too seriously. All I really mean is that if you do things without regards for the consequences and such things end up significantly problematic then the body politic will come down on your head.
.
I don’t actually think that even the most over-bearing police state could banish littering. But it would be nice if people stopped trashing the planet they way they do. Sooner or later we’re gonna be up to our ears in it.
Adrien
9 Feb 10 at 7:20 pm
Yes, I’ve admitted it, Rog. My blog wasn’t really established in 1832. The truth is, the Dell I ordered from Blighty in that year was lost in a ship wreck off the Swan River Colony.
C.L.
9 Feb 10 at 8:17 pm
That’s OK CL, now I understand that what you say is a joke
rog
9 Feb 10 at 8:23 pm
My blog wasn’t really established in 1832
.
Tell me it isn’t so.
Adrien
9 Feb 10 at 8:42 pm
But it would be nice if people stopped trashing the planet they way they do. Sooner or later we’re gonna be up to our ears in it.
C’mon Adrien, the air, the water and the roadsides in Australia and most developed countries are cleaner than they have been in many many years. Sydney Harbour for instance is cleaner that at any time in the past 100 years or so.
China has a way to go which they would probably fix faster with a democratic government.
ken nielsen
9 Feb 10 at 8:47 pm
Dunno if this fascist state is ever gonna happen as the AGW team loses another footsoldier
A member of an independent panel to investigate claims that climate scientists covered up flawed data on global warming has been forced to resign after sceptics questioned his impartiality.
Philip Campbell, editor in chief of Nature, stepped down from the panel yesterday, just hours after its official launch, after an interview emerged in which he said there was nothing to suggest a cover-up by climate scientists at the University of East Anglia.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/12/climate-change-climategate-nature-global-warming
Peter Patton
12 Feb 10 at 4:21 pm