Two thoughts

I read some commentary about the Audi ad during the Super Bowl-- you know, the one with the "Green Police" running around and arbitrarily arresting well-to-do white perpetrators of ecological crimes. This was actually an interesting idea-- handcuffing the guy who chose "plastic" at the supermarket checkout, calling in a SWAT raid on the home that sent the battery out to the trash pickup-- until the denouement, when the authorities manning a roadblock looking for bad emissions, read the logo on the back of an Audi and said, "Clean diesel? You're free to go..." and our protagonist gets to accelerate out of the crowd and down the highway. A fun ad, over the top, and in touch with some environmental issues which it seemed to be highlighting with excess and humor. The problem?


The problem is the idea that clean diesel is a good thing! I'm afraid it's like "Clean Coal," a marketing myth invented on Madison Avenue. Sorry folks, but Clean Diesel ain't clean. And Clean Coal? That's even worse, and is actually a cynical invention of the coal and energy industry created to quiet the critics of the horrible devastation caused by the coal industry. It's poisoning us all every day, and its effects will last for decades. Clean diesel and clean coal are really dirty lies. Trust me on this.

My other thought is prompted somewhat by my penning a letter to my senator Susan Collins yesterday when she sent me one too many newsletters touting her tough stance on the "war on terror." She's got her feathers in a ruff about how the president apparently decided to place the Detroit underwear bomber under arrest, read him his miranda rights, and toss him in the clink instead of sending him to Guantanamo to be stripped, slapped, shocked, and waterboarded. We're at war, Ms. Collins keeps saying, and this was a valuable prisoner.

What's the problem with this? The problem is this "war" is against individuals-- mostly poor, desperate, and miserable individuals who have no connection to their countries, families, or social groups. That's why we're killing Chechens in Afghanistan, Afghanis in Pakistan, Saudis in Iraq, etc. We're supposedly at war, but the enemy is just individuals who hate us. This doesn't seem like any war we've ever been involved with before!

But wait! What if this isn't a war? What if this is just the largest ever bi-partisan jobs program? Congress is scrutinizing every paperclip in our budget, but defense, and especially the war on terror gets a rubber stamp every year. "Only a 10% increase?" the senators ask, "Why not more?" And who benefits? Well for one, a major part of our modern day war effort goes to private contractors. And then there are all the defense contractors-- manufacturing missles and guns and uniforms and equipment and vehicles. There's R&D to develop new crowd control techniques (google "sound cannon" for an interesting take on that). And then, because there's a homefront on this war on terror, there's the civilian suppliers of security for airports and seaports and the companies that want to supply the new universal drivers licenses, and etc., and etc.

We don't need the 82nd Airborne to confront and deal with Abdulmutallab the underwear bomber. We don't need a "war" to confront what the Atlantic Magazine has called "the war on Islamic rage." But we do need the jobs.

I told Senator Collins to stop sending me those emails with her shaking her fist.