This week's ad's a bit off the beaten. The Hal Rineyesque narration is replaced by a distinctly different character. Economics are not the focus. Instead, it's a look at an aspect of Mr. Romney's campaign that I find most disturbing: his foreign policy pals.
I'm floating it here on a Sunday because I would very much appreciate some feedback on this one before pushing it out into the big world.
Specifically, is the issue of Romney's fp clique important enough to merit a closer look? Would the average person understand, or even care.
I sure the hell do. Along with workers' rights, women's rights, minority rights, GLBT rights, I'm damned concerned with Soldiers' Rights. Because they haven't got as many as the rest of us.
Like the air traffic controllers under Reagan, they don't have the right to strike. Unlike the PATCO guys I knew back then, losing their jobs is the very least that can happen to military personnel if they try. In tough times, it can land them in prison. In the toughest times, shot dead by their own fellows.
Like a lot of workers, they don't get overtime for extra hours. Unlike those workers, they can't quit. Like a lot of people, they face issues most simply don't--can't--understand. Unlike many, there's not a damn thing they can do about it.
I don't harbor any illusions about these people. I don't think they're saints or superheroes. A few are downright assholes who wouldn't be allowed any kind of power in a sane world. There's bangers and skinheads and shiftless no-accounts.
But the vast majority are remarkable men and women who live each day by a creed few of us could hope to fulfill. They measure every action by the standards of duty, honor and sacrifice. They are trained in environments that emphasize those standards every day and demand deep understanding of their meaning.
They prepare themselves constantly to be ready in the event that they are asked to give up everything, even themselves, for their fellows and their patrons (that would be us).
Of all the heinous, cynical, truly evil things that the Guys of the last administration did, nothing, in my opinion, is more damnable than taking such people and throwing them needlessly into Hell. So that they and their friends could make more money.
That Americans would even for a moment consider putting Guys like that back into positions of power is appalling to me. I can only assume that the average person does not understand that that is exactly what is being proposed.
So I made this ad.
I welcome your opinions and advice.
The direct link to the video is here.
A Meta Note: The music bed is the instrumental version of a song I wrote about You Guys, riffing off the username of a member I haven't seen in a long while. The version with the lyrics is here.