April 05, 2004

• yes. yes it does. no seriously, I wish I had enough money to put up billboards espousing my particular take. I suspect most monkeyposters do. That, given that I hate billboards and wish they were outlawed.
• I just don't know. Every time something big and good and wholesome and selfless comes out like this, I wonder, "who profits?" and, "what am I missing by paying attention to this?" I really don't have any answers in this case -- it may be that we're seeing genuinely positive messages here, and the alarm bells that are going off in my head are just the result of seeing so many phrases and ideas that have been co-opted by boneheads in one place.
• petebest - in vermont, maine, hawaii, and alaska, there are no (legal) billboards. please encourage your local government to follow suit. those of you lucky enough to live in one of the four states listed here, please lend the rest of us some of your common sense. and you vermonters? lend us cheese.
• does endorsing a particular party automatically make anything else you do completely suspect, regardless of intention? Not at all. The billboards seem both innocuous and well-meaning - no partisan politics, no hate, no secret cabalist messaging. I wish more of my conservative brethren were so civil-minded. They may be few, but there are some of us who do not see the Left as mortal enemies but as people who simply have a different viewpoint, who can be reasoned with, and with whom we can work with to help ensure a more egalitarian and prosperous tomorrow. Just as it is the bane of the Right to assume that we are always the moral superior, it is the bane of the Left to assume the same. So much has been made of the idea that this side is the correct one-no, THIS side is the correct one, when the vast majority of ideas presented by both sides are matters of opinion, not moral/spiritual/political lines in the sand. Neither side sees itself as evil because neither side IS evil - each individual simply falls somewhere on a large and detailed spectrum of opinion. And it is the arrogance of those polemics on both sides that their mere opinion cannot possibly be improved by listening to those who hold different, even diametrically opposite, opinions. The free marketplace of ideas does not work when both sides slap quick-dry cement on their opinions, turn off their ears, and call it "good." That well-meaning people on the Left are immediately suspicious of these billboads, however, does not bode well for future compromise between our two schools of thought, though.
• fes - good point. i don't like the screaming coming from either side; i have to say the "pass it on" signs don't bother me at all. the god billboards, on the other hand... now those just make me mad. i checked into those too. the official site is painful (with obligatory heartstring-pulling sept. 11-themed flash montage intro). and their teen site just seems to scream "painful attempt to connect to today's youth". i mean, "wuzupgod.com"??? yikes. their agenda is pretty clear, though; prominent "take godspeaks.net to school!" link on every page. spread the word, convert the heathen masses. thanks, but no thanks. (i also question the idea of people putting words in god's mouth, so to speak. how do they know what god would or would not say about anything? isn't that blasphemy?) if this is the kind of message that the right usually throws out in public, it's understandable if people are suspicious at the idea of a less overt approach, like the "pass it on" thing, rather than seeing it as the personal integrity campaign it appears to be.
• I agree with Fes AND I'm a lefty. See, we CAN work together! I enjoy those billboards, they don't strike me as political in any way. For me they represent a valuable message of 'What it means to be American.' Much better than hearing that it is my patriotic duty to buy things. The Muhammed Ali one is my favorite.
• Well, there's "blasphemy" and then there's "BLASPHEMY!" I suppose :) And Christianity is a prosyletizing religion, so I suppose ham-handed conversion attempts are to be expected. Their earnestness - like the odd looks on their faces when I ask "If I'm made in God's image, why do I have nipples and ear-hair?" and "Hey, what was with all the dinosaurs, eh?" - is sort of endearing. And Pete, billboards are not so expensive! The ones here in St. Louis run about $400 a month, last I looked. There was a guy here not to long ago that was out of work and put up a billboard that read "Hire Me!" with his picture and a phone number below.
• Fes : I am suspicious of the rhetoric of values because some unwholesome concepts managed to get lumped into the obverse of such values, e.g. McCarthyism and "My country right or wrong" used to advance oppressive laws and ideas. At the same time, I'm always up for making friends across fences as long as all bodies can agree to disagree. We could call it, say, "rational discourse". I confess, however, that the stock America places in this has been well-eroded. To clarify : I said that these billboards raised alarms for me because that very reason; when I dug around their website, I couldn't see anything beyond feel-good stories about the values promoted. So it seems that things are on the level. The free marketplace of ideas does not work when both sides slap quick-dry cement on their opinions, turn off their ears, and call it "good." Amen.
• ...they represent a valuable message of 'What it means to be American.' What, exactly, is "American" about the values espoused in these messages? At least two of the subjects (Gretzky and Gandhi) are non-American. Do people from other countries not value strength, dedication, vision, soul, etc.? Maybe "what it means to be human" is what you really meant, sciurus?
• At least two of the subjects (Gretzky and Gandhi) are non-American. And Churchill, Mother Teresa and the guy at Tianamen square, so the American vlaues argument doesn't seem to fly.
• well, values that Americans, uh, value can be expressed by non-Americans. -- or -- [ rocket88 ]
• Ditto Fes. I'm a fellow conservative who wants to preserve what rational amiability is left between the respective sides. And these billboards are fine by me. Although I'm with caution, billboards as a whole are not very aesthetically pleasing.
• Most of these are pretty good - only one ("Unity") is specifically American. The text aren't perfect - the Kermit and Christopher Reeve taglines are great, but the Gandhi one is awkward. And "never give up" for Churchill? That's just wrong. You have to have the "surrender" at the end of the quote - otherwise the rhythm is all off. You just don't mess with great moments in speech writing. I'd never seen the God billboards - but I love this one: "Don't make me come down there."
• To answer the original question: No, I don't suspect the motives of the "oil-money billionare who backs the republican party". Not all rich people (or republicans, for that matter) are greedy or evil or ego-driven. There are some genuine philanthropists out there who really want to put their money toward improving the world. And maybe these oversized motivational posters will nudge enough of us to do the right thing now and then to actually make a measurable difference. How many of us have read a quote by Gandhi, or Emerson, or Thoreau and were briefly motivated to be a better person? I know I have (and, I'll admit, the feeling is all too temporary). All I know is that the values these billboards are pushing seem to have all but disappeared from modern society lately, and I applaud the effort to gently remind us all what they are and what they mean.
• I don't think there are any ulterior motives behind these ads, but..... The paranoid section of my brain, which was activated a little over 3 years ago, could possibly construe this as a way of making people feel things are not so bad as they seem. So, why not just vote for Bush. It's very subtle, and probably a stretch, but you asked.