"Me too" posts are lame and lazy, but every so often I see something that captures my own thoughts perfectly, and expresses them better than I would be likely to do myself. Such is the case with Shannon Love's recent post at the ChicagoBoyz blog, eloquently titled "!@#$% the AARP!"
The AARP's new TV ad campaign in which innocent little children earnestly lecture the audience about how "important it is to keep promises" fills me with a blind rage every time I see it.Oh, yes. Hell, yes. I wish I'd thought to point out these slick and slimy insults to our intelligence out myself, but Shannon has a definitive analysis.
The children in the ad campaign speak with the earnest and hectoring certainty of the stupid, demanding a continued cash flow from workers to retirees. This neatly ignores the upcoming fiscal trainwreck that our promise-now-pay-later entitlement system will impose on younger generations, guaranteed to make those kids in the ads poorer than they would be otherwise once they grow up. I'd appreciate the irony, if I weren't so deeply offended and annoyed.
I have a dim glimmer of hope that these ads are so transparently phony that they'll make more people think: "Hey, wait a minute. Wouldn't it be a better plan to make more people less dependent on government handouts?" Unfortunately, I don't see much evidence of that.
![[The Blogger and His Dog]](/ps/images/me_with_barney.jpg)
