Showing posts with label Marketing major postmodernism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marketing major postmodernism. Show all posts

July 8, 2012

"Why 'illegal immigrant' is a slur"

Charles Garcia, CEO of
Garcia Trujillo
From CNN:
Why 'illegal immigrant' is a slur 
By Charles Garcia, Special to CNN 
Editor's note: Charles Garcia, who has served in the administrations of four presidents, of both parties, is the CEO of Garcia Trujillo, a business focused on the Hispanic market. He was named in the book "Hispanics in the USA: Making History" as one of 14 Hispanic role models for the nation. Follow him on Twitter: @charlespgarcia. Lea este artículo en español/Read this article in Spanish 
(CNN) -- Last month's Supreme Court decision in the landmark Arizona immigration case was groundbreaking for what it omitted: the words "illegal immigrants" and "illegal aliens," except when quoting other sources. The court's nonjudgmental language established a humanistic approach to our current restructuring of immigration policy.

In my orthogonal way, what caught my eye about this article was the striking "Editor's note" insisting that you'd better pay respectful attention to this guy's political opinion because he is a ... marketing consultant.

Now, you may have a tendency to treat marketing consultants' opinions as self-serving spin, but, you don't understand, this guy is a Hispanic Marketing Consultant, so you'd better listen to him. After all, we newspaper editors get almost all our opinions about immigration from Hispanic Marketing Consultants. They're the Gold Standard when you need a quote in a hurry about immigration. They always return phone calls and always tell our reporters exactly what they want to hear. So, listen up, buddy.

Look, the leadership class of America bet the country based on what Hispanic marketing consultants told us. Now, we could go around all day on whether or not that was a prudent move, but, seriously, do you expect us to to tell you, oops, we shouldn't have believed Hispanic marketing consultants without doublechecking? Of course not. We're just going to keep force-feeding you the views of Hispanic marketing consultants until nobody can remember that there's any other way to think.

August 21, 2008

The Postmodern Pentathlon

The International Olympic Committee today announced that the Modern Pentathlon -- an Olympic event that tests five skills a young officer would have needed to succeed as a courier during the Napoleonic Wars: fencing, shooting, swimming, horseback riding, and running -- will be replaced at the 2012 London Summer Games by the Postmodern Pentathlon, which will test the skills crucial to delivering a message in the 21st Century:

- Spinning

- Cellphoning while riding in an elevator

- Staying on message

- Being ubiquitous in the media

- Taking offense

Medal favorites include Mischa Saakashvili, Morris Dees, Karl Rove, and David Brock.


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

May 10, 2007

This Czar thing really isn't working out

Ever since the appointment of William Simon as Energy Czar back in the 1970s, a common Washington reaction to any (likely insoluble) problem is to appoint a "Czar." For example, the Bush Administration has been trying to find somebody to be "War Czar" with little success.

Obviously, the Secretary of Defense can't run the war because, well, his job is just too girlie-sounding. I mean, I'm surprised the Secretary hasn't demanded to be promoted to Administrative Assistant of Defense. It would be a step up. But is "Czar" really the best title this great country of ours can come up with?

In the grand tradition of the Bush Administration's philosophy of "marketing major postmodernism," allow me to suggest that, after a third of a century of failure, the difficulty is with the language and framing (not with the concept, of course). I mean, how did this Czar thing work out in Russia? Granted, I'm not a detail person myself when it comes to history and books and stuff like that, but it's my strong impression that there aren't any more Czars over there, and that, in fact, something bad happened to the last one. That leaves a negative connotation.

So, what we need is a more imposing title. Instead of appointing new "Czars," here are some other possible titles the Administration could use:

Shogun, Generalissimo, Pharaoh, Duce, Shahinshah, Mikado, Grand Vizier, Master and Commander, Nabob, War Lord, Fuhrer, Khan, Big Brother, Doge, Galactic Overlord, Potentate, Übermensch, Grand Turk, Humongous, Rajah, Paterfamilias, Kaiser, Kahuna, Kommandant, Big Man, Ayatollah of Rockandrollah, Cacique, Imperator, Poobah, El Supremo, Commissar, Patroon, Big Enchilada, or Capo di Tutti Capi.

Or, we could try being realistic: Fall Guy-in-Chief, Paramount Stooge, Flak Catcher of All the Flak Catchers, Abuse Magnet, Sacrificial Victim, Scapegoat Supreme ...

A reader writes:

I think you might be on to something. As we all know, the Humongous rules the Wasteland. And, what could be better described as the "Wasteland" than Iraq? It's a perfect match: endless desert, the area's only discernable resource is oil, lawless highways, and warlordism is the regime du jour. If the administration had any wits about them, they'd get to finding an Ayatollah of rock'n'rollah, outfit him with creepy bondage gear, and crown him Lord Humongous. He would then, by definition, rule Iraq. It can't work any worse than dyeing fingers purple, at any rate.


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer