No, It Isn't a Humvee

Good news from the Middle East! In Iraq, the Detroit Free Press reports,

no set of wheels is held in higher regard than the large, mostly white Toyota Land Cruiser sport-utility vehicles long favored by government officials, intelligence agents and VIPs from Basra to Kirkuk.

Locals call the vehicles "Monicas," as in Lewinsky, after the former White House intern.

"She's a beautiful girl, and it's a beautiful car," said Ghazi Abdullah Dormari, whose auto-trading lot in the Kurdish city of Irbil features several late-model Monicas.

"They are a very tempting car," said Marwan Shaban, an auto dealer in the nearby northern city of Mosul. "Just as Monica tempted Clinton, they will tempt you."

The good news? Iraqis are naming their cars after a world-famous Jew.

Comments

[JDM]

"Good thing American SUV buyers don't think like that."

What's the matter with you? The only little people American SUV buyers are thinking about are their kids.

[Ira Weatheral]

It's a bit off topic, but with all the current movies based on old Marvel comics, has anyone noticed how Monica looks like she was drawn by Jack Kirby?

[joe]

"The only little people American SUV buyers are thinking about are their kids." They're probably thinking about all kinds of things. But I don't recall seeing Volkswagon advertising kiddie football players pushing each other around, or "get out of my way power."

[JDM]

joe,

So your personal politcal prejudices cause you to interpret ambiguous symbols from a television commercial to fit your prejudices about the people who are buying the product, and that serves to validate your initial prejudice about them.

You are truly on the path to enlightenment.

[Beerzie Boy]

Yeah, but you should see the way it glups down...oh, never mind.

[joe]

Yes, JDM, it's all in my head. Ford Excursions are marketed through appeals to civic virtue and concern for your fellow man. I just imagined the line "get out of my way power." Not that there's anything wrong with encouraging that attitude among people driving a 6000 pound machine.

[The Lonewacko Blog]

FYI: John(c), a frequent commentator over at DailyPundit, calls the NGO workers who drive these the "Toyota Taliban."

[JDM]

"I just imagined the line 'get out of my way power.'"

No, but you imagined its implictions. It's a long way from kidie football players roughhousing around in a commercial to SUV owners imagining themselves grinding the proletariat beneath the wheels of their bourgeois death mobiles. You stop much closer to one end of that than any rational thinking could justify.

Perhaps a more solid basis for your opinion would be car buyer surveys, or at least your personal experience with SUV owners. (Not that you would deign to socialize with one.)

Why can't you offer SUV owners the benefit of the doubt? SUVs hold more, are safer, better in bad weather, more reliable, more powerful cars are more fun to drive, etc. But none of that enters the picture. You think that SUV owners are rotten people, and your evidence is that *you* interpret a tv commercial in such a way that it would appeal to a rotten person's rottenness.

I drive a VW, but I bought it in large part for its power, and I hate their commercials. Where does that leave me?

[Sven]

I got a good deal on an Adnan Khashoggi. Great mileage, too.

[Brad S]

That is so great!

Liberals must hate this. Not only are "evil Western-style capitalism" and "imperialistic, gas-guzzling SUVs" apparently taking hold in Iraq, but some Iraqis are even seizing on this as an opportunity to poke fun at Clinton. Notice that the car dealer didn't say, "Oil is a very beautiful economic prize," or "Just as Bush was tempted by Iraqi oil, this car will tempt you."

[Anonymous]

"She's a beautiful girl" - ?

they like big girls there?

[Steve in CO]

Au Contraire ... it is a hummer, rather she, uh, oh hell, never mind.

And seriously, the Toyota Land Cruiser is an awesome vehicle. Not too shabby on the gas for its size and power either.

🙂

[Anonymous]

(That was the joke, Steve.)

[Croesus]

Monica isn't ugly. She could stand to lose a few pounds mind you, but she's not ugly all the same. Hell, if I were President, and had some free time on my hands ... never mind.

[Lefty]

Iraq's already going to hell in a handbasket.

Hrrumph, aargh, grumble ...

[twistedmerkin]

Agreed, Croesus. Personally, I'd be tempted UNLESS I were the President. But, apparently, it takes a village to satisfy Clinton.

[Dean]

they like big girls there?

For many in less wealthy countries, a full-figured woman is a sign of coming from a good family that could afford to feed their children well and could afford to keep their daughter from engaging in a lot of strenuous labor.

I think or a lot of these people, the Landcruiser is the "luxury" step up from the Toyota Tacoma pickup trucks favored by rank-and-file troops in Afghanistan. It certainly is Toyota's flagship 4WD.

Another entertaining quote from the article:

"We think Clinton was a very lucky man," said Hamid Mustafa, 55, a car trader in Irbil. Mustafa said he was baffled by the political crisis triggered by Bill Clinton's affair with the young intern.

[joe]

Congratulations, Brad, you have the same taste in cars as a Baath Pary official. Of course, Saddam's buddies used them as symbols of power and wealth, in order to show off their place on the sociopolitical ladder and intimidate the little people. It must have been very enjoyable for them to see that the car they drove made other people afraid.

Good thing American SUV buyers don't think like that.

[cinquo]

they are diving gas guzzling SUVs? my lord, the Vast RightWing Conspiricy becomes clearer! the whole war was a neocon plot to have coprorations sell SUVs to oppress the poor and destroy the environment!

[david f]

hey cinquo,

also, they were sending the subversive message because muslems don't care what jesus would drive!!!

we're on to something here! 🙂

enjoy, all!
drf

[JDM]

joe,

Are you aware that the content of those advertising campaigns have been shown many, many times to be completely irrelevant? This is true regardless of which marketing cog in the which mind-numbing job sent what email to whom. Have you ever worked for a corporation? People get hired, and they have to do something to justify their jobs.

The value of those types of marketing campaigns is that they help to gain brand recognition. It doesn't really matter what the message is. As long as the commercials are out there, the results are the same.

If you wanted to make your argument based on something other than the spite for your fellow man that your letist indoctrination has taught you, you could show that sales for SUVs reflected the type and scope of their advertising campaigns more than their actual quality and value. You could do lots of other things too. I'm sure you won't try.

You are once again simply saying that the advertising for SUVs must appeal to the evil in men, and making the leap to say that that must mean that people buy them for that reason. That only makes any sense if you ignore all of the rational reasons for buying an SUV, and assume that people who buy them are rotten and stupid in the first place.

How do people manage to do well enough in the world to afford a $40k truck if they make all their big decisions so irrationally?

[Jim]

Of course, Joe's also assuming that the desire to own a superior vehicle appeals to base or mean instincts. Who doesn't want to own a superior product? All advertising is based on stressing what the manufacturer thinks or knows is the advantage to their products.

All of this is irrelevant to whether or not the product is actually superior - people will buy them and decide for themselves. Still, I think the main goal of SUV advertising is to persuade the buyer that the car in question is superior to other cars on the road in order to influence their decision to buy that particular car instead of the 'inferior' ones - not that the feeling of superiority alone is the reason to make your purchase. Keep in mind also that the desire is to persuade the customer not just to buy an SUV but particularly to buy a Ford Explorer instead of a Chevy Blazer or Toyota Landcruiser (for example) so they're looking to find a way to set their vehicle apart from nearly identical products.

Also I concur with JDM's interpretation of the effectiveness of advertising and marketing. Just because an auto company said somewhere it thinks this type of person will buy the product doesn't mean it works out that way in reality. Here's some examples:

Cars nobody wanted: Pontiac Aztec, Ford Edsel, AMC Pacer, Lincoln Blackwood

Cars that sold way better than expected: Chrysler's 4-door minivans, minivans (the first ones), the PT cruiser

Cars that sold well by appealing to a market other than originally intended: Chevy Avalanche and Cadillac Escalade (targeted to the soccer mom set but mostly sold in urban environments to city dwellers)
PT cruiser (designed to appeal to the Gen X- Gen Y set but mostly bought by nostalgia-seeking boomers)
Minivans (a lot of older people with no kids are buying them now)
Pickup trucks (work vehicles that are surpisingly popular among young males who don't use them to haul anything)

And, from the 'what the fuck?' department, Subaru Outbacks pushed by Australian Paul Hogan that apparently are popular among lesbians. Go figure.

[JDM]

"Joe's also assuming that the desire to own a superior vehicle appeals to base or mean instincts."

This is true. I avoided making that point because it is nearly the same, but subtly diferent than the one I am trying to make.

[joe]

Jim,

"Of course, Joe's also assuming that the desire to own a superior vehicle appeals to base or mean instincts. Who doesn't want to own a superior product? All advertising is based on stressing what the manufacturer thinks or knows is the advantage to their products. "

Of course they do: Pepsi tastes better than Coke, Brawny is the Quicker blah blah blah. My problem is with the nature of the superiority SUV makers and ads promise - some of it anyway. Asserting that a vehicle is effective at asserting power and pushing people around is a long way from asserting that it can carry lots of passengers, make you attractive to women (pathetic, but not particularly dangerous), or get good gas mileage. Actually designing a vehicle to enable agression (deliberately intimidating design, steel guard on front, higher bumpers, higher headlights) is indecent. Buying a vehicle for these reasons is antisocial and pathetic.

JDM,

Actually, my leftist indoctrination taught me to love, respect, and help my fellow man, and to disapprove of those who harm or ignore their well being and happiness. Your complete failure to understand leftist thought is a little embarrassing for someone who spends so much effort critiquing it.

And how do you get, "You are once again simply saying that the advertising for SUVs must appeal to the evil in men, and making the leap to say that that must mean that people buy them for that reason. That only makes any sense if you ignore all of the rational reasons for buying an SUV, and assume that people who buy them are rotten and stupid in the first place." from my statement that "(SUV drivers are) probably thinking about all kinds of things." I'm not claiming that it's impossible to have good reasons for buying an SUV, just that the design and marketing of the mosters trucks encourage people to buy them for base, pathetic, dangerous reasons. I'm sure some SUV drivers don't bring fantasies of power projection and teeny-weenie shame into their purchasing choice. But the makers and their ad people put a whole lot of effort into appealing to these desires, and a lot of buyers are motivated by them, and I am going to disparage both groups whenever an appropriate opportunity arises.

[JDM]

joe,

"Actually, my leftist indoctrination taught me to love, respect, and help my fellow man."

"Your complete failure to understand leftist thought is a little embarrassing for someone who spends so much effort critiquing it."

The decision to love, respect, and help your fellow man is your own. Your failure to understand that leftist thought has twisted this impulse to obscene ends is what is embarassing. Your failure to understand that not all who hold political beliefs different from yours do so because they are evil or not as developed as you are morally is common, but really no less embarassing. If you're lucky, you'll understand that some day. Also, from your line of argument in this thread, which is entirely dependent on the assumption that people are stupid and base, you don't seem to hold as much love or respect for your fellow man as you claim.

"And how do you get...from my statement that "(SUV drivers are) probably thinking about all kinds of things."

I don't. I get it from the rest of your statements. The part of my argument that I just elided represents the circular position you;ve presented exactly.

"I'm not claiming that it's impossible to have good reasons for buying an SUV, just that the design and marketing of the mosters trucks encourage people to buy them for base, pathetic, dangerous reasons."

This isn't what you were claiming before, and it's not what you claim again at the end of your post. You were saying that as a group people who drive SUVs do so for what you call base reasons. You have offered not the tiniest shred of rational or empircal evidence for that.

You say a lot of buyers are motivated by the specific impulses you think are set up in them by advertisments. How do you know that? The answer is that you don't. You presume it based on the typical leftist dogma that all who believe differently from you are evil.

Do you ever ask yourself why your leftist mindset always leads to this conclusion? Do you ever wonder why the point of your arguments is always to assign guilt, blame, shame, or aggrievment?

[lecher]

You wanna see true beauty from the Middle East? Check out the June 5 front page at http://www.reason.com

What a fox!

[Plutarck]

"they like big girls there?"

[sung with an Apu voice - the indian guy from The Simpsons]

Oh, I like big butts
and I can not deny...

[joe]

"No, but you imagined its implictions."

Bullshit. These vehicles are deliberately designed and marketed to appeal to lowest common denominator feelings of power and and arms race mentality. Internal documents from the Big Three have made this clear, in their characterization of their target market and the way they intend to go about appealing to them.

Advertising, particularly automobile advertising, sells people a fantasy. In this case, it is a fantasy of being more powerful than the other people on the road, and having a vehicle that can be used as an enforcer.

Obviously, few people buy a vehicle with the intention of using it as a weapon. But not everything occurs at the level of conscious thought. The advertising industry has been exploiting this opening for years, from making men think they will get more women to making kids think they will get more friends. For you to deny that SUVs are designed and sold with the promise of giving the buyer power over the drivers of other, lesser vehicles is either disingenuous, or mind-boggling naive.

[JDM]

That's a lot of hand waving joe, but you'll never get that argument to fly.

Large corporations are large beauracracies, and do lots of stupid things. Wasting lots of money on advertising is one that many, though I don't think most, do.

Advertising is only effective at generating name recognition. As long as a company has commercials which are as ubiquitous and as professional seeming as the competition's, it makes no difference what the message is. But having the people people who make your ads believe that it matters, and hence that what they are doing matters is probably useful in creating flashy commercials. Also, the effectiveness of advertising decreases with the cost of the product. SUVs are pretty expensive.

My personal knowledge of advertising is second hand. It comes from friends who have worked in positions where they have had to research and make decisions about advertising. That is not (and should not be) good enough for you, so I googled "advertising effectiveness." This is the first thing that came up:

http://www.nolo.com/lawcenter/ency/article.cfm/objectID/BDCAD060-133D-4FF3-89AC02C4F0D77BFA/catID/007A76EC-6651-4D6E-9C37D5EA3478F109

You'll find this guy's evaluation of advertising is far less charitable than my own. Do the same. Read as many articles as you like about it, then show me one with actual data, or at least one (not written by a ranting leftist, or an advertising company) where the author claims to have actual data that shows people make big decisions based on the ugly subconscious thoughts you think corporations are trying to tap into.

When you've given up on that, try to figure out a new way to justify your anger. And when you're done with that, try and think about why you have to.

Also, I couldn't imagine more effective anti-left propaganda than having a thinking person read Mother Jones. Have you tried? It's a real hoot.

Lastly, that your thinking is based entirely on the base instincts for humanity that leftist "advertising" has tapped into is really more irony than I can stand. It is also the best argument that you have.

[joe]

"You say a lot of buyers are motivated by the specific impulses you think are set up in them by advertisments." Every corporation that mass markets automobiles spends enormous sums on advertising for the purpose of influencing people's feelings and opinions. They have all, every single of one of them, determined that the effort is sufficiently worthwhile to justify huge investments. Surely, a good libertarian like yourself doesn't believe the The Market (TM) would settle at an equilibrium that was as inefficient as you claim this one is.

You don't know shit about leftists and their motivations, other than whay you've read by those seeking to discredit them. Newsflash: The 700 Club isn't the best place to go to understand gay people, and rightist political commentators aren't the best source for accurate depictions of leftists. Your characterizations are the same that anyone assigns to their political opponents.

"Also, from your line of argument in this thread, which is entirely dependent on the assumption that people are stupid and base, you don't seem to hold as much love or respect for your fellow man as you claim." Love isn't blind. My commitment to the well being of other people and with society as a whole has nothing to do with thinking that people are angels. Some people are stupid and base. Those who buy choose a vehicle based on its ability to push people around and imbue a sensation of being more powerful are acting ignobly. Those who design vehicles to enable roadway bullying are doing something harmful.

I don't believe that all those who disagree with me politically are bad people. Many of them are good people, who are just plain wrong.

[agoroid]

I just got through reading your link, JDM. The thing seems to have been written by a disgruntled lawyer who probably had had a bad deal (or no deal) with an ad company. Who knows.

In any event, last week, I advertised my garage sale. I placed signs all over town; on medians near traffic lights, on sidewalks; on telephone- and street-light poles ...

And guess what ... I sold ALL my stuff!

To my mind, advertising works pretty good.

[Sarantitis Joshua]

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DATE: 01/22/2004 01:00:03
Men are close to one another by nature. They diverge as a result of repeated practice.

[imbert sarah young]

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Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.