Barrons:
Letter to the Editor:
I think the terrorists showed us conclusively that the President's pipe dream for a
missile defense system would just end up being a $100 billion Maginot line in the
sky. With $2 worth of razor blades and 18 men willing to die, they hurt us
deeply. Technology will not save us from the likes of them, but perhaps Madison
Avenue will. I suggest we take a large chunk of that $100 billion and jam our
culture right down their throats. My idea is simply this: We identify the
fundamentalist regions of the world, and then with massive airdrops we shower
them with icons of American culture. I am thinking of Hershey bars with
almonds, Coca-Cola, Playboy magazines, comic books, Cracker Jack, bubble
gum, Tastykake cakes and pies, female contraceptive devices, and thousands of
small one-channel transistor radios. We will broadcast rock and roll around the
clock to these devices.
I know it sounds puny, but if we litter the streets of their cities with these
products, they will not be able to resist. They will become addicts of the
American way, and they will not be willing to throw their lives away for heaven
when they can taste it in their lives daily. They will demand more and more
products. They will hoard and trade the products we give them, and so capitalism
will overtake their souls.
Eric Rothwarf
Philadelphia
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now this guy is thinking...
Fred |
