Shop ’til you drop!
Very Awesome
It’s been well documented that the American public is suffering Iraq fatigue. We’re tired of the war, tired of the death, tired of the cost and becoming therefore less and less interested in news about the war. During the Vietnam War a similar fatigue balanced against the steep and visible cost of drafted young men triggered a wave of resentment in America that helped bring about change. But but we are engaged in a distant war fought by volunteers and seem more willing to let the war in Iraq go on.
Realizing the fatigue must be battled to keep the American public engaged in the political discourse, anti-war advocates are turning to new methods to drive home salient points. Cue The $3 Trillion Shopping Spree, a fun site that lets you shop with $3t for goods like groceries for a year, sending someone to college, or ending our dependence of foreign oil.
It’s tongue-in-cheek to be sure, but as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu put it:
Satire should, like a polished razor keen,
Wound with a touch that’s scarcely felt or seen.
Vietnam needed the open wound of the drafted dead to raise the public to demand withdrawal. Perhaps satire will wound us enough to act.
Tags: 3 trillion, Iraq, satire