A Very Obnoxious Commercial

During the Winter Olympics, and again during the Academy Awards, we were presented with a manifesto to compulsive capitalism by the Cadillac Corporation.

A crew-cut blond man in khaki shorts and striped blue t-shirt has his back to us as he faces his large swimming pool. “Why do we work so hard?” he asks. “For what? For this?” He points to his pool. “For stuff?” As the camera zooms in for a close-up, he turns to face us. He looks surprisingly similar to the oilman J.R. Ewing, played by Larry Hagman in the 1970s “Dallas” TV series.

He goes on. “Other countries, they work, they stroll home and they stop by the café. They take August off. Off. Why aren’t you like that? Why aren’t WE like that?” He walks into his luxury home. “Because we’re crazy driven hard-working believers, that’s why!” He waves to his kids as he walks past them. The home is very neat, orderly, and calm. “Those other countries think we’re nuts. Whatever. Were the Wright Brothers insane? Bill Gates? Les Paul? Ali?” (Is he referring to Mohammed Ali? The man who dodged the draft during the Viet Nam war and was highly critical of American politics!) “Were we nuts when we pointed to the moon?” His attractive wife smiles at him with admiration as he passes her. Then he looks you square in the face and says, “That’s right. We went up there and you know what we got? Bored! So we left. We got a car up there and left the keys in it. Do you know why? Because we’re the only ones going back up there, that’s why!” He slips into a closet and re-emerges in a grey suit with white shirt and light blue tie. “But I digress.” He approaches his luxury hybrid automobile. He unplugs the vehicle and slips into it. “It’s pretty simple. You work hard, you create your own luck, and you gotta believe anything is possible.” He starts the engine. “As for all the stuff, that’s the up-side of only taking two weeks off in August.” He winks at you. “N’est-ce pas?”

The commercial ends with: Cadillac. The first ever ELR.
(That stands for Electric Luxury Plug-in Hybrid Car).

Personally, I like the traditional French attitude about life. What’s so wrong in a casual stroll and a relaxed moment in a café? A sustained summer vacation is nice. It gives you a chance to really experience a slice of life; not just sweep through a chartered destination. There’s a reason the sculpture in Zuccoti Park is called “Joie de Vivre.” But I digress. Assuming the lifestyle celebrated in this commercial does not lead you to a premature heart attack, is this really the ideal? Will the wife and kids really be content with a man so driven?

The Wright Brothers had the time to tinker in their garage. By the way, the Russians jolted us into the space race when they launched their Sputnik, the first man-made satellite. Why would he think we are the only ones going back to the moon? We have to use the Russian space shuttle now just to fix our satellites. NASA is operating on a diminished budget. European and private enterprises are developing rockets. The Chinese and Japanese are also in the game.

The man’s boredom is significant. Will he ever be satisfied? Is he addicted to adrenaline? How does that impact his family? Crazy driven hard-working believers? Hard work is not getting most of us into a luxury home and a Cadillac ELR. Unions have been undermined so we can’t even effectively negotiate.

Do we really make our own luck? To some extent, sure. But average salaries have not really increased in the last thirty years. The top one percent was bailed out of their mess and they are doing better than ever. The rest of us are running up credit card debt to bridge the gap between income and cost of living. Yet the one percent resists the idea of universal health care, fights any increase in minimum wage, and refuses to pay a little more tax to support universal kindergarten!

Money makes money. Connections between elite families, government offices, economic think tanks, elite colleges, and powerful lobbyists certainly help when you “make your own luck”.

When the economy virtually collapsed in 2008, and government had to intervene to rescue the banks and Wall Street, people started re-considering the concept of socialism. Some balance between free enterprise and government intervention might not be such a bad thing. As a result, the Koch Brothers, and others of their ilk, went crazy! Neo-Liberalism, with its emphasis on privatization, de-regulation, and free markets, is a fancy term that advocates “anarchy for the rich”.

The American Dream, as epitomized in the Cadillac commercial, is a receding myth for most of us. But the image is stubbornly resilient. The battle in Congress is like the conflict over Evolution or Climate Change. It has to do with dogma and ideology. Scientists are criticized for being empirical when they challenge cherished beliefs. But “empirical” is not an ideology; it’s the disciplined use of our five senses and our brain. This Cadillac commercial is the One Percent shouting out to us: “Despite everything, we won!”