During the 2004 election cycle, there were these blusterous ads running for and against whatever candidates, at various levels.
Terrorism fears were running high so they ran the gamut about one person doing well, or poorly, or that the other person would do better (or worse).
But two ads are still relevant today.
THe first showed a classroom with kids wearing gas masks. The intent was to show that the candidate was weak on terror and a biological threat wasn't dealt with, and kids will have to wear gas masks for the foreseeable future.
Its ironic, in a way, that 16 years later we're dealing with a more natural threat from a virus, and we're debating about students wearing cloth masks, rather than gas masks. But the premise is the same - there's a threat and students have to wear masks ... for some of the foreseeable future. And yet, the tone of the debate changed in that time. We can't seem to take a virus as seriously as we would have had it been a tangible foe, who we could beat with our army.
The context of the second was a never ending war in Afghanistan. There's a woman holding a child, and the caption reads "you can't have him" - clearly shining light on small child being possibly drawn into service in that endless war in 16 or so years time.
And sure enough, the war was endless, going on for around 20 years. Again, that one came true, though it was still a volunteer army as it wound down.
Crazy, isn't it?
