Harry & Louise: They’re Ba-ack! (The Sequel) — Scaring Voters Stupid, Again

Remember Harry and Louise? — the annoying sour-faced couple in that early 1990′s TV ad which pretty much single-handedly scuttled the Clinton healthcare reform plan? They sat at their dining room table looking deeply concerned — clearly operating under a self-induced fog of delusion over the facts, while their fears effectively played on the ignorance of what was then considered the far right.

Well, they’re baa-aaack!

A new and “improved” version, now even angrier and dumber, are found sitting at a dining table, somewhere in Michigan, in an ad created by Citizens Protecting Michigan’s Constitution (CPMC), a group that, not surprisingly, is mostly comprised of corporations and Chambers of Commerce — you know, expressing their “personhood” through a campaign titled “Hands Off Our Constitution”.

The new Harry and Louise-style ad blatantly panders to the lowest possible common denominators among actual “persons” — fear and ignorance. The couple, with their tightly pinched retentive facial expressions, looking as if the sticks up their asses may have finally punjied all the way through to their seemingly impenetrable skulls, fill-out their absentee ballots and jointly decide (in literally ten seconds flat) to not even read the ballot proposals.  Yup, they are so clearly annoyed with the very notion that they should be burdened to render a reasoned decision on such nonsense, that they blindly mark “no” to everything on the ballot.

Hopefully this is not the kind of “informed” voter behavior we model as a population.

But hey, wouldn’t life be simpler if we could just sign contracts, make investment and life-changing decisions without even considering any relevant circumstances and simply employ the same cavalier abandon this group advocates for the electoral process? Hell, let’s also tell our kids to stop reading all those annoying questions on their SATs and ACTs, and answer them all with their gut — after all, it’s the new American Tea Party way! Stop fretting over facts and figures and just do what the corporate people say. Its just like with mommy and daddy — so comforting to be insulated from actual adulthood and its responsibilities by being told what to do.

But seriously, what is this really all about?

Amendments to the state constitution….(or so they say)….

Contrary to their ad, it’s not all of the constitutional amendments they stand against, just a select few. While there are multiple amendment propositions, along with one referendum calling for the veto of an existing law, CPMC is only interested in just three: Props 2, 3 and 4, — with it being pretty much just Prop 2 as their primary target — a ballot measure which would constitutionally codify long-standing existing collective bargaining rights in Michigan. Nothing new here. The corporate interests and the Chamber of Commerce that are behind CPMC are laser-beam focused on killing this initiative, so much so that they produced that ridiculously ignorant ad which actually works against other more important interests they should presumably share – if they were thinking past the next six to twelve month reports and not perpetually preoccupied with window-dressing their quarterlies like a two-bit whore.

This “just say no to all of them” campaign cuts off their political nose to spite their already uptight face.

Take Proposition 6 — a ballot measure that would require a majority of Michigan residents to vote to approve any new bridge or tunnel to Canada.

You’ve seen the ads paid for by special interests in support of the Moroun family, owners of the 83 year old Ambassador Bridge. They staved-off a competing new public-built structure over the past two years by buying and paying for the Michigan Legislature, which in turn did exactly what Moroun wanted by killing the new bridge plan.

Enter the fiscally conservative Canadian government who has since agreed to pay for the entire cost of a new bridge. Why? Because both the Canadian and U.S. economies are dependent on a reliable means of transporting goods between Windsor and Detroit, and they know placing all their bets on an aged structure with a limited lifespan would be folly for our economic outlook.

If Prop 6 passes in Michigan it would, at some unknown date in the near future, spell disaster for all the corporate “citizens” in the region and both nations. But, the threat is out of sight for all those new born ”personhood”corporations under Citizens United. They, like all children, lack the self-control of delayed gratification.

Their inability to adopt an long-view econimic policy is endemic among our private sector leaders as their money spreads the necrotic infection of fiscal myopia through our elected leaders on both sides of the aisle, with Citizens United being the host vermin of choice. 

As to our dining room table idiots and wankers….one would hope that Michigan voters, in the real world, will take the time to actually examine the ballot questions and vote with their brains rather than media-induced fear and ignorance.

One would hope…. 

Amy Kerr Hardin