BE AFRAID, HAVE FUN! The Rise of the National Emergency Entertainment State

Late September, 2001:  Just over two weeks after 9/11, President George W. Bush tells Americans to resume their lives, go about everything as normal, and “get down to Disney World in Florida.”  Consumer spending is 70% of the American economy, which is 20% of the global economy.  The book Shock Market, detailing the near-financial collapse that 9/11 triggered, remains unpublished.

Summer, 2004 and 2005:  Coca-Cola Marketing creates the “You Can Win But You Can’t Hide Campaign” in which a special can of Coke (inside a supermarket 12-pack) contains an RFID chip and a GPS navigation system, so that, when opened, the company can locate the consumer to within 50 feet of his or her real-time physical location, and deliver up to 100 prizes, the top one being a 3600 pound Chevy Equinox SUV that will be delivered via helicopter in what can only be called a quasi-military operation.

September 28, 2009:  Amber Duick sues Toyota for an ad campaign created by Saatchi and Saatchi, global advertising marketers. The Los Angeles office had created a Toyota Matrix marketing campaign which Ms. Duick  into “incorrectly believing she was being stalked”   She claims she “had difficulty eating, sleeping and going to work during March and April of last year after she received e-mails for five days from a fictitious man called Sebastian Bowler, from England, who said he was on the run from the law, knew her and where she lived, and was coming to her home to hide from the police.”

November 7, 2010:  ”Stop.  Security Check.  Tasty.”  Advertising-sponsored security barriers send mixed messages to travelers at 60+ police checkpoints in Islamabad, Pakistan.