I saw this ad banner today on the People's Cube and clicked on it.


It took me to this hip agitprop video that is meant to convince the young and the hip that wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are wrong because they just cost too much - when the money could be redistributed among, well, the young and the hip. And that part, of course, makes war morally wrong. Think of it - if that money were split equally among everybody, we could all be shopping at Kenneth Cole for the rest of our lives!

The video's meaningless and outdated calculations are well compensated by the awesomeness of the presentation.

Let's call it marketprop: the KGB meets Madison Avenue.

The propaganda looks so slick that a few commenters have already requested the full text so that they could translate it into Arabic and Spanish. And the text was promptly posted.

The video is part of a new revolutionary promotion of a little red book by none other than Kenneth Cole himself, called Awearness.


It is linked to a page on Kenneth Cole's website that details a campaign designed to tap into the market of brainwashed young radicals and make money while rewarding their delusions and brainwashing them even further into rebelling against "evil corporations" and buying Kenneth Cole shoes and apparel. It's a win-win all around - except, of course, when the desired social change wrecks the American economy and people become too poor to buy new Kenneth Cole apparel - but, you know, somehow those unhip hard-working conservatives have always managed to pull the country back on track, and they will somehow do it again, so why worry?

In his own words:

All the code words are there, and the message is clear: Let's all dress in red like the revolutionaries we are, shake our fists and demand the destruction of corporations, and invest all the raised monies into a fund that promotes CHANGE - which is just another word for "redistributing your wealth and eradicating America as we know it."

So if you're one of those conservatives on whose backs Kenneth Cole and his ilk are planning to enter the Progressive World of Next Tuesday(TM), the least you can do is stop buying Kenneth Cole brand for yourself and your children. Do Cole-free Christmas shopping, and let that little red book turn into lumps of coal in his own stockings. He is calling to make a difference at our expense - so let him taste his own medicine.

Make a difference - boycott Kenneth Cole!


Spread the word.

I switched to Calvin Klein loafers (very comfortable) after seeing all of the "Awearness" at Kenny's site. I will not support him -- or the Coumos, for that matter (he is married to Mario's daughter). His shoes suck, BTW. He probably has them made in some East Asian sweatshop, the bastard. A lot of clothing/shoes come out of Vietnam now.

An Ad that I saw:

[img]http://anvato_media.s3.amazonaws.com/7833_good_300x250_49075778b0820.gif[/img]

Lame.

How interesting to find that treason is the new transgression--there were Benneton ads showing people dying. AIDS, I think. Anything for attention.

I'd never heard of Kenneth Cole. It appears irony is lost on him. I'll bet that, come the revolution, he's hoping to be the Commissar of Party Hats.

Like Pinkie will let that happen?

I have a Kenneth Cole shirt and it's not a bad one. But bear in mind that he's a haberdasher.

Comrade Otis wrote:I'll bet that, come the revolution, he's hoping to be the Commissar of Party Hats.

Commissar Theocritus wrote:Like Pinkie will let that happen?

I'm invisible!

You better watch it or you'll find yourself with the stupidest looking uniform of all.

Pretty soon we're going to have a million Margarets - all of them with important positions like Commissar of Party Hats. And we will be answerable to all of them.

Potyomkingrad, here we come!

Margaret, the omnipresent lurker wrote:You better watch it or you'll find yourself with the stupidest looking uniform of all.

Margaret, I know that you're around all the time. I just depend on you to snitch. It's a very important thing, to snitch. Pinkie is the enforcer with her shovel. You on the the other hand have access to unlimited power to telling things, including lies plain and fancy.

And anyway how can I have a stupider uniform than one I see every day with a pineapple headdress?

Comrade Cole can make a difference by signing over to me all his copyrights and trademarks. Why wait for The One to spread such things for Comrade Cole?

Tovarich, Comrade Cole doesn't realize that in the Progressive World of Next Tuesday™ there will be no patents or trademarks, except of course for

1. The Progressive World of Next Tuesday™
2. It's For the Children™