Hummer and McDonald’s: two of the most hated names in capitalism. How appropriate that they should team up together.
My wife and I had lunch today with our three-year old son in the friendly, comfortable environs of a local McDonald’s restaurant, a welcome interlude in the middle of my workday. As we sat there under a plaque on the wall featuring the legendary Ray Kroc who was largely responsible for the phenomenal success of the McDonald’s franchise, I noticed the familiar shape of a Hummer H2 Sports Utility Truck in my son’s hand. When I realised that this was the accompanying toy for the new Happy Meal promotion, I almost choked on my Chicken Snack Wrap in gleeful mirth.
I can just hear the leftist minds now….
Not only are consumers helping to build evil corporate profits by sitting in these dens of iniquity, chomping on animal meat mass-produced by money-driven gluttons, greed-whores and avaricious trash-pimps, but they’re teaching their kids how to destroy the environment in the process! Giving kids Hummers in Happy Meals? What next, giving them guns? It should be illegal!
Oh, folks, this couldn’t be better. McDonald’s was off-limits to left-liberals before: now it’s a virtual quarantine, reserved for those with diseased ideologies such as libertarianism and conservatism. Thankfully McDonald’s has been regaining some market share recently, and the absence of leftist zealots doesn’t appear to have hurt it. Yes, the Happy Meal box now contains a Hummer, in a promotion McDonald’s calls ‘Hummer of a Summer’, or, for the girls, a Polly Pocket. The only thing that would make this better is if the girls’ toy was a Barbie doll: then it would be PERFECT. (Of course, even having a separate toy for boys and girls could anger the Left.)
Reporting in the New York Times, Melanie Warner writes, “Television and radio ads, which started running this week, feature a family riding in a Hummer on the way to McDonald’s. With enough visits to McDonald’s, kids will be able to collect eight different Hummers in a variety of colors, including two versions of the H1, the original and most monstrous member of the Hummer family…” - ah, dear readers, I’m just enjoying this too damned much.
I anticipated the agitated reaction from some of the more offbeat, peripheral leftist types. But it seems that people are suddenly not in the slightest hesitant of throwing in reactionary, unreasoned ambiguities about the promotion. Take this one from Brendan Bell, an energy analyst with the Sierra Club: “Hummers in Happy Meals are about as responsible as dipping a Big Mac in the fry oil and serving it to your kids.” Sizzlin’. He then went on to give some non-facts about Hummer technology and why it’s inefficient, which was promptly rebutted by a GM spokesman who informed him that Hummer engines are based on some fairly new technology. Despite the low miles per gallon rating that is to be expected with a capable off-road vehicle like the Hummer, it shouldn’t be described as ‘inefficient’: every drop of gasoline is turned into boulder-climbing, load-pulling horsepower. It is only ‘inefficient’ for people who don’t like the idea of allowing other people the freedom to pursue the recreational activities that utilise the Hummer’s design.
Of course, the Hummer is not alone in being a vehicle designed primarily with recreational, and nonessential, purposes in mind. Perhaps, then, the answer according to the Left should be to make use of the following vehicles illegal: Formula One cars, stock racing cars, Harley-Davidsons, dune buggies, quads, dirt bikes, tricycles, scramblers, motocross, Jeeps, Rangers, Argos, aerosans, snowmobiles, jetskis, personal watercraft, speedboats, pontoon boats, ski boats, wakeboard boats, jet boats, powered yachts, ocean cruisers, RVs, motorhomes, fifth-wheels, diesel pushers, totorhomes, SUVs and recreational aircraft.
No?
Then why hate Hummer? Probably for the same reason they hate McDonald’s: it doesn’t fit in their closed-minded, ideologically-nomadic, doctrinally unstable, culturally-stereotyping, politically paranoid worldview.
Well. Let’s see if we can’t collect all eight before the promotion ends, huh son? I could really do with a Big Mac.
John Wright
13 responses so far ↓
1 B // Aug 15, 2006 at 12:18 pm
How intriguing, on a day when people are dying across the Middle East this is what John Wright is defending. If he can’t work out the direction humanity must take now there is no helping him.
2 John Wright // Aug 15, 2006 at 1:17 pm
B- So all we can talk about is the Middle East? I’m well aware of the news over there. This blog has always covered the more minor stories that more directly affect libertarian issues. Yet just yesterday Stephen Graham addressed in-depth the war on terror with regard to reactions to last week’s foiled terror plot, a story I did myself in a short post on the day it occurred. In short, I don’t really get your critique. But thanks for reading.
3 B // Aug 15, 2006 at 1:38 pm
You say this ‘couldn’t be better.’ In what way exactly? That a company profiteering from excessive American indulgence while saying F you to the environment has found a friend in a company that feeds our children rubbish to the detriment of culture, health and equality?
4 John Wright // Aug 15, 2006 at 1:43 pm
B- When I wrote “This couldn’t be better”, I was referring to the hilarity it has provided people like me with the reactions of people like you. I find it intensely amusing when the people who share your dogma get so pissed off about news like this. So forgive my mirth. I won’t even go on to address the rest of what you’re saying…. stick around and you’ll find our responses all over the rest of Libertarian Reason.
5 Claire // Aug 15, 2006 at 1:58 pm
Hey I liked what you said john! Even better to drive around in a Hummer with a big Mac meal. Eh B??? hehe
6 B // Aug 15, 2006 at 2:35 pm
Claire whatever you like. John you don’t have to explain your ideology to me on what I said, I’ve seen enough.
7 John Wright // Aug 15, 2006 at 2:48 pm
B- Clearly you haven’t seen enough; you keep coming back for another comment! I don’t mind that at all, because I’m aware that we grow on you like an odiferous fungal mould, but don’t pretend you don’t love us! Not all news has to be deadly serious and grave Mr B, and the reason I find this story funny is that I don’t share the well-trodden point of view you put forward in your second post.
Please do stick around and, as is the case with libertarian policies, I’m sure you’ll come across an article here that you agree with at some point. Smile, for the love of God. I appreciate your comments today.
Peace,
John
8 S Quinney // Aug 15, 2006 at 8:56 pm
Hey B, how come you don’t talk about the Jews getting exterminated by Hitler if you want to talk about something bigger than McDonalds and Hummer?
9 Stephen // Aug 16, 2006 at 12:01 am
**sniggers**
10 John Wright // Aug 16, 2006 at 7:34 am
Well now that you mention it Quinney, Hummer does sound a little German. Sounds a bit Nazi. Sounds like ‘Himmler’.
Now see - I’m going to stop talking now because this is how I get into trouble, Stephen, this ad-libbing stuff! Quinney! Stephen! Please. Did I just say ‘Nazi’?
11 B // Aug 16, 2006 at 10:29 am
A woman is getting married to her 4th husband and is talking to him about their big day and how excited she is about their wedding night. She revealed that she is a virgin. He says ‘How can you be a virgin if you’ve been married 3 times before?’ She started to tell him the problems she’d had. “My first husband was a psychiatrist,’ she explained. ‘He analyzed it all the time. My second husband was an English lit professor. He wrote about it all the time. My third husband was a contractor and always said he would get around to it.’ ‘Really?’ inquired her fiancé. ‘That’s incredible. What makes you so excited about it this time?’ ‘Well,’ the woman replied, ‘You work for the government. This time I KNOW I’ll get screwed!’
Just a little comedy to lighten the blog a little John. I thought this joke would be right up your street.
12 John Wright // Aug 16, 2006 at 12:15 pm
Thanks, B.
13 Jay // Aug 31, 2006 at 12:23 am
Jeffs and many wives… This is not a problem , but I believe if you want more than one wife then you should SUPPORT them. There is some possible welfare fraud with this “non-person” Jeffs. I do not want to help someone have multiple wives and an absurd number of kids and then steal from the welfare system. WE ALL are paying for his lifestyle and HE HAS Pleanty of money. One final note: I would not want many wives one is enough….
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