Whitewash and hogwash

As long as I'm talking about corporations, Republicans and branding, I'd like to segue to the related issue of image manipulation and control.

Corporations have learned to use image advertising to effectively change the public's perception of the corporation's business and reputation. (Since most corporate types are Republicans, the Party has naturally adopted the same techniques.)

There are two commercials currently being broadcast widely that I find galling. Every time I see one, I literally yell at the tv and whoever's in the room.

The first, and most infuriating, is the ad for the PPA -- the Partnership for Prescription Assistance. It opens with a string of ordinary slobs expressing their heartfelt thanks to the PPA for enabling them to get their prescriptions, i.e., to remain alive. Then we get spokesman Montel Williams cheerily informing us that through the goodness of America's pharmaceutical industry, poor people around the country who had difficulty affording their prescriptions are now getting free meds. Then we see the PPA Bus trundling over the countryside presumably dropping anti-depressants and statins off the back to the grateful groundlings.

This is image manipulation on a world class scale. The rapacious pharmaceutical companies know that news stories about poor people suffering and dying because they can't afford their meds -- anywhere from $155 to $398 for a month's supply of Advair or $31 to $82 for Lovastatin -- would be the end of their sweet deal. Not even their trained seal legislators would be able to withstand the public roar for draconian regulation. This must be avoided at all costs.

So even though the blood-sucking pharmaceuticals will get those extortionate prices from Americans who can somehow afford it, they manage to avoid the worst publicity by giving medicine away to the poor to shut them up. It's just good business for them, the same as buying friendly congressmen and senators or taking doctors on lavish junkets so they'll remember your pills and potions when they take out the Rx pad. And in the end, given the obscene profits the pharmaceuticals rake in, giving pills away and bribing people is small change.

Meanwhile, those of us with prescription insurance coverage rarely hear or see the actual list price for the drugs we buy. Sure, we know the co-pays have gone up precipitously and may be killing us at $35 a pop for brand names, but we can hardly fathom that some drugs cost a king's ransom. And many don't make the connection between outrageous drug costs and premiums rising at double-digit rates.

But hey -- we've got Montel Williams to soothe us with tales of pharmaceutical philanthropy.

The second ad is one of those commercials with lush photography, romantic images, intimate music and a sentimental, feel-good narrative -- all saying exactly nothing about the product. Behold "The Human Element":

Quite a stretch from the Dow Chemical of my youth, the loathed manufacturer of napalm. The despoiler of our nation's air and waterways. The negligent corporate parent of Union Carbide, the company responsible for the disaster of Bhopal, still toxic after more than twenty years.

It's so sad. "The Human Element" is a lovely series of images and sentiments. It's obscene that it's in the service of a transparent whitewash.

It's not that we don't understand that chemical manufacturing is an indispensible part of our lives. It's not that we don't appreciate the chemical products that make our lives better. But none of that excuses crimes against our planet and criminal neglect. To Dow Chemical though, it's easier to manipulate public opinion through a pretty ad than to clean up their act.

And there are others -- the ads for the extractive industries that tell us how much they care about the environment as if they did more than the bare minimum to comply with regulation. My favorite is BP with the sunny flower logo. We're supposed to applaud because they're researching alternative energy technologies now. Yay! It would be rude to remind them that they're also part of the global oil racket that is determined to keep pumping and selling at ever-higher prices until there's not a drop left. Bah.