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McCain will Cost Media and Ad Business Billions
Jack Myers is the leading analyst and forecaster of media economics.
John McCain said last night, in the third Presidential debate, he plans to do away with the Defense Department Marketing Assistance Program. This is the Congressional spending allocation that enables the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and Coast Guard, plus the National Guard, to advertise for recruits.
It's only a secondary issue that this will cost media companies and ad agencies billions over the next few years. The more important issue is how our nation will convince young Americans to enlist for military service, especially when they will be given the option of community service?
Senator Obama's support for preventative medical care is another little noted but important key point of difference with Senator McCain that emerged from the debate. Under Obama it is far more likely that insurance plans will cover alternative medicine, including acupuncture, therapy, and government approved herbs and vitamins. This category alone could more than double the current spending by pharmaceutical companies, and would give a boost to local market media as Alternative Care centers compete with traditional medicine. Again, a McCain presidency is likely to bring this windfall to a screeching halt.
McCain and Governor Palin have also cost the ad community, and America, two very durable, lovable and descriptive icons: Joe Six Pack first and now Joe the Plumber. Pity the poor person named Joe who is either a plumber or is buff with rippling muscles and is also a Democrat. He (or she) has to change his name to Bill, or Jim… certainly not to John.
Neither candidate called for computer literacy for our children, with computers for every child, as has been advanced by Nicholas Negroponte, along with Bill Gates.
Of course, for balance, it's challenging to estimate the potential cost to the economy of Barack Obama's call for parents to turn off their kids' TV sets and put away their videogames. Maybe advertisers can begin underwriting school books and learning programs. Maybe every childhood computer can come with a McDonald's and a Coke.
The most astounding suggestion I heard McCain make, toward the end of the debate, was the idea of allowing returning soldiers to become teachers with no training or certification. This would litter our school system with teachers trained in military regimen yet many of whom are under educated and unprepared. Is the idea to completely turn our schools into armed camps?
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Ok, so my previous comment must have hurt your or censor's feelings.
Bottom line is this.
If your concern is the financial health of broadcasting cartels - your pretense of recruitment concern atop remorse for the lost revenue and joy for possibly more pharmaceutical revenue isn't very believable - then I think you're part of a very, very small and misaligned special interest group.
Really John McCain, you want to let soldiers who have just returned home be responsible for our children (the future of our country)? now don't get me wrong I have a lot of respect for you and the things you went through as a POW, however your actions alone when you got home don't exactly scream American values now do they. Now I would never say that every soldier that returns home from military service is a philanderer. But to say that every soldier is ready and able to help mold the minds of my children. No sir. I have known to many young vets to allow that.
As a previous commenter stated a lot of these young soldiers joined the military because they had (or felt that they had) no other option. If a soldier returns from Iraq and decides that he or she wants to dive head first into the educations system and help teach our children, Great! Let them, as soon as they have finished the proper training.
In the late 1980s there was a public service program on PBS "Defense Monitor" by ex-officers in the US military that investigated and discussed various issues in the "military-industrial complex" that once president of Columbia University, Dwight Eisenhower, warned us about. In one of the last shows, it discussed the $1 billion a year spent in 25,000 secondary schools in mostly poor school districts on the JROTC program, the junior reserve officer training, that allows one branch of the service into a school to recruit students into the military.
I bring it up because, my high school, Newfield, in a town named for the judge who was a "character witness" at Susan B. Anthony's trial, a judicial "taboo" Henry R. Selden. She was arrested for voting in Upstate New York dressed as a man before women were allowed to vote. I did not know this however when the Marine Corps came to it during the Selective Service Draft, then a new a lottery system sponsored by a New York legislator. Draft eligible myself, it was said to be the alternative to the draft that would create an "all volunteer" armed services, in what is already the world's largest "day care" system. JROTC system has expanded from 2 on the East Coast, Army and Marines, and two on the West Coast, Navy and Air Force.
We should see if this is working, which the "Defense Monitor" asked "Is it Worth it?"t. Are there available places for women?
NEW YORK – The New York Civil Liberties Union and dozens of high school students Wednesday joined lawmakers in calling on the Department of Education to delay enforcing a new policy that makes it easier than ever for the military to obtain the personal information of New York City children for recruitment purposes.
Further: NYCLU, students and elected officials call on DOE to revise new military recruitment policy http://www.empirestatenews.net/News/20081016-5.html
"He (or she) has to change his name to Bill, or Jim… certainly not to John."
How about a Boy Named Sue???
Your last statement about the soldiers becoming teachers explains the first about curtailing recruitment through advertising. Stock the schools with troops and you don't need to advertise.
It's a great idea for vets to become teachers if they get their teaching certificate first, just like any other teacher. They're already used to long hours for low pay. All kidding aside, I am a vet and I gained a lot of perspective from that experience.
I also gained a lot of perspective from my time in the Navy, and I would do it all again under the same circumstances. But lets be serious here, the only good teachers are the ones with the aptitude for the job. I know several people in the service who would be GREAT teachers. I knew several who would be GREAT leaders. On the other hand, I knew MANY more who would be HORRIBLE at teaching or leading!!! (seems like John McCain is in the latter group.....)
The teacher thing is just plain stupid... the elimination of using tax payer's dollars to entice gullible young people with few prospects to join the military sounds interesting to me. The military should be made up of people who are educated to know what they are getting into, and who have other options, but choose the military. Not people who have been lied to by recruiters. Not people who are still children. Not people who are poor and just need a job. Not people who know nothing of our aggressive foreign policy that constantly interferes in the business of others. The military should only accept middle aged people who vote republican. Wars would soon come to a screeching halt, and peace would eventually be something other than a dirty word once again.
John
John,
Those are some valid points, but I must say that when I went in to the Navy back in 1998, I was not lied to. One of my best friends from the service just got out after having been a recruiter. I saw him in action several times, and he never lied. I have heard the horror stories about recruiters talking up the life, and never mentioning the downsides, but they always seemed to happen to "a friend", or "some guy I knew"...... The fact of the matter is that most recruiters are NOT lying to get people into the service!
The following is just the first of many interesting tidbits to be found by a google search of " "military recruiter lies" :
Last year, ABC News armed a group of high school students with hidden cameras and sent them into ten Army recruiting stations in in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, posing as potential applicants. Sadly, the Army failed this particular recruiting ethics test. More than half of the recruiters were caught on tape making what can only be kindly referred to as "misleading" statements. In other words, they lied.
One recruiter was filmed telling the applicant that his chances of being deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan after basic training and job school were"slim to none." One recruiter bluntly stated that the Army wasn't sending people to Iraq anymore -- in fact, they were bringing them home. One simply said, "War? What war? The war ended years ago."
Another recruit was told he could quit the Army anytime he wanted to, just by asking, under a "failure to adapt" discharge. (Hee, hee.....Go ahead. Tell your drill sergeant you want to quit. But, make sure you tell me in advance. I want to sell tickets.)
John
McCain's suggestion that "the idea of allowing returning soldiers to become teachers with no training or certification" was the way to solve the education problem made me cringe. I'm a teacher (adult education), and I had to pass state certification exams to teach middle school as well as pass state certification courses to teach adults.
The idea of testing teachers (to ensure that they knew the subjects they were going to be teaching) was a primarily a conservative construct designed to weed out "bad" (or at least ignorant) teachers. McCain also said something about those returning soldiers not having to take tests in order to teach.
Why is McCain now in favor of having teachers who don't have to pass certification tests showing that they understand the basics of their subjects and the basics of teaching? What makes him think that allowing returning soldiers to teach, without proving that they know what they're teaching, suddenly a good idea?
The Praxis teacher tests in subject areas and in basic teaching methods are fairly minimal. Most potential teachers pass them. Was McCain insinuating that returning soldiers are too stupid or shell-shocked to be able to add, subtract, multiply, and divide? Was he insinuating that returning soldiers are too dumb to know social studies or science? Or was this another poorly-thought-out idea for a bone to toss to returning soldiers in lieu of decent health care?
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