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posted by on Friday December 30 2016, @09:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the will-provide-tattoos-for-right-applicant dept.

Seems someone got the whole thing seriously wrong, but evidently there was a casting call for actors for a Cadillac commercial that was looking for "alt-right" or "neo-nazi" types.

Cadillac caused a stir this week when a casting service put out a request on behalf of the American luxury brand looking to fill the role of an "alt-right (neo-Nazi)" in a new commercial. Cadillac denied it had ever authorized the notice and condemned it, while the casting company took responsibility, saying that it had been issued by mistake. Regardless of who did what, the idea had to have been hatched somewhere and by someone, which reveals something far more troubling than a mere streak of poor taste and even poorer judgement in corporate America: the marketability and mainstreaming of an alt-right population, or those "identified variously with anti-globalist and anti-immigrant stances, cartoon frogs, white nationalists, pick-up artists, anti-Semites, and a rising tide of right-wing populism," as Tablet contributor Jacob Siegel wrote in a profile of Paul Gottfried, the alt-right's "godfather."

Hmm, maybe now that the "alt-right" has become just another marketing demographic, we do not have to worry about them taking over the country? I mean, who buys Cadillacs as a status symbol anymore? Not like they are your father's Oldsmobile. Except that, really, it was your father's Olds. So that brand no longer exists. Are we at the point where we can say, "Brietbart: it's not your grandpa's fascism!"? Except, really, maybe it is?


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Friday December 30 2016, @02:08PM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday December 30 2016, @02:08PM (#447415) Journal

    Support for a single culture (as opposed to multiculturalism). The strength of the US was that it once functioned as a "melting pot" where people surrendered their original culture and became Americans. A nation of immigrants. Today, people are encouraged to retain their original culture. Many in the alt-right see this as a problem.

    That's not what "melting pot" means. It means they become part of the mix, not that they disappear into the original solution and the original solution remains unchanged. But fine, let's run with your definition for a moment to see what that country you yearn for would look like.

    Starting immediately, eat not a single taco, pizza, or bowl of spaghetti more. Hot dogs and hamburgers are also right out. No chow mein, no burritos. No Irish pubs, no bagels. No foreign cars, because those might sneakily insinuate foreign driving concepts into a pure America. No computers, because computers are not made in America any more and are clearly a vector for attack by the People's Republic of China. Just keep carving away all the "foreign" bits until you may eat unflavored oatmeal mush for breakfast and dress like a Quaker of yore. Disallow any outside influences whatsoever, hermetically seal the culture in a glass jar, and set it on the shelf of your altar of purity.

    The America you know is the result of multi-culturalism, and nothing but that. And if you know your history, you'd know that it has never been "pure" at any time. When the first Europeans arrived on these shores there were already hundreds if not thousands of distinct languages and cultures at play on the continent. Among the Europeans there were the Spanish, Dutch, French, and English. Even if you said no, no, nobody counts but the English you'd still not have any kind of purity because there were Scots, Welshmen, Irish, Quakers, Puritans, Anglicans, Catholics, and many other distinct groups among them. That you eat corn and potatoes and possibly smoke tobacco is directly because there was cultural mixing with the Indians. You use foreign words from that mix all the time, like "raccoon" or "Chicago" without thinking about it.

    So it's an impossible goal, what you're striving for. America has never been what you imagine, nor will it ever be. It's also quite likely you would not even want to live in the country that twinkles in your dreams.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 30 2016, @10:15PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 30 2016, @10:15PM (#447622)

    Starting immediately, eat not a single taco, pizza, or bowl of spaghetti more. Hot dogs and hamburgers are also right out. No chow mein, no burritos. No Irish pubs, no bagels. No foreign cars, because those might sneakily insinuate foreign driving concepts into a pure America. No computers, because computers are not made in America any more and are clearly a vector for attack by the People's Republic of China. Just keep carving away all the "foreign" bits until you may eat unflavored oatmeal mush for breakfast and dress like a Quaker of yore.

    So what you're saying is that I need to stop appropriating other cultures?