Aqua Teen Bomb Scare: The Other Story

There are really (at least) two stories to come out of last week's Aqua Teen Hunger Force marketing bomb scare: one has to do with the over-reaction of the police and the media, and artists playing the mainstream press for the bunch of chumps that they are. The other is the conflict between the profit motive and the security motive. This second story may turn out to be the more lasting and significant one.
I find that story more compelling because it pits one side of the ideological split in the US against itself. Granted, I'm writing and reasoning broadly here, but its not too much of a stretch to say that conservative America is for unrestrained capitalism as well as strong homeland security. This is a more compelling conflict than ideological conflicts between conservative and liberal American cultures (say, the conflict between security and privacy). In those cases, there is no internal conflict. People are either one way or the other. The two groups essentially operate independent of one another, watching their own news, investing in their own funds or companies, socializing with like-minded people, and flirting with the idea of actual debate by watching a bit of FoxNews/The Daily Show to angry up their blood before returning to the safety of their own belief system. Its wrong to think of these two Americas as geographically separate. They're neighbors, co-workers, spouses, etc. But in terms of their philosophy, they feel neither the overwhelming need to convert the other side nor be converted themselves.

But let's say you're of the conservative persuasion. You own shares in a multi-national media conglomerate, and you'll be damned if Uncle Sam tries to regulate any aspect of said company's attempts to maximize profits. If this company you invested in needs to put wacky signs underneath bridges and in subways to reach that coveted 18-34 male demo, well then you'd better not prevent them from doing so. At the same time, you can't believe that these weirdo artists have put us all in grave danger (and are laughing about it!) by putting bomb-like devices underneath bridges. But sooner or later, these two forces - the profit motive and the security motive - will come into conflict. And now they have. In this particular case, you could argue that Turner Broadcasting isn't as right-wing as most corps, but as a corp, I'm sure it has a lot of gung-ho Republicans sitting on its board.

This conflicts between unrestrained capitalism and a government's attempts to keep the country on lock down are bound to butt up against one another as long as there is a strong conservative bend to the leadership in this country. This isn't to say that every ideology isn't without its inner conflicts. But, since this one has to do with the limits of advertising, I thought it was worth pointing out here.