Ad showing Twin Towers Missing and with caption, “You can do a lot in one single day; just imagine what can happen in three months”
Spanish Socialists mock US terrorist attack in advertising campaign. Are socialist groups being subverted by Islamusts? Or are they overtly working together in Europe?
“You can do a lot in one single day; just imagine what can happen in three months”
This is an email advertisement for the online version of El Pais, Spain’s main newspaper which belongs to the PRISA group, the pro-Socialist media organization that, together with its sister SER radio network, was behind the agit-prop campaign after the March 11 bombings.
It’s also the same newspaper whose main headline on September 12th 2001, all across its cover, was “The world, awaiting expectantly for Bush’s reaction”.
Yes, it was, and is, that disgusting. Shame on them.
UPDATE. A reader from California writes:
As I said to my wife this morning after seeing the amoral ad in El Pais:
“Honey, cancel our trip to Spain this winter.”
It’s kinda sad to hear this, but I’m afraid I can’t blame him.
thanks to reader J. Álvarez in Spain for spotting this.
Southern Watch: UPDATE El Pais Ad Scandal: El Pais Apologizes!
Meanwhile, within a day or so, the group apologized and fired the ad agencey. I’m in the process of trying to determine the agency. And while apologies are fine you have to wonder how such a thing got so far. Are there absolutely no layers within these organizations? Didn’t the art director say something? Who wrote the onerous copy and who approved it? Or did all these people just think it was an hilarious concept? It wasn’t until a fuss was made that it was pulled with an apology. This is baffling to me.
I’m reminded of one of the earlier comments on my blog made about the bogus arrest of a Bush protestor. Once the case is dismissed everyone forgets about it and goes about their business with zero follow-up to find out how it happened in the first place. Apparently in today’s world a quick apology works wonders and we wait until the next experiment in fascism, unconcerned about the last.
Little Green Footballs, Powerline, get ready for Pequeños Balones Verdes and Cuerda De Corriente or whatever, the Spanish blogosphere rocks! El Pais today, in both its printed version and its online version, printed an apology for the sick ad they used in an email campaign to win a few new subscribers.
Even Franco Alemán at Barcepundit, who did an excellent job of documenting the fiasco, seems non-plussed preferring to ride Dan Rather for not doing the same.
It’s the “shit happens” generation.
Bloggers in particular seem satisfied if they make a fuss and someone apologies. They all get together and declare victory and gloat. No real changes are accomplished. Nothing comes of it except immediate satisfaction. Proud watchdogs do have their place in the world, nonetheless. Some bark louder than others. That’s about it.
Hi, John,
Just a quick update on this; last Friday, El Pais apologized in quite unequivocal terms, to their credit. See my post about this here.
Yes, the harm was done, but at least they were quicker than CBS and rather! 🙂
Greetings from Spain
Hi, John,
Just an update since, to their credit, El Pais profusely apologized last Friday (see my post about this here).
To their credit, they were quicker than CBS! 🙂
I don’t see why anyone would cancel a holiday to Spain on account of this thing, even given its excess of bad taste. It is simply not representative of the attitudes of the Spanish people, at least the fifty or so I know personally. Everyone I know there hates terrorists, whether they be Basques or Islamic Fundamentalists. Spain has been bombed by the former for decades and the latter more recently.
I think a bit of perspective is needed here. Just as it’s a bit immature painting all Basques and Muslims as terrorists, when only a small percentage engage in terrorism, so it’s a bit ridiculous to hate Spaniards because a few bad-taste jokers who thought they were being clever.
I mean: if I were to refuse to visit any country in which anyone said anything bad about America or the terror bombings, then there wouldn’t be a country on the planet–including the USA–I could visit! Really!
I have updated the posting to reflect the apology..as for the headline being misleading, I can’t see that. But one more complaint and I’ll tone it down.
Anytime people “celebrate” the destruction of two buildings and the killing of 3000 people what else can you conclude? I think it’s a mistake to think that Al Q’aida is only supported and extolled by Muslims. There are others. Why wouldn’t there be? I suspect folks in International A.N.S.W.E.R. (a blatant Marxist revolutionary organization ) have supporters for Al Q’aida. I’d bet money on it.
“Thank You!”
Think of those commercials in the U.S. where someone makes a huge social/work gaffe and says “thank you.” Everything is magically better.
I can’t think of a better way to describe my generation than, ” Hey it’s not my fault. Thank you.”
It’s worrying that you can’t see how the headline is misleading. The sort of blanket blame that the headline suggests is an example of the sort of fuel that has caused this “conflict” in the first place.
The point that you Americans don’t get is that the world don’t care for those attacks anymore.
You used those to invade Irak and Afghanistan, promissing to put an end in the awful regimes in both countries, but instead you only killed more people in those 2 wars and the mess is even bigger now.
Now the Arabs hate you even more and the rest of the world and the world is less safe.
I used to be a great admirer of America, but you destroyed that feeling in the past 3 years.
Is translation right? Maybe in Spanish it’s not that offensive as translation would imply. This could be an idiom: ‘So much can happen in one day’. Any Spanish language expert on this site?
John wrote: And while apologies are fine you have to wonder how such a thing got so far. Are there absolutely no layers within these organizations? Didn’t the art director say something? Who wrote the onerous copy and who approved it? Or did all these people just think it was an hilarious concept? It wasn’t until a fuss was made that it was pulled with an apology. This is baffling to me.
I’m reminded of an earlier subject – the imported toy which was being attacked, in the press, for showing an airliner “crashing into” the WTC towers.
I’m wondering how much of this is over-sensitivity in the US, or cultural differences in how taboo a subject is.
On the other hand, I can understand if some people in Spain have an axe to grind, regarding a vocal segment of the US-press slandering the entire country of Spain – after the Madrid bombings – for their “cowardice”, and “bowing to terrorist demands” by voting-out their existing government.
Very little coverage, that I saw/heard, regarding the outrage Spainiards felt for their government’s attempts to blame the bombings on Basque terrorists.