• by Jack Feuer , July 7, 2009

We end with a whimper. The signs surround us, little harbingers of a total breakdown.

The Playboy rabbits of the Florida Lower Keys -- sylvilagus palustris hefneri -- are near extinction. This pretty much kills my plans for a marsh bunny barbecue this weekend.

I also read that if everybody in the country flushed their toilet at the same time, we'd all drown in wastewater. Which isn't as dire as it sounds, since by now, eating crap is an integral part of every American's daily diet.

But there are larger omens as well. You see where the stimulus isn't producing jobs, yes? We have a president who can speak in complete sentences, which is a nice change of pace, but who cannot and never will be able to deliver the true, transformative change he promised.

It's clear, is it not, that we remain such infants that a batshit crazy singer's death hypnotizes us for weeks -- but riots, revolutions, missiles launched at Hawaii and mullahs behaving badly barely register after a day or so.

Did you notice how in one of the darkest hours in our nation's history, our leaders at every level of government are screwing, screaming, quitting or stealing, but certainly not leading?

Ladies and gentlemen, that sound you hear is the fat lady singing.

And how does U.S. marketing respond? Sideways, as usual.

Consumers are besieged by poorly thought out and inelegantly executed attempts to get us to man up. Spots that scream "It's On." Commercials that lecture us about What's Really Important. Old, new and emerging media filled to gag-level with evocations of a can-do spirit that hasn't accurately reflected who we are as a people for at least a half century.

We are not the great men and women who founded a nation, the pioneers who conquered a continent or the heroes who won a world war. We are the fat fucks on the floating chairs in "Wall-E." So all this John Wayne nonsense is ineffective.

Enough with the odes to personal responsibility, and how we should focus on what really matters. We're in the grip of forces beyond our control, so personal responsibility is meaningless. And what really matters is that our families have good, affordable health care -- but don't hold your breath.

When was the last time the nation was face-down in the mud like this? The Seventies. And how did marketing respond back then? Not by unrealistically hectoring consumers, but by throwing a ginormous, badly-dressed rave. The world was going to hell, and we were powerless to stop it, advertisers told us, so just buy our stuff and party.

Worked like a charm. We spent a fortune on bell bottoms, gold chains, cocaine, 8-tracks, king-sized bean bag chairs, Miracle Whip, Perrier, Plato's Retreat and fuzzy dice.

Media mavens, copywriters, art directors and brand managers should grasp that same powerful force if they want to win in today's Grand Guignol culture. Deliver unto us a new boogie wonderland. Take us to Funkytown. We should be dancing, yeah. My fellow travelers, the secret to marketing success in the 21st century is: Disco! Uh-huh, uh-huh.

And afterwards, we can all compare pay cuts and enjoy some tasty marsh rabbit sandwiches.