We shall fight them on the beaches...

I'd have written about this sooner, but massed feelings of rage have been busy sweeping over me, the last day or two. Why?

Check this out.

I am of the very real opinion that there are some figures in history - certain things, events and places - that should be left out of PR drives, commercialisation and other such rubbishness.

Remember when Michael Jackson - bless his cotton socks - allowed Nike to use "Revolution" in their adverts for footwear? Ye Gods.

Remember when 180 Solutions jumped on Winston Churchill for a new GO TEAM! publicity drive?

Of course you don't, because it's just happened. But the fact remains - to me, it looks like someone at 180 flipped open a very large Encyclopedia Kickassicus, set their search engines to stun and tried to find who had the most notable quotables with the word "zealot" in it.

We've seen a lot of this recently - one press release after another, followed by the CEO, followed by numerous entries on the 180 blog - all with the word Zealot in them. Zealot, zealot, zealot.

BUT WHY?

And, more importantly, why the Hell are you messing with words that should be LEFT ALONE?

Sometimes I worry that people completely miss the social and moral implications of going into the past, and bringing things into the present day that have absolutely no practical application whatsoever.

Winston Churchill's words are fine, yes - inspiring, undoubtedly.

But - and here's the killer - those words are inextricably linked with a WORLD WAR.

Where people were shot dead, blown to bits, raped, murdered, slaughtered, put into pens, gassed, tortured and dragged into the streets for entertainment.

In a world where people under 25 - hell, under 35 - have issues knowing what happened last week, let alone fifty-plus years ago, I have grave concerns that a hip new generation of advertising schoolies will join the ranks of people who will associate yet another great figure from history with something they have nothing to do with.

So blowing out loud words about "doing the Winston" turns my stomach.

And as for all that Zealot crap - frankly, if it were me, I would be ashamed of myself. This whole "zealot" thing, tying in as it does with this new-found Churchillian vigour, makes me think of another zealot-head - Eric Goldman, and his recent SPYWARE ZEALOTS ARE NAZIS schtick.

Is it just me, or are we looking at the shape of things to come? Where people (who are so totally ignorant at what these words from the past actually signify - and shame on you Eric Goldman) - happily dredge up horrific visions of the past in their desperation to paint people as evil on the other side of what is effectively a war about popup adverts?

Lame.

This attitude smacks of desperation to me, a case of IF WE CAN'T HEAR YOU, IT'S NOT HAPPENING!! LA LA LA, FINGERS IN EARS, LA LA LA!

In other words - if you criticise us, if you disagree with any of our practices, if you take us to task for yet another of our crackpot affiliates causing the "screwball install of the week", we will label you as one of the wild-eyed, crazy as Hell zealots. Bad zealot. Nasty zealot.

What a load. Nicely deconstructed here too, I might add.

Well at times like these, I like to quote one of the best political movements to ever emerge from the Blasta Bling Bitch streets of hip-hop...Public Enemy:

Chuck D said rap was the CNN of the black community, and no one broadcasts louder than Public Enemy.

Welcome to the Antispyware CNN.