Absolut Mexico

As Rod says, the ad would have been slightly easier to laugh at fifty years ago, but I can't say I find it all that offensive even now. And as a fan of counterfactual histories and peculiar maps, I think it's too bad that Absolut is apologizing instead of kicking off a series, each targeted to a particular country's most implausible irredentist fantasies. For the Francophone Canadian market, you could have had Absolut Quebec, showing a vast "Republique de Nouvelle France" extending south to the Caribbean while Les Etats-Unis clings to the eastern seaboard. Then of course there would be the ad in the British tabloids depicting the United Kingdom of Great Britain and North America (governed, one would hope, by the House of Stuart); the Parisian billboard showing the French Empire sprawling to its Napoleonic boundaries; the two-page spread in the Athens papers showing a Greece with the boundaries of Justinian's Byzantium; and the micro-targeted, Venice-only campaign depicting La Serenissima restored to its former glory. Meanwhile, the campaigns for the Muslim world could be outsourced to the advertising firm of Bin Laden and Zawihiri - I hear they have some ideas on that front.

Having just crossed the fine line separating "joking about implausible irredentisms" from "joking about implausible irredentisms that still inspire mass murder," I'll go re-read Jerry Z. Muller's fine essay on "the enduring power of ethnic nationalism" as penance. But some enterprising parody artist should pick up where I left off, since the revisions of the Absolut ad for the "America's Enemies" market - a Middle East without Israel, a Russian bear devouring the former Soviet Union, a Greater Venezuela - more or less write themselves.

Comments

Don't forget Texas! I'm sure ads featuring the original borders claimed by the Republic of Texas would have some appeal; in fact, I've already seen a few t-shirts, advertisements and so forth that rely on this concept.

Posted by Zeke | April 7, 2008 9:25 AM

I like it.

However, it runs into real problems when you produce "Absolut Germany".

Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot | April 7, 2008 10:28 AM

Absolut has of course gotten a lot of e-mails about glorifying territorial irredentism movements that DO have certain followers.

The one that has really set Absolut execs teeth grinding and releasing to the AP that there will not be a repeat of the ad the Mexicans came up with - was of course, the photoshopped "neonazi" Absolut Greater Germany.

(Which engulfed "germanic" Scandanavia, parts of France, Austria-Hungary, Sudetanland, and the "Ostlands" of all the Baltics and halfway into Poland.)

Posted by chris ford | April 7, 2008 11:09 AM

Ross, Ross...that's not at all the way to woo those Sam's Club shoppers. Outrage, or manufactured outrage, is the order of the day. Check out Malkin's blog for a stiff dose of the true religion.

Posted by DGJ | April 7, 2008 12:01 PM

After we stole half of their country in a naked war of conquest, I would think that the Mexicans would be entitled to a bit of grievance. It's not like they are going to _do_ anything about it, after all- it's hard to imagine a more implausible irredentist movement than Mexico reconquering the Southwest.

Posted by Hector | April 7, 2008 12:03 PM

It seems inevitable to me that the US, with its more dynamic economic system and stable political system than Mexico, would populate that area, but then doesn't everything seem inevitable in retrospect.

Incidentally, here's what Grant had to say about the Mexican-American war: "The Southern rebellion was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican war. Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions. We got our punishment in the most sanguinary and expensive war of modern times."

Pres. Grant, Pres. Jefferson, and Rev. Wright feared/described God's wrath being visited upon America for its actions against blacks and Mexicans.

John McCain's allies of expedience, the erstwhile agents of intolerance, called for/described God's wrath as a consequence of our failure to jail homosexuals and to teach creationism in science classes.

Ross's relentless refusal to justify his social conservatism has me thinking that it's unjustifiable. He's just about its most intelligent representative, and he offers A Politically Correct Guide to the Movies instead. The 99.7 percent of social conservatives who identify more with Hagee (and Malkin) than with Ross are probably the most honest, relevant representatives of that worldview.

(Sorry for veering off topic. I will stay away for a bit in penance. Don't miss me too much, everyone!)

Posted by Elvis Elvisberg | April 7, 2008 12:15 PM

I look forward to the Absolut Serbia campaign -- that one should definitely be good for a laugh.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | April 7, 2008 1:19 PM

Couldn't we throw in Florida and the rest of the south as well? I know it's somewhat historically inappropriate, but if they are going to take Texas off our hands I saw we owe them.

Posted by chichi2 | April 7, 2008 1:27 PM

Couldn't we throw in Florida and the rest of the south as well? I know it's somewhat historically inappropriate, but if they are going to take Texas off our hands I say WE owe them.

Posted by chichi2 | April 7, 2008 1:28 PM

Couldn't we throw in Florida and the rest of the South as well? I know it's somewhat historically inappropriate, but if they are going to take Texas off our hands I say WE owe them.

Posted by chichi2 | April 7, 2008 1:28 PM

I don't think many Russians harbor irredentist fantasies about taking back Central Asia - good riddance seems to be the most common feeling. The only Republic that many people would want back is Ukraine, maybe some sentiment for Latvia, and I would take Georgia for the food and skiing. Some nationalists want Belarus back, but most Russians look at Belarus and ask "why?" Really, Russia still has to worry too much about losing a lot of what it still has - the Far East, Tatarstan, the northern Caucauses. Maybe in two generations you'll start seeing irredentism make a come back.

Why has there been no mention of the obvious, given the product, where is the Swedish empire circa 1650s that stretched from the Atlantic to the Baltic coast and down into Pomerania?

Posted by vanya | April 7, 2008 1:28 PM

Admittedly, my French is very rusty, but wouldn't it be Des Etats-Unis, not Les Etats-Unis?

Posted by jbryan | April 7, 2008 1:34 PM

Long live the Jacobite cause!

Posted by Nathan P. Origer | April 7, 2008 1:40 PM

I'd like to see 'Absolut Armenia' comprising present-day Armenia, Azerbaijan, most of Turkey and Syria, and a good chunk of northern Iraq. Those Armenians could probably take over the Iraq war for us.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigranes_the_Great

Vanya,

Belarus doesn't seem to be doing that badly economically and socially. Obviously they lack political freedom, but given the events of the last few years it doesn't appear like most Russians care too much about political freedom anyway. I agree with you about Central Asia. Harboring irredentist desires for Latvia would just be a disaster- the Baltic countries _hate_ the Russians and probably have been traditionally much more culturally tied to the West than to Russia- unlike the Ukraine, Belarus, or Georgia.

Posted by Hector | April 7, 2008 2:19 PM

"more implausible irredentist movement than Mexico reconquering the Southwest." - Hector

Yes, Hector, maybe it is implausible. But when you live in the southwest and have seen it go from an interesting mixed-culture place into a majority Mexican locale within a generation it hardly seems terribly unlikely. White folks are leaving California in droves almost as fast as Hispanics can replace them.

And many of those immigrants (and their progeny) speak of this proudly.

I can't say it would be such a bad thing; the fact that the Mexican government mostly leaves its citizens alone might be worth it all. But to call it the most implausible is just head-in-the-sand-ism.

Posted by simeon | April 7, 2008 3:17 PM

"After we stole half of their country in a naked war of conquest, I would think that the Mexicans would be entitled to a bit of grievance."

Remind me, Hector, how exactly did the Mexicans get their hands on this land in the first place? Didn't they spring out of the earth, sown from dragon's teeth like the Thebans, and thus have an unsullied and incontestible claim to these lands? Surely, it couldn't be the case that they got the lands from the Spanish, who stole it from someone else?

Posted by chriscolumbus | April 7, 2008 3:20 PM

Ross Douthat: you're a complete lightweight.

You wouldn't call this an "implausible fantasy" if you knew anything about this issue. The MexicanGovernment has been able to obtain a great deal of PoliticalPower inside the U.S. and to a certain extent we already have some form of condominium relationship with that country. As we allow MassiveImmigration from Mexico that will only get worse, and we'll end up with a defacto arrangement with that country or some new autonomous region. That's been promoted by various academics and politicians, and recognized by both SamuelHuntington and DavidKennedy.

Let me suggest actually knowing what you're talking about before discussing issues like this.

Posted by TLB | April 7, 2008 3:33 PM

Chriscolumbus,

You are engaging in the jus tertii defence, which is the legal equivalent of a fallacy. If A takes from B, A cannot plead in defence a defect in B's title in relation to C.

Posted by Pithlord | April 7, 2008 3:34 PM

Pithlord -- I was not aware that the laws of logic, or any other laws, controlled the foundings of countries or the acquisition of lands by countries. There is a reason (not to be confused with logic) why stories of foundings -- think of Romulus and Remus, Cain and Able, Cyrus -- involve crimes.

I would think you were a pendant, and no little ninny, if it weren't for the fact that the delicious irony of your answer -- pleading legal nicities in defense of a country with precious little experience of the rule of law -- convinces me you are having some fun with us.

Posted by chriscolumbus | April 7, 2008 3:49 PM

Has anyone else noticed the irony in a nation created largely on broken treaties and manifest destiny being outraged by a tongue-in-cheek reference to redrawn borders?
Native Americans must really be laughing right now! Wait... maybe not.

Posted by Jeremy | April 7, 2008 3:55 PM

The odd thing about that ad is it shows the border of Mexico during only part of the early Independance period, 1821--1848, not Mexico at its greatest extent. Prior to the Mexican wars of independence, New Spain streched down to modern-day Panama or thereabout. Of course the other borders on Absolut's map don't correspond to the period, for instance the US canada border, which was unsettled. So I guess Abolut was catering to Mexican irredentism, but assumed modern-day Mexicans either don't know about their country's rule of Central America, or don't want it back.

Posted by Paul | April 7, 2008 4:30 PM

Cute ad, but in the end it will do exactly the opposite of what they had envisioned.

This will severely hurt their sales in the US, but hey, they may pick up one or two sales in Mexico.

Posted by retro | April 7, 2008 4:51 PM

Native Americans must really be laughing right now!

I don't think they'd be laughing in a reconquista Southwest, where Aztlan activists insist that the "indigeneous" language of Arizona is Nahuatl and not Navajo, Pima, or Hopi.

Posted by rexgraine | April 7, 2008 5:00 PM

Chris Colombus,

It's "Abel", not Able. My claim that the Southwest was unjustly stolen from Mexico rests on the premise that Mexico is essentially, by culture and demography, a mestizo nation and not a white European one. Therefore it's the legitimate heir of the Native American states of Mesoamerica, in a way that the United States is not the legitimate heir of the North American Indians. Mexico is at least in part an Amerindian nation while the U.S. is (in its origins) a white European settler state.

Simeon,

California isn't going to become part of Mexico any more than South Florida is going to become part of Cuba. The United States is a fabulously rich and terrifyingly well armed behemoth. Mexico isn't even in the same ballpark. That's why fears of being taken over by Mexico are laughably implausible. I would say that Mexico has much more reason to fear a richer and better armed neighbor than th other way around.

Posted by Hector | April 7, 2008 5:33 PM

All the nukes in the world won't help us if most of CA is Mexican-American/Mexican, and the majority want to secede or join with Mexico in some way. In that case, we'd have no choice but to give them what they want.

And, while we do have a lot of weapons, we're very weak in another way. Many "liberals", for whatever reason, react to border control and rational immigration policies with attempts to shut down the conversation by childishly calling the other side names (see, for instance, Matt Yglesias).

And, our elites are even less patriotic and more crooked than they've been in the past.

And, there's all those "libertarians" and "free" marketeers who continually fail to acknowledge the full costs of what they support.

If you want to do something about that, work to publicly discredit anyone who supports or enables illegal and/or massive immigration.

Posted by TLB | April 7, 2008 6:07 PM

When the territory was Mexican, not enough Mexicans wanted it to settle there. After its conquest by the US, the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo was probably one of the most generous deals on the part of the victor over the vanquished -- although undeniably a coerced sale.

Of course, since the territory has prospered as a part of the US, it is quite easy to understand the ensuing belief that the wealth of the territory sprang solely from the territory and its previous owners, not from the post-acquisition regime and settlers. As someone noted above, Mexican dreamers are less pained by the loss of the still impoverished parts of Old Mexico lost to independence further down the isthmus.

Posted by MarkG | April 7, 2008 6:08 PM

Re: My claim that the Southwest was unjustly stolen from Mexico rests on the premise that Mexico is essentially, by culture and demography, a mestizo nation and not a white European one.

By that standard why isn't Mexico the legitimate heir of all North America? After all, there were Native Americans everywhere. Of course they belonged to very different cultures and ethnic groups and our grouping themn under one heading ignores distinctions as deep as those separating the inhabitants of Europe, the Middle East and India. No, from a native POV it makes more sense to restrict Mexico to the land of the Aztecs, Mayans and Zapotecs who were the core of its Amerindian civilizations. Mexico has no real native-based claim on California or Arizona whose natives are ethnically akin to those on the Pacific coast north to Canada (the Californians) or northwestern Canada and Alaska (the Navaho and Apache). As for the whites, the few white settlers in El Norte (mainly found in Santa Fe, San Antonio and the mission country of California) mostly still considered themselvers Spanish not Mexican, and they despised the regime in Mexico City. The USA had considerable local support in the Mexican War, until the Anglos afterward disposed the old Spanish families of their lands and treated them as unwanted tenants.

Re: All the nukes in the world won't help us if most of CA is Mexican-American/Mexican, and the majority want to secede or join with Mexico in some way.

Reality check: why do Mexicans immigrate to the USA? That's right. If they wanted to go back to Mexico they know the way. They don't have to secede to do it, and returning to Mexico would seem to be the last thing they want.

Posted by JonF | April 7, 2008 9:05 PM

TLB - All the nukes in the world won't help us if most of CA is Mexican-American/Mexican, and the majority want to secede or join with Mexico in some way. In that case, we'd have no choice but to give them what they want.

Oh, that's right! Why, from our history we know that when voters in a State decide to seceed, we have NO CHOICE but to give them what they want.

Oh, you mean we didn't???

Fancy that!

And - on the logic that you must give rebels within what they want because "it is impossible to deport very many" and there all these legal niceties that must be slavishly worshipped:

5.7 million ethnic Germans killed or cleansed back to Germany by E Europeans over 2 years, 1945-47.

33 million relocated for their own safety during the Partition of India, over 9 months span, with another million killed by Hindi and Muslim mobs.

700,000 Palestinians, Christian and Muslim cleansed or killed by Jewish terror squads in 1948-49.

If radical hispanics wish to do insurrection, it would take little to end civil liberties for the wartime, do loyalty tests when the insurrectionists were vanquished, then have the capacity to deport at least 40 million mexican nationals and disloyal Mexican-Americans to Mexico.

That is doable. But highly unlikely to happen.

Posted by chris ford | April 7, 2008 9:40 PM

Interesting point Hector. However, I don't think there are too many Mexican indians, to the extent they even survived, who don't think their land was stolen and that -- the recurrent spasms of land reform notwithstanding -- they haven't gotten it back. There are plenty of Europeans who think that too.

And even if you were correct, still ... the Aztecs, Mayans, and other indians stole their land from others who held it before them. No one holds "unclouded" title to their land, except maybe those Thebans who sprang from the Theban soil.

Since you are full of interesting and unorthodox opinions, I am curious as to what you think about the Spaniards and the Aztecs. Was it unjust that the Spanish took the lands of the Aztecs and sought to exterminate a culture that practiced human sacrifice and ritual cannibalism (and forcibly impose Catholicism in its place)?

Posted by chriscolumbus | April 7, 2008 10:10 PM

JonF: it would be helpful if you could include a full name or a website the next time you post a comment.

This is probably going to be difficult to understand, but there are many things that could happen to the southwest, and remaining part of the U.S. or becoming part of Mexico are only two of them. Another option is some form of race-based state (see the "this is my homeland" posters from the IllegalImmigrationRallies). Racial demagogues have proven quite adept at obtaining a race-based political bloc, and with enough numbers they could decide to form their own country or similar. It might devolve into Mexico, but it wouldn't be sold that way.

And, chris ford might want to check the populations and weaponry involved then and now. Hint: there are at least three times as many *Mexican citizens* in California as there are people in our entire armed forces. There's absolutely no way that we could "re-invade" our own territory without massive losses on our side or their side, depending on how we did it.

Posted by TLB | April 7, 2008 10:43 PM

I wonder if TLB knows that there are more latinos in California now who are residents, voters, citizens than whites?

...And that it was the same case when California became a state in the first place?

Posted by Crissa | April 8, 2008 5:19 AM

Let's push it over more cliffs...

How about an "Absolut Confederacy"--wouldn't that be funny?

or about "Absolut South African empire"?

The whole "Absolut Third Reich" seems so cliched to me.. (although all that Swedish iron ore going to the Nazis makes this not so off the mark" but you could have done an "Absolut Second Reich/Absolut Imperial Germany" with a World War I victory...

That would be so fun.

Posted by Alternate History lover.. | April 8, 2008 8:47 AM

Absolut U.S. ad with a wishlist of Chile, Nicaragua, Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Grenada, Panama, et al would bring to perspective this dwindling empire, epitomized by the crybabies that constitute the majority of America's blogging community.

Posted by E | April 8, 2008 10:48 AM

"but I can't say I find it all that offensive even now"

It depends upon where one lives. As somebody living in California it is offensive and vaguely threatening. The response of people in the Northeast to the 9/11 attack seems hysterical to a Californian.

Posted by Stan | April 8, 2008 12:45 PM

Crissa: I've written literally thousands of posts about the imm. issue at my site and at others' sites over the past five years, so there are a lot of things I know. Those new to this issue might want to weigh the opinions of someone who not only lives in L.A. but who follows this issue closely against, say, the opinions of Ross Douthat or pseudonymous commenters.

Posted by TLB | April 8, 2008 1:57 PM

Even if you ignore the fact that the indigenous admixture was considerably higher in Mexico than in the original United States and therefore treat both states as criminal ones for taking away the land from the Native Americans, the United States, in annexing parts of Mexico, did not abide by their own standards: the international law then in place (to which it officially subscribed).

Posted by Tobias | April 8, 2008 2:15 PM

"After we stole half of their country in a naked war of conquest, I would think that the Mexicans would be entitled to a bit of grievance."
And what's worse, it was the half with the paved roads.

Posted by Jacob | April 8, 2008 2:20 PM

Even if you ignore the fact that the indigenous admixture was considerably higher in Mexico than in the original United States and therefore treat both states as criminal ones for taking away the land from the Native Americans, the United States, in annexing parts of Mexico, did not abide by their own standards: the international law then in place (to which it officially subscribed).
Also, comparisons with Nazi Germany are out of place. The map in the Absolut ad shows Mexico in former peace-time borders. The borders of Nazi Germany alluded to here and elsewhere are mostly war-time only borders and therefore hardly comparable. In the case of Germany, the Nazis were the annexing party, in the case of Mexico, it was not the Mexicans but the US Americans who where the aggressors that brought about the change of the border.

Posted by Tobias | April 8, 2008 2:21 PM

Talk about missing the point -- metaphysical and airy abstractions like international law? You have got to be kidding me.

The problem with the Mexican-American war, and the land grab in general, was the way in which it departed from US standards, or even more general and universal standards, that really do matter. The war and land grab were motivated in large part by a desire to extend and perpetuate the institution of slavery, or at the least to pacify its adherents, and thereby avoid the secession of the South and civil war.

But then maybe you would re-write Lincoln's Second Inaugural to read that the US was punished for its sins against international law.

Posted by gwk | April 8, 2008 3:48 PM

A lot of the comments here are nonsense. First, Mexico kept putting military dictators in charge of their country. These dictators did not walk softly in regards to either the Texans or the Americans. They provided the cause belli that allowed us to fight them. Second, the caudillos refused to arm the peasantry. Winfield Scott and the boys would have had a lot harder time if the vast bulk of the Mexican populous been armed, like Americans were, and popularly supported the Government, which they often did not. Finally, we paid for those territories, more in fact than we paid for the Louisiana Purchase where no war was involved. That we were able to make it to Mexico City by sea is a testament to how badly the Mexicans were lead militarily. All of this wailing and gnashing of teeth over how bad the Americans were once again makes Mexicans bystanders in their own political classes abject failure which continues to this day.

Posted by jjv | April 8, 2008 3:53 PM

What is interesting to me about this entire fiasco is not the ad itself but the fact that they ran it with zero anticipation that anybody might be offended. The disconnect between Absolut's marketing executives and marketing/pr people and the vast body of America (or at least middle America) is utter and total. Absolut is in the business of selling vodka, not offending people. If any of their executives had the slightest clue of how this would be received they would have either not run it or, better yet, had other, equally offensive ads for other countries/territories lined up (as Ross Douthat somewhat disingenuously suggests of us - as if we're supposed to do Absolut's ads for them). If this was a thematic campaign across the board, then it would truly be 'edgy' and interesting. But its not. Its simply a result of the entirely separate world occupied by leftist urbanite marketing people from the world of the people who actually consume the goods they flog. Absolut was totally unprepared for the controversy. How could that possibly be? Do they not have even a single person in their vast marketing machinery who can, even for a moment, think outside the Che-tee-shirt, Code Pink, Si Se Peuda, Prius-driving, Obama sticker box they are in?

Posted by Graham | April 8, 2008 7:14 PM

JJV,

Those Mexican military dictators outlawed slavery, something that the American 'democratic' government was notably loath to do until several decades later (and even then under the pressure of war). Something to remember the next time we congratulate ourselves on being a 'democracy'.

Posted by Hector | April 8, 2008 7:15 PM

JJV,

Those Mexican military dictators outlawed slavery, something that the American 'democratic' government was notably loath to do until several decades later (and even then under the pressure of war). Something to remember the next time we congratulate ourselves on being a 'democracy'.

Posted by Hector | April 8, 2008 7:16 PM

http://www.nickenhead.com/images/nazi.jpg

I wonder how this would fly as an ad for ABSOLUT?

Posted by Nick | April 8, 2008 7:23 PM

Cut and paste the link in your browser and the image should be visible...cheers!

Posted by Nick | April 8, 2008 7:37 PM

"No one holds "unclouded" title to their land"

TR: Iceland probably does. There may have been Irish monks when the Icelanders settled, but isolated monks alone weren't likely to last long as a civilization. It's plausible Tonga, Nauru, and Tuvalu are also ruled by their original inhabitants.

On other matters some of the Alt-History Absolut ideas were a bit silly, but it's possible to imagine more plausible ones. Like a map of Russia that included Finland and Alaska. They ruled those lands for a century or so, not a few years the way Nazis or Confederates did. Or closer to home a map of Colombia including Panama.

Posted by Thomas R | April 8, 2008 10:24 PM

I think it's too bad that Absolut is apologizing instead of kicking off a series, each targeted to a particular country's most implausible irredentist fantasies.

They could do one for the United States, where we went to war with Britain over the Pacific Northwest, kept all of Mexico after invading in the 1840s, and swallowed gobbled up Spain's Caribbean territories to. A United States stretching from 54-40 in the north down through Mexico City and including Cuba and other assorted islands.

Posted by Peter Bautista | April 8, 2008 10:27 PM

Also, I wonder what map Vladimir Putin's looking at while he sips his vodka...

Posted by Peter Bautista | April 8, 2008 10:34 PM

I see Russia was mentioned already. Hmmm

"Absolut Mongolia" - Includes both Inner and Outer Mongolia. Or it could include China, most of Central Asia, Russia, and parts of the Mideast.

"Absolut Japan" - The Kurils, some islands of Taiwan. Or it could include all of Taiwan, much of Mainland China, Korea, and parts of Southeast Asia

"Absolut Israel" - Pretty much all of the Sinai Peninsula and Lebanon, also parts of Jordan and Syria. That would provoke consternation.

"Absolut Bolivia" - The Antofagasta Region of Chile that they once ruled as their sole coastal region.

Posted by Thomas R | April 8, 2008 10:49 PM

Chris Ford, apparently an idiot of considerable proportion, wrote this: "700,000 Palestinians, Christian and Muslim cleansed or killed by Jewish terror squads in 1948-49."

Sure, and the surrounding Arab governments did nothing to encourage the "Palestinians" to get out of the way of their victorious armies? They left because they *chose* to leave, thinking they
could return a few days later to pick over the abandoned property of the Jews their cousins had driven into the sea. Ha! Sixty years and counting.

The Arabs who stayed are still there. Some of them sit in Israel's parliament. What Arab country can say the same about its Jews?

Back to the topic, though: Absolut and its Swedish makers (Vin & Sprit) have seen the last of my dollars, and I would encourage the French company (Pernod Ricard) who bought them only last week (for $8.3 billion) to sue Sweden (Vin & Sprit was owned by the government) for the damage their thoughtlessness inflicted on what was until now a popular and respected brand.

Posted by Charles Martel | April 9, 2008 1:39 PM