Sometimes doing the right thing means...doing the right thing

PORTLAND, Ore. - A prominent Portland ad agency is endorsing a book by some of its employees that takes a stand against political inaction on gun legislation. Wieden+Kennedy, best known for its work with Nike, has supported a crowdfunding initiative with proceeds going to The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. The advertising firm supported the publishing of a book titled #ThoughtsAndPrayers: Comforting Tweets from Powerful Hypocrites. The book is a collection of tweets from politicians who offer their condolences on the social media platform following mass shootings but don’t use their political prowess to try and solve the problem.

Today’s dispatch from the “Doing The Right Things For The Right Reason(s)” Department comes to us from right here in Puddletown. Wieden+Kennedy, the well-know local advertising agency that gave us Nike’s “Just Do It,” has decided to come down on the side of common sense gun control. Normally, one might not think of a business as being willing to leap into a partisan political debate and risk alienating part of their current or potential customer base. Because debate over common sense gun control has profound moral and social implications, Wieden+Kennedy has decided to get behind an employee-driven effort to embarrass those who employ “thoughts and prayers” as a substitute for taking action.

While making it clear that the book is by no means an attempt to condemn prayer, but rather an attempt to rattle the cages of those who cynically believe prayers and tweets to be the moral equivalent of taking concrete action. Simply put, “We condemn prayer that masquerades as action. It’s time for the men and women of Congress to stop tweeting about gun violence, and start doing something about it.”

A donation of $25 or more gets you a copy of #ThoughtsAndPrayers: Comforting Tweets from Powerful Hypocrites…and the knowledge that your donation is being used to help prevent yet more Americans from succumbing to gun violence, much of which may well be preventable. I’m looking forward to getting my copy soon.

The truly sad thing about this book is that there’s been sufficient hypocrisy to make it possible to put together a book in order to showcase it. Shouldn’t we be demanding more- you know, ACTION- from our elected representatives?