I personally found this disturbing and insulting:
Yes, yes, the ad was intentionally absurdist. But with a myriad of environmental laws already on the books, and proposed laws against everything from light bulbs to paper bags, how far is it from the truth? I hear Australia is in already in the process of banning incandescent light bulbs, with failure to comply meaning criminal charges.
Does it not disturb anybody else that a group that could be called an “environmental SS” is portrayed in a positive light?
This even disturbed people who self-identified as environmentalists; with one New York Times writer saying, “This misguided spot put the ‘mental’ in ‘environmental.’”
Update: This could be unintentionally more disturbing then I thought; somebody on the Audi Facebook page brought up this historical tidbit:
“The Green Police was a name used in Nazi Germany to refer to the German Order Police, or Orpo, who were given the moniker because of their green uniforms. The Orpo weren’t merely traffic cops, however. According to the Jewish Virtual Library, one battalion was central in sending Jews, Poles and Gypsies to concentration camps.”
I did some quick research via Wikipedia and verified this peice of history (at least, as much as Wikipedia can verify something.)
So, now we have a fascist police force with the same nickname as a group that helped carry out the Holocaust breaking into peoples homes, using spies to gather intel (at the market), searching random homes and cars apparently without warrants, and hauling people away to God knows where to face God knows what punishment (and did anybody see any hint of miranda rights?) And these are the good guys?
I know I’ve said this too much already but: disturbing.