Marketing War

by Mary Shepard, WAMM

The litany of interlocking connections between corporations, the State Department, the Pentagon, wealthy foundations, universities, and media moguls is, by now, familiar. This is the military-industrial complex of which Eisenhower warned us. Together, they have the power to trash our constitution and take away our civil liberties in the name of "the national interest." Of course, their definition of national interest is generally congruent with their own profit.

However, to maintain their power, leaders in the military-industrial complex must be constantly looking over their shoulders to see if the public at large is willing to accept their game plan. The power of an aroused people is still the greatest power of all. Is their propaganda plus censorship working?

Over time, the war against Afghanistan will become more and more difficult to sell. U.S. citizens truly want to believe that ours is a nation of generosity and compassion. We also have been taught to believe we are the champions of democracy. And we don't like bullies. The policy makers say we are fighting in self-defense. To believe this when the "enemy" is one of the poorest and most defenseless nations in the world -- one that has already been devastated by 20 years of war -- is quite a stretch.

The U.S. government has managed to persuade the governments of nations that encircle Afghanistan to close their borders to refugees. The food stockpiled by relief agencies to get Afghans through the cruel winter cannot reach them. Predictions are that as many as six million civilians who have fled their homes could die of cold and starvation. This will be an atrocity worse than even the sanctions against Iraq. How can its images be kept from U.S. citizens?

How can the people of the U.S. be continually persuaded that this is an honorable war, worth the lives of young men and women sent to fight in it? There has been no good explanation of why we are attacking the people of Afghanistan. What did these poor people have to do with the bombing of the World Trade Center? Can these people produce Osama bin Laden for us? Do we really want to capture him and, if we did, what would we do with him? A child put this latter question to the president of the British Broadcasting Company during a C-SPAN call-in program. He admitted he did not think killing bin Laden would do anything more than satisfy bin Laden's desire to be a martyr. Bin Laden's goal is to motivate grassroots Muslims to rise up against the West. U.S. bombings and assassination plots serve this goal well.

Bin Laden must be delighted that George Bush walked into his trap. There seems to be no way out of this "war against terrorism" which has no definable enemy and no goal that will tell us whether we have won or lost. Once we turned our backs on the only good solution -- sending massive humanitarian aid to the people of Afghanistan -- we lost our chance to find a way out of the mess we have made.

Dick Cheney predicts this war on terrorism will last beyond our lifetimes. Bush may have finally found an excuse for a permanent war economy, but how is he going to sustain our enthusiasm for the war while all our hard-won civil rights are whittled away and our treasury is drained? Won't we notice why our schools and our infrastructure are deteriorating? When we are told we "can't afford" decent health care or public transportation, will some begin to ask why?

It has been the media's practice to focus on stories that keep us too frightened or too distracted with other issues to ask such questions. Currently, the anthrax scare and the prospect of biological warfare is serving that purpose. But don't expect the media to remind us of the role of former President Bush in promoting biological weapons in the U.S. and selling them abroad. The media never looks back to the origins of troubles.

When government leaders choose to deceive us, all the media has to do is air their misleading statements without qualifying them with a dose of truth. The whole Western world is not, as we are told, backing our war against terrorism. Saudi Arabia is not our friendly ally but a nation of people angry with us, ruled by a corrupt family that has a history of involving our own leaders in corruption.

When the sources of information control the language, it is easy to lie, especially in this era of sound bites. The president emerges from what has obviously been an unproductive effort to enlist the aid of China and says China is backing our efforts and "we have reached consensus". We are to believe China is now our full ally when the "consensus" turns out to have been over trade matters benefiting China's elite and an agreement to disagree over everything else.

Lying, however, is not as effective as withholding information. There is quite a story to be told about the failure of vaccinations against anthrax during "Desert Storm" and about why there has been no vaccination developed since, but in press conference after press conference the question has never been raised. Are the media obeying orders not to ask or are they too dumb to see the importance of the question? We do not know.

What we do know is that this time there is all but total censorship regarding the war. With a blackout of uncensored pictures or information getting to the public, the administration hopes there will not be a repeat of the powerful effect of images of war from Vietnam. At the conclusion of Desert Storm, former President Bush said triumphantly that, at last, "we have licked the Vietnam syndrome." What he meant was that he had prevented the public from seeing the horror and suffering caused by our military and this had allowed him to pursue the war to its grisly end with the "turkey shoot" of helpless fleeing Iraqi soldiers. Dissent had been contained. Even today, we are not allowed to see the dying Iraqi children in hospitals where they cannot get clean water or the medicines they need.

On the other hand, we have had years of exposure to photos of angry-looking men in exotic turbans threatening us with knives and rifles. The media has the advantage of an audience that is ignorant about the Middle East. Our schools have done a terrible job of teaching history. "Crusade" is a benevolent word in Western culture and our conception of the 14th century Crusades is comprised by tales of gallant knights fighting what we called "infidels." Did anyone tell us what an "infidel" was? For that matter, no one yet has defined what a "terrorist" is. It's obvious that one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter.

The extraordinary willingness of the media to abide by administration strictures that obviously have nothing to do with safety issues is truly alarming. When Dan Rather says, "George Bush is the president . . . he makes the decisions . . . Wherever he wants me to line up, just tell me where," and when Rather refers to the president as his commander in chief, we are in trouble. As a civilian and a member of the free press, his responsibility is not to uphold the president. It is to protect the constitution. This enthusiastic relinquishing by reporters of their (and our) First Amendment rights is all the more astonishing given that those same rights protect the reporters from retaliation. When telling the truth, they need not fear jail or execution as in other countries that have lost their democracies.

One of the most cunning devices for obfuscation of the news is to separate facts that, if connected, would clarify what is happening to us. Local school budgets are so divorced from the whole issue of how our tax money is divided and spent, we never see the connection between the cost of a missile defense test failure and what the money spent could do for our school systems. Similarly, while we are told we are against Muslim fundamentalist violence in Iraq and Syria, we do not notice that the U.S. continues to train, supply, and use Muslim fundamentalists to dismantle Kosovo and Macedonia.
The media frames debates in such a way that the obvious solution to a problem is never considered. You are either for us or against us, says the president. Polls are conducted the same way. No alternative to the status quo is offered. The debate is narrowed to considerations such as how we can engage the enemy without U.S. casualties. Just the illusion that this is possible could explain the strange poll results.

Despite all these clever devices for manipulating public opinion, a growing grassroots peace movement is gathering strength. The media's failure to report this movement has not stemmed the movement's growth.

Meanwhile, policy makers are growing uneasy. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld recently lamented, "We need to do a better job to make sure people aren't confused as to what this is about." The media officer at the Pentagon has hired the Rendon Group, a public-relations firm famous for its work to enhance the image of such corporations as Monsanto Chemical.

Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman tells us that the White House has also solicited the help of the Advertising Council and an expert has been assigned to work on the spin. This expert's last assignment was a campaign for Uncle Ben's Rice. Since we have been given conflicting messages from the White House and the Pentagon about how the war is to be conducted, these professional persuaders may have their work cut out for them.

One of the greatest dangers we face is that under the blanket of censorship, corruption thrives. As the economy sinks under the weight of a permanent war, the temptation to seek personal advantages by those with the right connections (or the temptation to grease palms by those with money to spend) will be strong. We already see the corrupting effect on the news media as they seek to get favors from the powerful by failing to report what we need to know for fear of offending someone in power. We must resist cynicism and hold fast to the belief that we are a better people than the media think we are. This will be a testing time for all of us.

The mainstream media has been extraordinarily loyal to the script they have been given. It remains to be seen who will prevail. Will some responsible reporter finally crack? At a recent news conference held by Rumsfeld, a reporter had the temerity to ask him if he was afraid the tight censorship of war reporting would result in a loss of confidence by the public. Wouldn't they wonder what he was hiding? The question rattled Rumsfeld badly. He seemed shocked by such boldness. He responded in generalities and then refused to take any more questions. One swallow does not make a summer. But it was a hopeful sign.

Media Notes

The Pentagon has established a four-month, $397,000 contract with the Rendon Group, a public-relations firm.

Since an October 10 conference call with National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, executives at ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, and CNN have complied with her request to abridge and edit recordings from Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

The New York Times reported that a "few hundred protesters" participated in the Washington, D.C. protest on September 29. The official police estimate was 7,000.

A Minneapolis demonstration in September that drew about three hundred protesters was reported by Minnesota Public Radio to have attracted "dozens."

Dan Guthrie, a columnist for the Daily Courier in Grants Pass, Oregon, lost his job for criticizing George Bush for his slow return to Washington following the September 11 attacks.

Tom Gutting, a columnist with the Texas City Sun, also lost his job after criticizing Bush leadership and the war against Afghanistan (Gersh Kuntzman, www.msnbc.com).

Michael Powell, son of Secretary of State Colin Powell, currently serves as the chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

Media Watch Resources

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)
112 W. 27th Street
New York, NY 10001
212-633-6700 (phone)
212-727-7668 (fax)
fair@fair.org
www.fair.org

CounterSpin
FAIR's weekly radio show
Fridays, 7:00 p.m.
KFAI Radio
90.3 FM Minneapolis
106.7 FM St. Paul

Alternative Broadcast Media

National:

Democracy Now! in Exile

KFAI Radio
Weekdays
5:00 a.m.-6:00 a.m. and
12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m.
90.3 FM Minneapolis
106.7 FM St. Paul

Minneapolis Telecommunications Network
Deep Dish TV
Channel 16
Wednesdays & Fridays
2:00 p.m.-4:00 p.m.
Channel 67
Mondays
10:30 p.m.

On the Web:
www.kfai.org
www.democracynow.org
www.webactive.com

Local:

Northern Sun News
KFAI Radio
Fridays, 11:30 a.m.

Catalyst: Politics and Culture
KFAI Radio
Tuesdays, 11:00 a.m.