ZGram - 11/15/2002 - "The Selling of America" - Part I
irimland@zundelsite.org
irimland@zundelsite.org
Tue, 12 Nov 2002 11:38:01 -0800
ZGRAM - Where Truth is Destiny
November 15, 2002
Good Morning from the Zundelsite:
Today and tomorrow, we run a two-part ZGram titled "Propaganda War:
One Year Later" or, alternately, "The Selling of America", based on
an interview by "Guerrilla News Network" (GNN) with author Dr. Nancy
Snow.
[START]
The Selling of America
Shortly after 9-11, GNN asked Dr. Nancy Snow, author of Propaganda,
Inc.: Selling America's Culture to the World, to explain how the U.S.
propaganda machine really works. Dr. Snow, a former cultural officer
with the United States Information Agency, should know. She worked in
the belly of the beast.
Since our last conversation, the war of words and images has
intensified, with Osama's jihad tapes and American music videos going
head to head in a battle royale for the hearts and minds of the world.
Now Dr. Snow has just published the 2nd edition of Propaganda, Inc.
(Seven Stories Press, 2002) and a forthcoming second book,
Information War: American Propaganda, Opinion Control and Free Speech
Since 9/11 (Seven Stories Press, 2003).
In this Two-part interview, she shares thoughts on how the propaganda
war has played out since that dark September day.
GNN: Tell me about your second book?
DR. NANCY SNOW: I've just completed Information War: American
Propaganda, Opinion Control and Free Speech Since 9/11 (Seven Stories
Press, 2003). It's a collection of writings that document some of
the highlights (and lowlights) of the post-September 11th media and
mind manipulation environment, things like the propaganda priming in
America and the world that took place prior to dropping bombs in
Afghanistan, what makes Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld such a
natural propagandist for the hardliners in the Bush Administration,
and the work of the propaganda CEO and former Madison Avenue maven
Charlotte Beers at the State Department who is known as the "queen of
branding" and whose most challenging client is improving Uncle Sam's
image in the war on terrorism.
Naturally, I also include the here today/gone tomorrow Office of
Strategic Influence (OSI) that seems to have morphed into the less
ominous sounding Office of Global Communications that was announced
in late July and is expected to be "up and running" by fall 2002.
Just what this new office will do exactly is hard to say. On the
surface it seems to be just government duplication of what the State
Department is supposed to be doing on behalf of the American people,
namely public diplomacy, or attempting to overcome the "why do they
hate us?" perplexity inherent to U.S. economic and military
projection around the world. At a deeper level, the Office of Global
Communications seems to be a way for the Bush White House to control
information that doesn't jibe with the "softer sell" position at
State. The State Department is known as pushing diplomacy to the nth
degree while this current White House is pushing a more aggressive
preemptive strike position in foreign policy.
I also address the language of the New War-how the Bush people seem
to be caught in a cycle of naming and then renaming things, going
back to the President's linguistic misstep of calling the war on
terrorism a "crusade" against the Islamic Taliban that was soon
dropped in favor of our standard war rhetoric-good fighting evil-to
Operation Infinite Justice that was quickly dropped in favor of
Operation Enduring Freedom.
GNN: The question of propaganda has become a major part of this war
on terrorism; what makes it different than any other aspect?
DR. NANCY SNOW: The propaganda war is the most integrated part of
the New War; it's the part of the war on terrorism that is probably
the most hidden from view but the most pervasive. I like to say that
we're the fish and propaganda is the water. We're in a
surround-sound of language and image control. Think about how
quickly the administration declared a WAR on terrorism. Once war is
declared, debate is done. President Bush called on all good citizens
and soldiers to do their duty and defend the homeland. This is why
Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA) was referred to as the "lone
dissenter" in Congress when she very judiciously could not issue a
blank check to the administration to carry out the War on Terrorism
(WOT) however it seems fit, a vote that by the way was taken just 48
hours after September 11. She was honoring the U.S. Constitution and
its system of checks and balances before the freewheeling whims of an
executive run amuck. She should have been applauded and heralded for
her conservative and cautious approach to the use of power and force
in response to the attacks of September 11th but instead she was
called a traitor and un-American.
GNN: Does the United States own a copyright on the word freedom?
You'd almost think so by how often it's batted around like a tennis
ball. Why isn't the American press challenging these empty
statements?
DR. NANCY SNOW: Un-American is a favorite name-calling device for
someone to use to target someone with whom you vehemently disagree.
It conjures up old Redbaiting devices that stifle free speech and
dissent from the status quo or conventional wisdom on public issues.
It creates a chilling effect on people to stop testing the waters of
our democratic right to question the motives of our government. This
is what I mean about the propaganda environment we encompass. We're
deluged with name-calling devices, glittering generalities like
"freedom" and "democracy" that we all hold close to our hearts-they
are the warm and fuzzy buzz words that are said to separate us from
our enemies. Remember President Bush being asked about why they
attacked us? He said, "They hate freedom." What exactly is that
supposed to mean? How can the top elected official of the wealthiest
and arguably most powerful nation on earth get away with these
50-cent responses? Does the United States own a copyright on the
word freedom? You'd almost think so by how often it's batted around
like a tennis ball. Why isn't the American press challenging these
empty statements? We're so conditioned as a public to accept the
surface answer to so much of what our institutions in power state
that we're at the point of a media mental illness.
GNN: What are some of the new propaganda methods that the Bush
Administration has employed?
DR. NANCY SNOW: New York Times reporter Victoria de Grazia published
a piece weeks ago called "The Selling of America, Bush Style," in
which she lays out some of the programs in place, including a new
$520 million Congressional appropriation to focus on "disaffected
populations" in the Middle East and South Asia and the establishment
of a 24-hour Arabic language satellite news network called Radio Sawa
(together). Charlotte Beers at the State Department is undertaking
the biggest PR effort in the history of U.S. foreign policy that will
use traditional public relations and marketing techniques like focus
groups, market research, and video projects about Muslim Americans to
show the U.S. to the world as a tolerant and open society. Beers has
said that she will use one of the "best practices" of modern
advertising-a strong emphasis on the emotional with the rational, but
from what I understand about modern American advertising techniques,
the emotional wins out. Do we really think that the detergent
companies or rice manufacturers like Uncle Ben's wants us to think
critically about our consumer staples? I think they simply want us
to buy their product over their competitors.
What's so fascinating about all these PR efforts is how reconstituted
they appear. The United States has a one hundred year history of
marrying commerce with politics and tapping public relations to
"brand" America abroad. Woodrow Wilson had his George Creel and the
Committee on Public Information to sell WWI to Americans and overseas
audiences. Wilson himself told the International Congress of
Salesmanship to "go out and sell goods that will make the world more
comfortable and more happy and convert them to the principles of
America." That was in 1916. Is today all that much different? No,
not really, but it's more intensified now because we have the
technology age to aid the efforts to brand and we have the
unpredictable dark cloud of that catch-all new enemy, terrorism,
magnifying our efforts.
[END OF PART I]
TOMORROW: CONCLUSION
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