ZGram - 12.26/2002 - "Christmas in 'Fortress America'"

irimland@zundelsite.org irimland@zundelsite.org
Thu, 26 Dec 2002 11:07:37 -0800


ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny

December 26, 2002

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

Here is the counterpart to yesterday's ZGram telling of the costs of 
Israel's occupation to the Palestinians in the famous city of 
Bethlehem.

Now let's look at what the Israeli-Palestinian conflict costs America 
- only one of many not-so-hidden costs:

[START]

Christmas in 'Fortress America'

U.S. is losing the worldwide propaganda war

On the off chance you're not completely convinced by those 
scientifically sound and entirely accurate gauges of public opinion, 
popularly known as polls, then the bad news being reported about the 
tourism business ought to persuade you that U.S. policy planners are 
losing the international public relations war.

The Associated Press reported last week that America's $91 billion 
foreign tourism industry "is in peril because of a growing perception 
overseas that the United States has become 'Fortress America.'"

In the year following the terrorist attacks in New York, Pennsylvania 
and Washington, 66 million fewer visitors tried to enter our 
well-guarded borders. That's 66 million pockets that the tourism 
industry couldn't access.

Even if you figure only $20 from each of those foreign 
money-spenders, it amounts to 1.3 billion greenbacks a year. Granted, 
it's only 1/350 the size of the Defense Department budget, but it's 
still a lot of T-shirts and postcards we're talking here.

Imagine the shame that must be felt by our sharp and witty PR pros, 
knowing that in the global propaganda prizefight, America is losing. 
What's the world coming to?

We can sell bottled water, even label it naive spelled backwards, and 
make a profit, but we can't change the negative perceptions that 
billions of Third World residents have about the greatest country 
ever?

They've got CNN in the West Bank. There's no Arab nationalist news 
stations in my cable listings. Yours? The point is: America put the 
'me' in media and still we're losing on the PR front?

Ask any Third World kid to name a Hollywood star and I'd bet the kid 
could tick off 10 names faster than you can spell Immigration and 
Naturalization Service. But ask an avid Entertainment Tonight fan who 
the homegrown pop culture heroes are in Brazil and India and you're 
likely to be asked if you can make it a multiple choice question with 
a "lifeline" and access to the Internet.

So where did this misperception of "Fortress America" come from -- 
the threats to civil liberties in the USA Patriot Act, widespread 
anti-Arab sentiment, pre-emptive war doctrines and plans of missile 
shields notwithstanding?

More importantly, what war (metaphorically speaking, of course) can 
we initiate to set the international record straight?

Let's appoint Henry Kissinger to head a federal PR commission who 
will recommend ways we can capture the hearts and minds of "them," 
following the example set by generations of war propagandists.

You're familiar with some of their greatest hits: mangled and 
mutilated civilian corpses are called "collateral damage."

Now they've got this new phrase in circulation. The phrase? "Dual-use 
targets," which are targets marked for military destruction that are 
vital to the function of enemy armies, and just so happen to be 
essential for the survival of the civilian population, i.e. 
water-treatment facilities and electric power plants, including those 
plants that supply electricity to civilian hospitals.

To do my patriotic part in propaganda perpetuation, I offer this 
unoriginal idea. Seeing as how President Bush is reorganizing the 
federal government, creating new cabinet posts and what not, he 
should change the Defense Secretary's title back to War Secretary and 
create a cabinet position called Secretary of Peace whose mission 
would be to advance the theory and practice of nonviolence and 
supervise an all-volunteer peace brigade of some sort.

Critics will say that nonviolence only works against benevolent 
regimes. But I've got two words for them: Philippines 1986 -- when 
Ferdinand Marcos was ousted by a nonviolent revolution.

The truth is no one, to my knowledge, has done a comprehensive study 
comparing nonviolent political action with military campaigns to 
determine which has the better track record in achieving political 
objectives. Until that research has been done, denouncements of 
nonviolence are nothing more than historically ignorant guess work.

And that brings me to this week's traditional birthday celebration of 
the Prince of Peace, the father of nonviolent tactics.

Two years ago, when I was traveling throughout Israel and Palestine, 
I stood on a hillside near the Golan Heights, overlooking the Sea of 
Galilee. As I stood there taking it all in, I thought about Jesus' 
last visit to Jerusalem.

The gospel of Luke says: "And when he came near, he beheld the city, 
and wept over it, saying, 'If only you knew...the things which make 
peace! But now they are hid from your eyes. For the days shall come 
when your enemies will make a trench around you...and your children 
with you. And they shall not leave one stone unturned because you 
knew not the time of your visitation'."

Now I'm beginning to understand what No. 43's favorite political 
philosopher was talking about concerning peace-making.

Merry Christmas.

Sean Gonsalves is a Cape Cod Times staff writer and syndicated 
columnist. E-mail him at sgonsalves@capecodonline.com

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(Source:  http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=14276 )