Buzz speaks out
On propaganda, lies and public diplomacy
Dear Charlotte Beers, Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy:
What a remarkable title you can put on the old shingle these days. Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy is a beautiful public relations handle. It is without meaning but full of dark subtext, American hubris and forgotten history.
I was planning to give you a good dose of down-home advice on how to convince the poor and oppressed of the world that the United States is not their enemy. When I sat down, however, I started thinking about the strange purpose of your job and I ended up wondering about the differences between selling products to dutiful U.S. consumers and convincing the world the U.S. is here to help by killing all those who resort to violence against the American way.
So far, all you have done is give official blessing to the Rewards for Justice pay-a-snitch program and run Wanted: Dead or Alive posters for Osama Bin Laden in 30 countries. Yet, there must be a reason why, in a city full of spin doctors and CIA information operatives, the Bush gang decided that your Madison Avenue expertise in selling instant rice was needed to win America’s newest fight for the hearts and souls of its enemies.
At least, that’s where I was when my wife Mitzy popped in and asked why my two-rye letter had turned into three ryes and no letter. When I explained I was lost in thought over how someone can shift from selling product to selling a country, she scolded me for having the memory of a steer. According to Mitzy, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel, you just have to rebuild the information, misinformation and propaganda apparatus that helped the great Ronald Reagan single-handedly destroy the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc communism.
She certainly has a point. In all the extra money being spent on the war against terrorism, what’s a billion dollars to hire lots of folk to go out and monitor the world’s media and respond and refute all the lies and stereotypes being perpetrated about Americans? Better yet, put a fellah on every street corner to set straight any anti-American rumours as well.
A crazy idea, perhaps, but that is the point where things always get strange for me. I have been told many times that public diplomacy isn’t propaganda – it’s about avoiding the local media and national governments to speak directly to the people in other countries so that you can use the shining light of truth to dispel the evil lies they have been told about America. What about the good lies, such as everyone in America is rich and equal? Will the light of truth be used against them?
Don’t worry, I already know the answer to that question. I have to admit to having trouble differentiating between the strategic use of the truth and propaganda. I also have a hard time telling the difference between advertising-marketing and brainwashing, but that’s just my good United Church upbringing coming out again.
I don’t know how wanted posters and snitch-on-a-terrorist programs fit in with the-truth-will-show-you-the-way rhetoric of public diplomacy, but I do know that neither will win the war. It is one thing to sell a vision of wealth and democracy to godless communists. It is a whole different ball game to sell it to a religious culture with a strong set of values that has forged its metal against the Western heathens for 1,200 years.
I understand that you have spent time in focus groups with American and European Muslims to help craft your message. I’ll be blunt: it will not help. You have to start with a good hard look at the messages and images that America’s beloved entertainment industry exports to the rest of the world and understand how those images will undermine all the hard work of your public diplomatic corps. Most of the terrible lies about America come from within, not from foreign media or governments.
The U.S. entertainment industry may be able to turn Americans into an apathetic and malleable population open to the subtle ministrations of your Madison Avenue colleagues, but it can paint an ugly – at times offensive – picture of American life. All the enemy has to do is say that America is all you see on television and worse, and you have lost the war.
As much as your president and a few of his men would love to fix this problem with a good dose of moral fibre, the industry is too valuable to be harmed. After all, it’s one of the few industries the government doesn’t have to protect with punitive trade tariffs these days. The truth hurts sometimes, doesn’t it?
Don’t let the truth get in the way of good fight,
Buzz Angus
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