| Number 171 | September 13, 2002 |
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This Week:
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Greetings, I sincerely hope that all of you took good care this week, the one-year anniversary of the horrendous attacks on September 11th, 2001. Whether your particular emotional response is a result of the attacks themselves, or a result of our government's response to those attacks, it doesn't matter. These are scary times. As always, the best response to political depression is to hook up with other, kindred spirits and get active! Not only will you save your sanity, you may save some lives as well. Warning! Warning! I am developing a large backlog of unpublished articles, and long-time readers know what that means: I may have to subject you to a double-length issue in the near future. Or, maybe a Nygaard Notes "Extra," which I haven't done for a long time. Or, maybe they are all just destined for the recycling bin. Who knows? We'll soon see what the coming weeks will bring. (You think I know? You must be a new reader.) The three main pieces this week are meant to go together, and are really sort of an "introduction" to next week's essay on Deep Propaganda. By "Deep Propaganda" I mean the propaganda that is not written or spoken out loud, but just assumed to be "common sense." I'll have a lot more to say about this next week. Also next week, unless I am too embarrassed to publish them, you should see a couple of ridiculous political limericks. This is what the Minnesota State Fair does to me. Stay tuned. Nygaard |
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Why would anyone think that we need an advertising campaign to sell Freedom to United Statesians? Well, apparently the Ad Council, a product of many of the nation's largest corporations, thinks just that. A report in the New York Times ("All the News That's Fit to Print") of July 1st reported that the Ad Council has cranked up an ad campaign "to help the country fight the war on terrorism." The so-called "Campaign for Freedom" has the tagline "Freedom. Appreciate it. Cherish it. Protect it." The first round of ads appeared around the Fourth of July, and I've already started seeing the second round; full-page ads appeared in the Times this week. In addition to the Times and other newspapers, the "Campaign for Freedom" ads have run on CBS, ABC, Fox, Bravo, Discovery, Lifetime, and VH1. The full campaign is expected to cost about $3 million, not including the cost of the donated ad spaces. The Times report appeared in a Business Section article entitled "Group Returns to Wartime Mission," referring to the 1942 founding of the Ad Council, which ostensibly was to support the war effort. (More likely the intention was to put a happy face on the advertising industry.) Peggy Conlon, the president of the Ad Council, says that "Americans are looking for messages that will inform, involve, and inspire them during the war on terrorism." This is "according to research," the nature of which is not explained. (Marketing research, we assume? "Tell us, Ms. Consumer, now that we have been attacked by terrorists, would you, or would you not, prefer that your commercials include pictures of American flags?") Protect It, Whatever It Is "Freedom was a theme that resonated," continued Ms. Conlon. She added that "Freedom is our strength. However, freedom is also at risk." Despite the fact that "The campaign wasn't designed to define what freedom is," Ms. Conlon stressed that the Campaign for Freedom recognizes that "it is every American's responsibility to protect" it. I suspect that it is exactly the point of these ads to "protect" freedom—but not just any old freedom. The full-page Times ad this week features a large photo of a tattered U.S. flag, with the words: "READ THIS AD. Or, Don't. An exercise in freedom." I've been discussing the idea of "freedom" in these pages for many months now, and one thing that is clear is that there are many different kinds of "freedom." Consider that the simple "freedom" to direct one's attention in one direction or another, as celebrated in the Ad Council ad, is universally shared by all human beings, regardless of constitutional protections. What political system, after all, deprives one of the ability to close one's eyes? So, what is the Ad Council really selling here? They are selling the idea that "we" are all in this together, sharing the same freedoms and working together to protect them. It's a peculiar American brand of Individualism run amok, in which the "freedom" to place a $90,000 ad (that's roughly the price of a full-page ad in the Times on a weekday; it's more on Sunday) is equated with the freedom to ignore it. These are two very different types of "freedom." And that's why we're seeing an ad campaign like this. It's not needed to sell "freedom," for heaven's sake. People are lined up around the block to buy that product! No, the "Campaign for Freedom" is needed to sell us on the idea that our public airwaves, our information media, and other would-be-public spaces, are for sale to the highest bidder. And, further, that the right to own and control all of these spaces is some sort of constitutionally-protected "right" that is dear to all of us, rich and poor alike. I doubt that the Ad Council and I agree on much, but I'll bet we would agree that this retrograde, Libertarian brand of "freedom" is a pretty tough sell to the majority of United Statesians. But, then, these are marketing professionals. They can sell anything. Selling the above "product" may or may not be a conscious goal of the "Campaign for Freedom." They are selling, first of all, the idea that ads are good things, sources of information and inspiration—Ads are our friends. This message is brought to you, after all, by the "Ad Council." |
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Fundamental to the War Against Terrorism (the WAT?!) are the twin concepts of "we/us" and "they/them." The entire idea of "national security" is built around the idea of keeping "us" (or something that people can be convinced is "us") safe from someone who the public can be convinced is "them." This might take some convincing, as a recent poll shows that about half of all United Statesians believe that "what I think doesn't count very much any more" (49% as of December, down from 68% before 9/11). Doesn't count to whom? Not us, pal. Still, all of the bumper stickers one sees lately, and the speeches by political leaders, and the daily news reports, start with the premise that there is something called the "United States of America," all of the citizens of which are "us." And, depending on the historical era, there is always some sort of "them" that poses a threat to "us." These days it's terrorists. It used to be Communists, and before that anarchists, and before that Socialists, and...well, you get the idea.. Of course, any identifiable minority can always be held up as a domestic "them," and the native-born, Christian, European, heterosexual (etc) "majority" can be taught to see enemies around every corner. This (mythical) WASP majority are expected to vote their fears, and they generally do. I most recently discussed this "us/them" business in Nygaard Notes #165 ("Fully Cognizant of the Threats"). In that essay I explained how elite U.S. planners, when speaking among themselves, have no illusions about this nation being indivisible and united. In fact, they spend a great deal of energy figuring out how "they" (U.S. elites) can convince "us" (the general public) that we should do what they want. Privately, in other words, they assume a divergence of interests within the "unified" United States—between "us" and "them," that is—while publicly talking about "national unity" and "pulling together." When I used to train organizations in group process and decision-making, we had a little inside joke which said that the easiest way to come to consensus is for everyone to agree...with me! That old joke isn't too funny when you recall our Attorney General's words from last winter (a recent NN "Quote" of the Week): "[T]o those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies and pause to America's friends." In other words, "we" have decided on a national "consensus," so shut up and agree with "us." The beauty of the WAT?! is that "terrorists" can be anywhere and everywhere—just like Communists!—so public fear is easy to invoke and manipulate, the political usefulness of which is evident. Propaganda generates fear, fear makes the propaganda believable, and so the cycle goes. |
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I have attempted, on occasion, to drive at the speed limit in Minneapolis, and in each case I quickly became a sort of lonely turtle amidst my fellow four-wheeled hares (and hostile hares, at that). The lesson? Since most people seem to like to drive faster than "the law" allows, then to hell with the law! Now, consider orange juice. Some years ago, when I was in the retail grocery business, there was a controversy concerning the use of the word "fresh." It seems that there was no official definition governing the use of the word "fresh," so Minute Maid, among others, had taken to calling their frozen orange juice "Fresh." Now, most people know that something that is frozen is not "Fresh," but these are the kinds of controversies that constantly arise in the marketing world. One of the news networks at the time—I think it was ABC—did a survey to determine how important this issue was to consumers. They went around to grocery stores all over the country and asked people if the use of the word "fresh" influenced their choice of orange juice brands. Much to the surprise of the survey conductors, the majority of people volunteered a response along the lines of, "I don't really believe anything that's on any label, since I know they'll say anything to get me to buy the product. So it doesn't really matter what's on the label." In other words, most consumers assume that the people who sell them things routinely lie to them, and stopped believing them long ago. This is more evidence that United Statesians are not as stupid as we look, but—and this is crucial—people still need to buy orange juice from somebody. What the freeway story and the O.J. story illustrate is that, in the absence of a general belief in the justice and desirability of a given law, that law will generally not be enforced. Our political leadership (and everyone else) knows that, and knows it well. Keep that in mind as we look at the response of Mr. Bush and the U.S. Congress to the wave of corporate scandals that has recently been the subject of so much attention. Some executives and auditors have been caught lying and stealing—in essence—so the response of our political leaders is to make lying and stealing illegal. But doesn't everyone expect them to lie and steal? I think they do. Nevertheless, our political leadership's determination to pass "tough new laws" has been the subject of innumerable news reports and analyses in the mainstream media. I'll wager that the corporate types who would be the subject of these actions, as well as the corporate types who are making the laws (a.k.a. the President and the Congress) are well aware of what every freeway driver knows: It doesn't matter what the laws are if nobody wants them or expects them to be enforced. And, when it comes to laws that might meaningfully limit the power of corporations, nobody in power wants them (since that would limit their power), and the rest of us don't expect them to be enforced. In the July 25th New York Times ("All the News That's Fit to Print"), in an article entitled "White House Moves to Limit Corporate Scandals' Fallout," we read that "the White House has made few changes in its economic agenda." To the casual reader, this must seem a little odd. I mean, if these scandals are so huge, shouldn't the "economic agenda" be modified at least a little? Nygaard Notes readers however, having read the previous paragraph, wouldn't have been surprised to read that. Nor would they have been surprised to read the Washington Post of September 7th, in which it was reported that "Congress has all but abandoned" any attempt to enact "tougher accounting standards." The Post noted that "the anger that pushed [proposals to strengthen business accountability laws] past corporate opponents this summer has faded, allowing businesses to regain their strength on Capitol Hill." Here we go again: the public's righteous anger "fades" before anything happens. Analysts like to blame the public; we are accused of being apathetic, lazy, possessed of short memories, or otherwise lacking. I think it's a little more interesting than that. I think I see here the mark of what I like to call Deep Propaganda. I'll explain what I mean by this mysterious term in next week's Nygaard Notes. |