http://www.newscorpse.com/ncWP/?p=529Enlisting Madison Avenue Or Drafting Joseph Goebbels
Filed under: General, Propaganda — Mark @ 5:56 pm
The Washington Post has published an article describing the Rand Corporation’s new study: Enlisting Madison Avenue: The Marketing Approach to Earning Popular Support in Theaters of Operation.
The conclusions of this study, which was commissioned (for $400,000) by the Pentagon, are both frighteningly obvious and just plain frightening. Their most profound observation appears to be that the U.S. presence in Iraq would have been better received if we had delivered cookies and milk instead of a torrent of bombs. We would have a more harmonious relationship with the locals if we weren’t kicking in their doors or shooting them at checkpoints.
What I’d like to know is where I can receive a commission from the Pentagon, because I could have told them this and I’d have done it for $200,000 (half-off offer for a limited time only).
The frightening part is that Rand analysts seem to think that the only shortcoming of U.S. planners in Iraq is that they failed to properly “brand” their “product.” Perhaps with the right logo and a catchy jingle we would now be perceived as liberators as we were promised by our leaders in Washington. The report also refers to Iraqi civilians as “consumers.” However, I’m not sure that the Iraqi people ever actually chose to shop with us.
The whole thing smacks of an advocacy of the sort propaganda pioneered by Edward Bernays and peddled by Joseph Goebbels (among others). This report manages to both trivialize the real human tragedy that our aggression in Iraq represents, as well as promote a solution that seeks to manipulate the victims rather than to redress and repair the damage done.
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