From Rob to Leo:
> >Polls are better seen, I would suggest, as one symptom of what is a general
> >movement toward the 'market' model of politics. The voter is conceived no
> >longer as the active citizen, the political subject, but now as the passive
> >consumer in the marketplace of political choices. Polling is a key
>expression
> >-- and a means of penetration -- of that model.
>
>Wonderful 'act', mate. This is *exactly* what polls are about (Habermas
>used to be very good on this) - as is the drive to get all this
>'convergence' we're hearing about to occur through our television sets -
>the reduction of the Net into e-commerce - the tendency of policy debates
>to be highly technicalised before they even get allowed out of mahogany
>hall - the push to express all creatures and matters in purely
>economic/quantified ways - the Hill & Knowlton strategy to ridicule
>opposition as uninformed and childish - and, of course - the discursive
>identity of citizen and consumer. All of that stuff is objectively
>happening and it's objectively against our interests. And to mention it
>and oppose it are objective acts.
It's one thing to mention it (LBO-talkers like to mention polls & analyze them to death); it's another thing to oppose it.
The American mass media have been quite up front about the amount of money, polling & other technocratic services, etc. offered by America in foreign countries' elections (most recently in Yugoslavia, but the same must have happened in every important election abroad whose process & outcome the U.S. government wanted to shape). So, every LBO-talker, as well as all thinking leftists, must know about this fact, and we must have subjectively "opposed" it. What of objective oppositions, though?
Hill & Knowlton & other public relations firms have shaped the public opinions about the Gulf War, the Yugoslav affairs, etc. This fact has been exposed by many leftists, so we know it & have subjectively "opposed" it. Where are objective oppositions? Nearly non-existent. How do we build oppositions to it?
"The first statement counts, and the retractions have no effect," said James Harff, director of Ruder & Finn Global Public Affairs. And that is exactly what happened in the creation of public opinions about who is the enemy to be vanquished by NATO. In fact, the ruling ideas, in service of the ruling class, always make the first statement, and critics become compelled to fight on the ideological terms defined by the ruling ideas ("The Soviet Union/North Korea/Cuba/Vietcongs/Allende/Libya/Nicaragua/Noriega/Iraq/Serbia/FARC/ Etc. is our enemy").
***** Books
Les verites Yougoslaves ne sont pas toutes bonnes a dire
Yugoslav truths are not all good for telling
Jacques Merlino
Published by: Albin Michel, Paris, 1993, pp. 127-129 Language: French
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mr. Jacques Merlino a leading journalist of the TV chain France 2
...Part of the answer is provided by a REVEALING INTERVIEW by Mr. James Harff (director of Ruder & Finn Global Public Affairs) given to Mr. Jacques Merlino in paris in October 1993. Ruder & Finn are public relations company, currently registered as foreign agents. Here are Harff's statements, slightly abbridged....
Harrf: For 18 months, we have been working for the Republics of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as for the opposition in Kosovo. Throughout this period, we had many successes, giving us a formidable international image. We intend to make advantage of this and develop commercial agreements with these countries. Speed is vital, because items favourable to us must be settled in public opinion. THE FIRST STATEMENT COUNTS. The retractions have no effect.
Question: What are your methods of operation?
Harff: The essential tools in our work are a card file, a computer, and a fax. The card file contains a few hundred names of journalists, politicians, academicians, and representatives of humanitarian organizations. The computer goes through the card files according to correlated subjects, coming up with very effective targets.
The computer is tied into a fax. In this way, we can disseminate information in a few minutes to those we think will react (positively). Our job is to assure that the arguments for our side will be the first to be expressed.
Question: How often do you intervene?
Harff: Quantity is not important. You have to intervene at the right time with the right person... ...
Question: What achievement were you most proud of?
Harff: To have managed to put Jewish opinion on our side. This was a sensitive matter, as the dossier was dangerous looked from this angle. President Tidjman was very careless in his book "Wastelands of Historical Reality". Reading this writtings, one could accuse him of of anti-semitism.
In Bosnia, the situation was no better: President Izetbegovic strongly supported the creation of a fundamentalist Islamic state in his book "The Islamic Declaration". Besides, the Croatian and Bosnian past was marked by a real and cruel anti-semitism. Tens of thousands of Jews perished in Croatian camps. So there was every reason for intellectuals and Jewish organizations to be hostile towards the Croats and Bosnians. Our chalenge was to reverse this attitude. And we succeded masterfully.
At the beginning of August 1992, the New York Newsday came out with the affair of (Serb) concentration camps. We jumped at the opportunity immediately. We outwitted three big Jewish organizations - B'Nai Brith Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Committee, and the American Jewish Congress. We suggested to them to publish an advertisement in the New York Times and to organize demonstrations outside the U.N.
This was a tremendous coup. When the Jewish organizations entered the game on the side of the (Muslim) Bosnians, we could promptly equate the Serbs with the Nazis in the public mind.
Nobody understood what was happening in Yugoslavia. The great majority of Americans were probably asking themselves in which African country Bosnia was situated. But, by a single move, we were able to present a simple story of good guys and bad guys, which would hereafter play itself.
We won by targeting Jewish audience. Almost immediately there was a clear change of language in the press, with the use of words with high emotional content, such as "ethnic cleansing", "concentration camps", etc. which evoked images of Nazi Germany and the gas chambers of Auschwitz. The emotional charge was so powerful that nobody could go against it.
Question: But when you did all of this, you had no proof that what you said was true. You only had the article in Newsday!
Harff: Our work is not to verify information. We are not equipped for that. Our work is to accelerate the circulation of information favorable to us, to aim at judiciously chosen targets. We did not confirm the existence of death camps in Bosnia, we just made it known that Newsday affirmed it.
Question: Are you aware that you took on a grave responsibility?
Harff: We are professionals. We had a job to do and we did it. WE ARE NOT PAID TO BE MORAL....
<http://www.suc.org/~kosta/tar/knjige/book-yugoslav_truths_are_not_goo d_to_be_told.html> *****
Yoshie