Perception Management

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Consider, for example, the remarks that public relations consultant John Rendon — who, during the past decade, has worked extensively on Iraq for the Pentagon and the CIA — made on February 29, 1996, before an audience of cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy.

“I am not a national security strategist or a military tactician,” Rendon said. “I am a politician, and a person who uses communication to meet public policy or corporate policy objectives. In fact, I am an information warrior and a perception manager.” He reminded the Air Force cadets that when victorious troops rolled into Kuwait City at the end of the first war in the Persian Gulf, they were greeted by hundreds of Kuwaitis waving small American flags. The scene, flashed around the world on television screens, sent the message that U.S. Marines were being welcomed in Kuwait as liberating heroes.

“Did you ever stop to wonder,” Rendon asked, “how the people of Kuwait City, after being held hostage for seven long and painful months, were able to get hand-held American, and for that matter, the flags of other coalition countries?” He paused for effect. “Well, you now know the answer. That was one of my jobs then.”

Propaganda is all-encompassing when it comes to war, of course. The trick is to try to recognize when you’re being fed facts, and when you’re being fed propaganda. The above article is excerpted and adapted from Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush’s War on Iraq, which looks to be very interesting, and worth picking up.

(via Tom Tomorrow)

To Mr. Brendan Steinhauser

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When weighing the benefits and the drawbacks of the PATRIOT Act, it is clear to most Americans that preventing future acts of terrorism is much more important than trying not to offend Muslims in this country. American Muslims should see it as their patriotic duty to undergo more intense scrutiny than the average American. It only makes sense to do so if we are serious about combating terrorism. Turning away from the fact that an organization made up entirely of Muslims seeks our destruction is a fatal error in judgement.

Americans should not deny jobs or services to American Muslims, but we should not pretend that there are not hundreds in this country that are plotting to destroy us. Let’s not let our feelings get in the way of doing what is right for our protection. Following the course advocated by liberals like Ms. Isensee will only make us more susceptible to attack.

I don’t care how you justify or rationalize your racism, it’s still racism. It’s still ugly, small-minded, and disgusting, and it has no place in a country filled with people who would like to be able to say the words “land of the free, home of the brave” without bitter irony.

(via Atrios)

Bush in Seattle

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The day before Dean’s appearance here, our esteemed leader (cough) will be here. Information on planned protest rallys can be found at Action Alert and Stop Bush Seattle, but here’s the pertinent information:

Saturday, August 23rd\
Seattle waterfront, 12 noon

100,000 of us will come together in Seattle for a peaceful and joyful celebration of our numbers and our power. We will gather for an afternoon to strengthen and steady each other in our determination to be rid of this blight. The bully has to go.

Where: Myrtle Edwards park. 12 noon: Rally. 1pm: Loop march southbound on Alaskan Way to Madison St. and back to park. Speaking: William Rivers Pitt, of TruthOut.org. Why: A swaggering bully shows up in our neighborhood. We know his rep, and we know his plans. So, do we duck our heads and hope he picks on someone else? Or do we rouse the neighborhood and back this bully down? George Bush says he is coming on August 22, 2003. There is not a more arrogant and dangerous bully on the face of the earth.

There’s a strong chance I’ll be at this one, too.

(via Jon and natasha)

Dean in Seattle

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Howard Dean will be here in Seattle in a couple weeks. From Washington for Dean:

Join thousands of Washingtonians in welcoming Howard Dean and his “People-Powered Howard Sleepless Summer Tour” to Seattle for a PUBLIC RALLY on Sunday, August 24th, at 6:30 PM at Westlake Center, 4th and Pine, in Seattle. Doors open at 5:30 PM.

I’ll be there!

I was the height of fashion, I tell you

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Me and Minh, my RA at CTY in Claremont, CA

Dori Smith mentioned today that her son Sean just returned from a session of CTY. CTY is a program for Jr. High “…students whose SAT I scores place them in the top one-half of one percent of their age mates.” I was accepted when I was in 7^th^ grade after taking the SAT, through the recommendation of my PACT (Program for the Academically and Creatively Talented) teacher, and went to summer CTY sessions for three years running.

The first year Royce and I both went to a session in Claremont, California (where the picture attached to this post was taken — thanks go to Royce for sending that particular little bit of embarassing history my way — I actually remember that shirt, too, those are little mother-of-pearl snaps instead of buttons…ugh…), and the following two years I went to sessions somewhere in Pennsylvania. They were a lot of fun, too. The CTY sessions are a few weeks long each, and are combinations of summer camp and summer school (summer camp for geeks, I guess). The first year I took Spanish (which I remember precisely nothing of), and the next two years were writing classes.

The best thing those summer sessions did for me, though, was to get me into an environment where I wasn’t ridiculed because I was smarter than your average bear. All of a sudden, I wasn’t the oddball — instead, I was surrounded by other people who had some of the same interests I did, who laughed at the same jokes I did, who knew as much Star Trek as I did (and were equally apprehensive about this new “Next Generation” of Star Trek that was being talked about — a blind pilot? A kid on the bridge? And a bald captain? Oh, come on!?!). Some of them even probably shared my impeccable fashion sense! And most importantly, they allowed me to start the long, long process of coming into my own, and discovering that I had a personality of my own. It was many years afterwards before I was fully able to realize that potential, but had it not been for the open and accepting atmosphere of the CTY program and the possibilities that it opened up to me, I may never have broken out of my shell at all.

It’s a great program, and if you ever have a child who has the chance to participate, it’s a wonderful experience that they really shouldn’t have to miss out on.

Cameras in classrooms

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When students in Biloxi, Miss., show up this morning for the first day of the new school year, a virtual army of digital cameras will be recording every minute of every lesson in every classroom.

Hundreds of Internet-wired video cameras will keep rolling all year long, in the hope that they’ll deter crime and general misbehavior among the district’s 6,300 students — and teachers.

You know, I’m honestly not sure what I think of this. On the one hand, the “Big Brother” aspect of constant video surveillance creeps me out, in a big way. On the other hand, when used effectively, I could see there being some really strong advantages to the technology.

The USA Today article about this is actually surprisingly good, too (is USA Today getting better? I’ve always seen them as the ‘lowest common denominator’ of news. Anyway…).

“It helps honest people be more honest,” says district Superintendent Larry Drawdy, who, along with principals and security officers, can use a password to view classrooms from any computer. In an emergency, police also can tune in.

This is one of the quotes that creeps me out, and I think it’s entirely the wrong attitude to take. If you’re planning on using the cameras to supervise the teachers or students, then just admit it — but trying to put a false positive spin through ridiculous statements like this just raises my hackles. I like to think that I’m a fairly honest person, but a camera isn’t going to help me be more honest. It’s not going to encourage me to be less honest, either. It’s just there, and a mild annoyance.

Though Biloxi’s camera system hasn’t captured serious crimes, Drawdy says it has “prevented a lot of things from happening”…

Another ridiculously empty statment. What has it prevented? Well, we don’t know, because we prevented it. But if the cameras weren’t there, it would have been hell! I swear it! Ugh. I don’t suppose Drawdy learned his PR skills from the Bush administration’s WMD search?

Webcams have popped up in a few Defense Department schools on U.S. military bases, allowing soldiers deployed overseas to look in on their children’s classrooms and even chat via two-way setups. Teachers in London are calling for Webcams in every classroom so parents can see children’s behavior from home.

This is another aspect that gives me the willies. Aren’t kids ever allowed to be out of the eyes of their parents? How are children ever supposed to learn how to interact with each other, with other adults, with the world in general, if they’re not allowed to do so on their own? Today’s society seems so absurdly obsessed with constantly micro-managing every last little aspect of their children’s lives (from cameras in classrooms to playgrounds that, while harmless, are also uniformly bland and boring) that kids don’t ever have a chance to be kids anymore. Sure, they’re going to screw up, get a few bruises, butt heads, and be little shits every so often. But they’re kids. That’s the point. They’ve got to learn, and they’ve got to have some freedom in order to do that.

“I’m there to work; I’m there to do my job,” says R. Scott Page, an earth science and photography teacher at Hanford High School in Richland, Wash. “I don’t have a problem with somebody seeing that I’m doing my job.”

Page, a former biology teacher, granted open access to anyone who wanted to view his classroom, no password required. He says families tuned in regularly and loved it. “You could see if the kid was wearing the same thing they left the house in that morning.”

Page often focused the camera on lab experiments so he and students could monitor them over the weekend. Students would log on when they were home sick, sending messages with questions.

“Any way that you can increase communication between home and school, you’re going to help students,” Page says. “That’s what it’s all about.”

Most of what this teacher has to say I like. I’m put off by the suggestion on checking up on the kid’s clothing, but the rest of it is exactly what I think could be good about the availability of classroom cameras. Rather than just shoving the camera in a corner to be an ever-present watchful eye, he incorporated them into his teaching. Monitoring experiments over the weekend from home, letting students who are home sick participate virtually via webcam and IM — these are excellent examples of how to use technology in teaching.

All in all, I guess that’s a lot more cons than pros, isn’t it? Maybe I’m not so undecided on how I feel about this, though I’m not quite ready to commit to a solid stance. I guess it would come down to how any particular administration and teacher dealt with the technology. If it’s simply a Big Brother-style surveillance system, I have serious issues with it. But if a teacher can use the technology to the advantage of the class, that I can support.

Unfortunately, that may be an uncomfortably big “if”.

(via /.)

So subtle

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The 4th Infantry Division said it had launched a new mission, Operation Ivy Lightning, to hunt Saddam loyalists it believed had fled to isolated villages east of Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit to escape repeated U.S. raids. “Ivy Lightning is a surgical strike in remote towns…to isolate and capture non-compliant forces and former regime loyalists who are planning attacks against Coalition forces,” Lt. Col. William MacDonald told reporters in Tikrit. He said the operation was focusing on the area around Qara Tappa, around 80 miles north of Baghdad.

Operation Ivy Lightening, huh? Gee, I’m so glad that we keep getting assured that this war had nothing to do with oil.

(via Atrios)

TypePad User Forums

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Raymond has created a bulletin-board style TypePad User Forum for tips, tricks, questions, and general discussion of TypePad. If you’re a TypePad user, I encourage you to head on over and join in, it looks to be a good resource.

Please remember this is not the official endorsed group of SixApart and that if you have bug reports you should file them with TypePad so that they can be resolved. This group is a good place for discussion, ideas, promotion, meeting other TypePad users, tips and more.