Public Relations: Manipulation replaces Authority — asadi.org

Muhammed Asadi: Public Relations: Manipulation replaces Authority — asadi.org: "Public Relations: Manipulation replaces Authority
Tuesday 27th September 2005, by Muhammed Asadi



KAREN Hughes, the public face of the Bush Presidential Campaign (in 2000), was sworn in as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy recently. The president explained during the swearing in ceremony that Hughes is being appointed to explain 'our policies and fundamental values' to people around the world, specifically to the Arab and Muslim world (Bush names aide to sell US image). Before embarking on this huge task, Ms. Hughes would do well to begin at home. Recent polls suggest that not only are people around the world weary of the policies pursued by this American administration, its own citizens are beginning to show discontent and are questioning its 'values and policies'.

The recent Hurricane Katrina disaster has not helped the government either, as revealed by the latest Pew poll (September 8, 2005) numbers. Many now question the delayed, impersonal response of an administration that had been reminding them since 9/11, through multi-colored codes and alert-levels, that their safety was the government’s number one priority. Americans, in large numbers, for possibly the first time ever, are wondering whether their government actually cares about them or merely feigns concern for ulterior motives (USA TODAY) and this AP-Ipsos Poll. They are also beginning to understand how foreigners feel about American ’values and policies’ after they’ve witnessed first hand the destruction of an entire city due to the misplaced ’values’ and neglect of its decision makers. People around the world have suffered the destruction of countless cities as a direct result of the American war machine and its ’values’ of sanctioning the powerless.

We can understand the structural context in support of which Hughes was hired to proselytize Arabs and Muslims with, in light of these quotes by C. Wright Mills:

“...the dogmas by which these (‘values and policies’) are legitimated are so widely accepted that no counter-balance of mind prevails against them...They have replaced the responsible interpretation of events with the disguise of events by a maze of public relations...” (C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite 1956: 356)

“Those in authority within institutions and social structures attempt to justify their rule by linking it, as if it were a necessary consequence, with moral symbols, sacred emblems, or legal formulae which are widely believed and deeply internalized (by the masses). These central conceptions may refer to a god or gods, “the votes of the majority”, (“freedom”, “democracy”)... or the alleged extraordinary endowment of the person of the ruler himself. Various thinkers have used different terms to refer to this phenomena: Mosca’s “political formula” or “great superstition”, Locke’s “principal of sovereignty”,Sorel’s “ruling myth”,Weber’s “legitimations”, Durkheim’s “collective representations”, Marx’s “dominant ideas”...Mannheim’s “ideology”, Herbert Spencer’s “public sentiments” (Gramsci’s “hegemony”) all point to the central place of master symbols in social analysis.” (Hans Gerth & C. Wright Mills, Character & Social Structure, 1964:277)

Karen Hughes is the latest attempt by this elite to "disguise events by a maze of public relations", as C. Wright Mills put it; we hope that people everywhere will recognize these attempts for what they are and not be duped by these visions of the "American Dream" that exists only in the minds of these "crackpot realists".