Readers' Comments

I have worked in public relations for 20 years and it never ceases to amaze me how many stupid, naive, misinformed people are still breathing out there. In an ideal world, there would be no wars, no poverty, no jealousy, no haves and have-nots, no philosophical differences; the whole world would just get along. It would be perfect, but it is never going to happen. All the social conditioning and political correctness in the world is never going to override millions of years of genetic human instinct; namely fear, greed, and survival of the fittest. Mr Rials is correct. People want security, but they don’t want to know how it is delivered. In another example, people want to purchase their steak and chicken at a reasonable price, but they don’t want to see the growing conditions or killing process that puts the meat on their dinner plate. They want to send their Hallmark birthday cards, but they don’t want to see forests being cleared. Corporations and governments are easy targets for criticism, yet we all still buy food, send cards, and expect to live peacefully in our secure leafy suburbs. Governments do what they have to do to ensure the armchair idealists who have an opinion on everything but have no clue about anything, can drive their cars to the supermarket, buy the food they want to eat, as they sit in front of their flat-screen televisions in either air conditioned or centrally heated comfort. Sure things go wrong from time to time and we don’t need these always-right-in-hindsight idiots stirring up the other idiots. They are like monkeys in a tree; one starts screeching, so they all start screeching – regardless of the fact that there really is nothing worth screeching about. There would be no need for any PR campaigns at all if the 80 percent of the people in western countries simply got up off their arses and educated themselves about an issue instead of relying on a right or left leaning media for their daily dose of the ‘truth as they want it to be.’ If I could rely on the majority to be able to see a balance in any argument or government initiative, I would not need to ‘sell’ an alternative point of view to critics of an idea. No legitimate companies or organisations, I repeat, no legitimate companies or organisations hold meetings with an agenda item that says – how do we screw the consumer. Even with the best intensions, sometimes things go wrong, or an outcome occurs that was not anticipated. These are mistakes and everyone makes them. I hate to break it to the idealists reading this, but there is never going to be a risk-free endeavour. If a bus hits a person, as he or she crosses the road, do we say we are going to take all the busses off the roads so it never happens again? No. Of course we don’t. In a war or security environment, innocent people are sometimes affected. This, unfortunately, is the price we have to pay. Sir Winston Churchill summed it up best of all when he said that the truth is so precious, it must be protected by a bodyguard of lies.