by Sheldon Rampton References to Pearl Harbor prevailed during the first days following the terrorist attacks of September 11. President Bush joined a chain of pundits and government officials in warning that the "war on terrorism" would be prolonged and difficult like World War II and would require similar sacrifices. Whatever those sacrifices may entail, however, the public relations industry is determined to ensure that they do not include wartime frugality.
"PR Needed to Keep Consumers Spending," proclaimed a headline in O'Dwyer's PR Online on September 24. It cited marketing and PR executive Maureen Lippe's opinion that the "greatest service PR pros can provide in support of the country is to ensure that the consumer continues to buy."
The world's largest public relations firms all have offices in New York and Washington, D.C., and their employees felt the same shock, horror and confusion as the rest of the country when airplanes slammed into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. Public relations pros joined other volunteers in disaster relief efforts and in raising money for assisting the survivors. America's home-grown propaganda machine nearly ground to a halt for several days as PR firms advised their clients to hold off for awhile on product launches, news releases and story pitches to reporters.
Terrorism, however, is more than violence. It is also the ultimate publicity stunt, and it did not take long before advertising and PR executives began to look for ways to use it as the ultimate news hook. Advertisers are using flags and patriotic imagery to sell everything from women's fashions to cigarettes and fast food. Think tanks, lobbyists and Bush administration are using the terrorism as a pretext to justify their long-standing shopping list of bad ideas and corporate welfare measures:
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The early wisdom, according to O'Dwyer's editor Kevin McCauley, was that the September 11 attacks had killed President Bush's Star Wars missile defense plan. "A missile defense system -- even if it overcame the technical obstacles which have so far proved insurmountable, after billions spent -- would have done nothing to stop the September 11 attack," McCauley observed. "Nor would it do anything to stop any other conceivable terrorist attack on the United States, none of which might involve missile delivery systems." Just six days after the attack, however, O'Dwyer's reported that defense contractor Boeing had hired Interpublic's Powell Tate PR firm to build support for the $8.3 billion plan, which "now has gotten new life in aftermath of the terror attacks. ... Some Democrats, who had opposed Star Wars due to technical and budgetary reasons, do not want to oppose Bush during this national time of crisis."
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"US lawmakers are finally moving the return of the three-martini lunch ... to the front of the national agenda," PR Week reported with glee on October 15. "Unsure whether the best way to help their country is to offer pro bono work or to send hefty checks to relief agencies, flacks may put themselves to good use by revisiting their glory days, and by being the first to the trough," it joked. "To encourage consumers to spend, spend, spend, Congressional budget-crafting wizards are moving to allow taxpayers to deduct 100% of the cost of a business meal, removing a 1993 restriction that made such meals only 50% tax deductible. ... The motive for the return to government-assisted gluttony is to help the troubled restaurant and hotel industry, and to ease the general business tax burden."
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U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick used the September 11 tragedy to call for fast-track negotiating authority to help President Bush expand the North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA) into a Free Trade Area of the Americas. "Trade is about more than economic efficiency," he wrote in the Washington Post. "It promotes the values at the heart of this protracted struggle." In a September 24 speech before the Institute for International Economics, Zoellick went further, laying the groundwork for a new McCarthyism aimed at anti-globalization dissidents. "Terrorists hate the ideas America has championed around the world," he said. "It is inevitable that people will wonder if there are intellectual connections with others who have turned to violence to attack international finance, globalization and the United States."
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The National Taxpayers Union called for a capital gains tax cut -- a tax break that exclusively benefits the wealthy. "By reducing the rate at which capital gains are taxed, President Bush and Congress could help revitalize the sagging economy and bring new revenues to Washington -- decidedly aiding our war against terrorism," said NTU director of congressional relations Eric Schlecht.
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The Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) used the terror attacks as a pretext to demand that the U.S. Supreme Court override a Clinton Administration decision blocking drilling for oil and natural gas in Montana. "The terrible tragedy of exactly one month ago and the uncertainty as to the reliability of foreign supplies make clear the importance of the United States developing its domestic natural resources," said William Perry Pendley of Mountain States Legal Foundation, which represents the IPAA.
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The San Diego-based SureBeam Corporation took the opportunity to promote its food irradiation technology as a way to kill anthrax -- even though it would take years and untold millions, if not billions, to install irradiation equipment in post offices throughout the United States. Worse yet, "SureBeam has made these claims without any supporting scientific evidence that the company's 'electron-beam' irradiation equipment is capable of killing the anthrax bacteria or its spores," observed a Public Citizen news release. "In fact, radiation is ineffective against anthrax spores, called 'endospores,' which are surrounded by numerous thick layers of material including protein and calcium."
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The Cato Institute, a libertarian, corporate-funded think tank in Washington, DC, used September 11 as a cue to carry water for the gun lobby, going so far as to argue that the terrorism problem on airlines could be improved by allowing passengers to carry guns. "Law-enforcement officers can't be everywhere, but an armed, trained citizenry can be," stated a Cato news release. "That's why pilots, flight attendants and even trained passengers should be allowed to carry arms on board aircraft if they want to." According to Cato staffer Robert Levy, "Armed civilians can deter crime. Armed civilians can mean safer planes, shopping malls, schools, and other public places."
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Even the board of directors of the Pacifica radio network attempted to play the terrorist card as they faced public criticism from Pacifica's audience and fired former employees. Charged by critics with engineering a political purge, the board was accused of plunging the Pacifica Foundation into a financial crisis as it faced mounting bills from lawyers and PR firms. Responding to charges of mismanagement, Pacifica vice chairman Ken Ford characterized critics as "zealots," adding, "I see parallels between this group and al Qaeda, the terrorists who bombed New York. They have an innate anger towards society as a whole." (Ford's remarks prompted massive protests from Pacifica listeners, leading to his resignation on October 31, 2001.)
Environmentalists Silenced
These examples of spin-doctoring in the wake of disaster merely continue the public relations rhetoric that was common prior to September 11, with "fighting terrorism" inserted as the new cause of the day. But while corporate lobbyists have returned quickly to business as usual, environmentalists and other activist groups are still struggling to rediscover their voice.
The Sierra Club, America's oldest environmental organization, responded to September 11 with a unilateral ceasefire in its battles against the Bush Administration's anti-environmental policies. "In response to the attacks on America," stated a Sierra Club memorandum, "we are shifting our communications strategy for the immediate future. We have taken all of our ads off of the air; halted our phone banks; removed any material from the web that people could perceive as anti-Bush, and we are taking other steps to prevent the Sierra Club from being perceived as controversial during this crisis. For now we are going to stop aggressively pushing our agenda and will cease bashing President Bush."
In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, Kimberley Strassel, a features editor at the Wall Street Journal, proclaimed with satisfaction that the attacks had pulled the rug out from under "America's liberal activist groups -- the environmental radicals, the animal-rights protesters, the archfeminists and the antiglobalization protestors. The indulgent world in which these groups had operated collapsed on Sept. 11. Most found themselves floundering for a message and scratching for funds; all are facing the realization that a decade of shenanigans may be over."
Environmental groups are worried that the public policy agenda has been radically altered so that environmental issues will have a hard time receiving even passing attention. Topics such as energy conservation have been noticeably missing from public discussions of strategies needed for America to achieve energy self-reliance. Patriotism and self-sacrifice may be the rhetoric of the day, but apparently self-sacrifice cannot be allowed to include giving up gas-guzzling SUVs.
Conservative commentator Michael Fumento coined the term "tampon terrorism" to attack women's groups that have raised concern about dioxin in chlorine-bleached tampons. At Reason magazine, tobacco industry apologist Jacob Sullum has used the term "tobacco terror."
In fact, the Bush administration's energy plan, based on fossil fuels and nuclear energy, makes America more vulnerable to terrorist attack than decentralized, environmentally sustainable energy sources such as wind power or rooftop solar energy systems. Russian security services have already warned the United States that the next terrorist target will likely be a nuclear reactor. Most nuclear reactors have been designed to withstand the crash of only a small aircraft. The crash of a jumbo jet like the ones that slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon could release a deadly cloud of radioactivity that could cover a region the size of Pennsylvania.
As Derrick Jackson observed in the Boston Globe, "It is more than a bit ironic that we are at war in a region of the world where the politics of oil lay barely beneath the surface yet we insist on driving ourselves to our lowest fuel efficiency in 20 years. In its annual report on what cars get in miles per gallon of gasoline, the Environmental Protection Agency revealed that this nation, despite all its ancillary angst over having to make friends with undemocratic Islamic regimes of the Middle East in the hunt for Osama bin Laden, has chosen dependency over sacrifice. Our addiction to sport utility vehicles has dropped the efficiency of America's fleet of passenger cars to 24 miles per gallon, nearly 2 miles per gallon less than in 1988. The percentage of oil that we import has reached an all-time high of 54 percent. Two thirds of our oil consumption goes toward transportation. Americans now burn up 4 million imported barrels of oil a day. The bill for that oil is $2 billion a day."
Meanwhile, conservative think tanks such as the National Center for Policy Analysis have used the terrorist attacks as a pretext to renew calls for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, arguing that drilling in Alaska would "reduce our dependence on oil from distant lands. ... It is time to choose: our national security, or marginally protecting sea birds and otters."
"There is no doubt that at this time of national emergency, an expedited energy-security bill must be considered," said Alaska Senator Frank Murkowski in a call to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. "Opening ANWR will be a central element in finally reducing this country's dangerous overdependence on unstable foreign sources of energy," he said.
You, Too, May Be a Terrorist
Even before September 11, corporate spin doctors were engaged in an ongoing effort to demonize environmentalists and other activist groups by associating them with terrorism. One striking indicator of this misguided preoccupation with environmentalists is the fact that Colorado Rep. Scott McInnis had scheduled congressional hearings on "eco-terrorism" to be held on September 12, one day after Congress itself was nearly destroyed in an attack by
real terrorists. (The September 11 attacks forced McInnis to temporarily postpone his plans, rescheduling his hearings until February.)
As early as 1991, a leaked memo from the Ketchum PR firm outlined contingency plans to protect the image of Clorox by launching an ad campaign with the slogan, "Stop Environmental Terrorism." Ron Arnold's Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise has been tossing around the term "eco-terrorism" for years, defining it as "any crime committed in the name of saving nature," which "includes but is not limited to crimes officially designated as 'terrorism' by the Federal Bureau of Investigation." Arnold's definition of "eco-terrorism" is so broad that it even includes activities such as sit-ins, trespassing and other forms of peaceful civil disobedience.
Elizabeth Whelan at the industry-funded American Council on Science and Health also uses the word "terror" to stigmatize activist groups. In her book, Toxic Terror: the Truth Behind the Cancer Scare, she attacks what she calls "the bad news syndrome" regarding pesticides and chemical contaminations of food and the environment. She has also coined the phrase "mouse terrorism" to ridicule animal tests used to assess product safety, calling such tests a "philosophy of 'mouse terrorism,' which sees a human health threat in any substance that causes cancer in rodents at extremely high doses."
Michael Fumento, another prolific conservative commentator, coined the term "tampon terrorism" to attack women's groups that have raised concern about dioxin in chlorine-bleached tampons. At Reason magazine, tobacco industry apologist Jacob Sullum has used the term "tobacco terror."
Eric Dezenhall of the Nichols-Dezenhall PR firm refers to people who spread hostile rumors about his clients as "cyberterrorists" and advocates an aggressive strategy of attacking corporate critics. "Despite its sexy sheen, the real power of animal rights remains in terror," Dezenhall stated in his 1999 book, Nail 'em! Confronting High-Profile Attacks on Celebrities and Businesses. In a section of the book titled "Victims Groups as Cultural Terrorists," Dezenhall lashed out at "attackers ... who use nonviolent terror to accomplish their goals." What is "nonviolent terror"? Dezenhall was referring to "organized 'Multiple Chemical Sensitivity' (MCS) activists" who "intimidate doctors and research institutions that won't diagnose MCS and other boutique disabilities."
Sam Waltz, the former chairman of the Public Relations Society of America, has coined the term "ethical terrorism." Waltz, who served in Vietnam-era army counterintelligence before going to work as a public relations executive for DuPont, uses the term "to describe the actions of those who raise questions about the motivation and integrity of an individual, company, or other entity, in order to gain the upper hand."
Beware of Grannies in Tennis Shoes
Self-proclaimed "junk science" critic Steven Milloy has routinely used the label of terrorist to attack environmental groups and even scientists who raise concerns about health and environmental problems. In June 2001, he used the terms "taco terrorism" and "biotechnology terrorists" to describe anti-biotech groups who publicized the fact that Taco Bell taco shells contained genetically-engineered Starlink corn, which has not been approved for human consumption. That same month, Milloy joined other conservative commentators at a conference titled "Environmental Extremism and Eco-Terrorism: The Costs Imposed on Americans," sponsored by the Frontiers of Freedom Institute. "Eco-terrorists have corrupted our laws with junk science," he said in reference to the Environmental Protection Agency and scientists involved in the study of endocrine-disrupting chemicals.
Speaking at the same conference, Edward Badolato of the Counterterrorism and Security Education and Research Foundation used an even broader definition of terrorism. The "northwest corner of the United States," he said, was full of "different types of weirdos and environmental wackos, as some people call them -- some of whom are involved in these terrible acts of domestic terrorism. With that in mind, it is important to note that in the past we were worried because terrorists around the world were just a plane ride away. Now it could be that nice little college kid down the street with that nice grandmother in tennis shoes, who may be part of or financially supporting one of these radical groups involved directly or indirectly in domestic eco-radical terrorism."
R.J. Smith of the Competitive Enterprise Institute also spoke at the conference and argued that terrorism was ingrained in the philosophy of the environmental movement. "Instead of believing, as do traditional conservationists, that man and nature are part of the same nexus, and that the trick was to get the incentives right, they view man as somehow being alien in nature, a threat to the natural order," Smith said. "That is why one hears environmentalists saying man is a cancer on the planet, a sort of invading virus that needs to be eliminated. This is a philosophical stream that runs through the leadership of most of the environmental organizations in America today."
Just four days before the terrorist airplane attacks, KREM TV reporter Jeff Humphrey in Spokane, Washington published a report titled, "Cracking Down on Eco-Terrorism" in which he noted that Washington Congressman George Nethercutt "is even talking about the death penalty as punishment" for "eco-terrorists who kill their victims."
With this kind of rhetoric running rampant in conservative circles, it is not surprising that Republican Congressman Don Young of Alaska responded to the September 11 attacks by speculating publicly that environmental wackos might be the real killers. "If you watched what happened [at past protests] in Genoa, in Italy, and even in Seattle, there's some expertise in that field," Young said. "I'm not sure they're that dedicated but eco-terrorists -- which are really based in Seattle -- there's a strong possibility that could be one of the groups."
The day following the September 11 attacks, the "Reagan Information Interchange," a website run by Ronald Reagan's son Michael, published an analysis by Mary Mostert, who opined that Osama bin Laden was "just a minor player" in the terror attacks. "Supporters of bin Laden say he doesn't have the ability to pull off such an attack," Mostert argued. "Who would want to, and could, destroy the World Trade Center? Does bin Laden have the ability to orchestrate the hijacking of four domestic airliners at about the same time from several airports and pilot them into the middle of the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. from his bat cave headquarters deep in the mountains of Afghanistan?"
Instead of foreigners, Mostert argued, the culprits would probably be "other Americans" -- specifically, "environmentalist and anti-globalist groups ... the radicals on the left" who were planning to protest economic globalization during upcoming meetings in Washington of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. "It sure looks to me as if the 'Battle of Washington' was begun yesterday with the bombing of the Pentagon and the World Trade Center," she wrote. "In a world with a population of 8 billion people, 100,000 well trained, dedicated terrorists with the technical ability and the money to plan, coordinate and execute an attack like we saw yesterday can make a lot of trouble, especially when they are pictured in a supportive media as mere 'protestors' and the police are labeled as the monsters."
Even after it became clear that Islamist fundamentalists were behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, conservative attacks have continued. Tom Randall of the National Center for Public Policy Research used the September 11 attacks as a pretext for demanding action to stop "domestic terrorists" such as the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). "While these terrorists are small-time compared to the terrorists who struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and are not known to have killed anyone as yet, they appear to be intent on expanding their violence and putting American lives at risk," Randall wrote.
On October 7, the Washington Times published an editorial calling for "war against eco-terrorists," describing ELF and ALF as "key links in the web of violent environmental groups -- an eco-al-Qaeda" with "a fanatical ideology and a twisted morality."
Even the Center for Media & Democracy, which sponsors PR Watch, has come under attack. The Guest Choice Network, a PR front group for steakhouses and taverns, used the terror attacks as a cue to weigh in based on the fact that PR Watch editors Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber wrote a book in 1997 titled Mad Cow USA: Could the Nightmare Happen Here?"At home in the United States as well, extremist violence is funded--sometimes unwittingly--by dollars from 'peaceful' foundations and other nonprofits," stated an article on the Guest Choice website. "The John Merck Fund and the Turner Foundation fund the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), which promotes the scare that 'mad cow' disease is present in the U.S. food supply. ... Words deployed with the intention of causing panic are a form of violence, too. The 'mad cow' scare campaign in the United States is intended to frighten consumers to avoid the conventional meat supply and 'go organic.'"
Editor's note: The Guest Choice Network is notoriously sloppy with its facts, and this is a case in point. CMD has indeed received a grant from the Turner Foundation, but to date we have received no funding from the John Merck Fund.
