The New York Times has a report on the administration’s consideration of explicit deception to combat terrorism, even if it includes lieing to the more general public:

Pentagon Weighs Use of Deception in a Broad Arena

Regardless of the obvious short sitedness of having an institutional lieing policy (“We cry wolf.”), there are some reminders here of the Republican administration’s ongoing desire to “sell” democracy and American ideals around the world.

Administration officials say they are increasingly troubled that a nation that can so successfully market its cars and colas around the world, even to foreigners hostile to American policies, is failing to sell its democratic ideals, even as the insurgents they are battling are spreading falsehoods over mass media outlets like the Arab news satellite channel Al Jazeera.

This goes back a few years now, to when Bush made some high level apointments of ex-PR industry people to try and advertise Americanism around the world. I can’t imagine how this could possibly work, so much so that I’m suprised that some people think it can. I think it reflects the idea that democracy and capitalism are pretty much the same thing. That idea was explicity laid out in the National Security Strategy, wherein suprisingly frank language suggested that democracy was a symptom of capatilism. With that as official policy, I guess it makes some strange sense to sell democracy with the the tools of capitilism.

But democracy is not a material good, and American democractic ideals are not a brand. They are actions and processes. You can sell stuff, and modern branding theory has it that you best sell stuff by selling ideas, but that doesn’t mean you can sell democracy by selling ideas. If democracy is just an idea, and the idea emanates from people who have encoded policys of lieing, then why in the world would you buy it? There are more fun things to put on a tshirt. This administration sees democracy as a tool to pacify enemies, an abstract notion that can opiate, but it’s not and it won’t work as such.

People take up democracy because it does things, it is good beneficial action and process. If you want to sell democracy, the way to do it is to have real democracy. It will work, democracy does work, that’s why it’s good, that’s why we like it. When it does, the results will speak for themselves, as they have been.

Democracy requires truth to function. If decisions are made by people generally, and government hordes truth and spreads lies, then good decision can’t be made. Integrity of government is a necessary precursor for democracy. The current administration doesn’t seem to really believe in or understand democracy, so maybe it’s not suprising that they are trying to “sell” democracy at the same time as they are deliberately undermining the government’s integrity.

Further reading:

Lie To Us