Gyroscope

A newsletter for those unmoved by spin.
No. 5, Aug 25, 2003

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We're back after a week off due to business travel.

In the August 14th New York Times there was a story about Wal-Mart (page C1). They are aware that their image is suffering. Accused of destroying small towns, discriminating against women, using part time workers to avoid paying benefits, fighting unionization, the world's largest company has been getting a bad press.

So Wal-Mart executives are going to take action to address this problem. What are they going to do? Are they going to start working with communities instead of deceiving them about their plans? No. Are they going to launch a project to promote more women to management? No. Well, are they going to assemble facts and figures to fight what they see as false statements about their business and attempt to show that things are different than their image? No, they are not going to do that either.

So what action are they taking? They are going to run some television commercials with actors in Wal-Mart uniforms saying what a great place it is to work.

In the entire article there was not one word suggesting either that the accusations were false, or that Wal-Mart accepted them and were going to change. None.

This illustrates what public debate has come to: it is no longer an attempt to decide who is telling the truth, or who has a better case. It is only about competing marketing campaigns.

Scientific evidence not going the way the Administration wants? Just remove the evidence from web sites and the voices from advisory panels. Is the pay cut to our troops a sign that the Administration does not support our troops? Well, run the clip of Bush on the aircraft carrier surrounded by happy soldiers one more time. Even the number of soldiers dying is subject to being spun: by not counting non-combantant deaths, the Administration can lower the visible cost. About 130 Americans have been killed in Iraq since the now famous declaration by Bush on May 2nd that major combat was over. The lower figures you hear on the media count only direct combat deaths. Even the NYT editorial quoted opposite suggested the total as 56 deaths, counting only direct combat.

Truth, logic, argument, debate, facts, evidence. Are we really prepared to surrender these as shared values?

"Japan Press reporter Kazutaka Sato, 47, was beaten by U.S. soldiers while photographing civilian damage caused by a U.S. raid in Baghdad's Mansur district Sunday, according to Sato's colleague, Mika Yamamoto, who was on the scene."
-- Japan Press, quoted in Media Whores

"The Pentagon wants to cut the pay of its 148,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, who are already contending with guerrilla-style attacks, homesickness and 120-degree-plus heat.

Unless Congress and President Bush take quick action when Congress returns after Labor Day, the uniformed Americans in Iraq and the 9,000 in Afghanistan will lose a pay increase approved last April of $75 a month in "imminent danger pay" and $150 a month in "family separation allowances."

The Defense Department supports the cuts, saying its budget can't sustain the higher payments amid a host of other priorities."
-- Edward Epstein, San Francisco Chronicle, quoted in Atlanta Journal

Reporting on complaints that the Bush administration has caused agencies to suppress scientific evidence that did not support desired policy... "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention deleted from its Web site all information about condom use and condoms' effectiveness in preventing sexually transmitted infections. Reports on global warming issued by the EPA warning of the risks of climate change were suppressed.

... [The Administration] dropped three national experts in lead poisoning from the Advisory Committee on Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention and appointed replacements who had ties to the lead industry.
-- Charles Levendosky, from the Capser Star-Tribune, Wyoming, quoted in the International Herald Tribune, Aug. 20.

"In Iraq today, American soldiers die, electricity shortage lead to rioting, and the threat of terrorism against civilians must be taken increasingly seriously."
-- Editorial, New York Times, Aug. 14th.

"Apologies are not something we have within military processes"
-- Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, quoted in The Economist, Aug 9th, p.37.

I had the Christian Children's Fund on my list for this good news section. This is an organization that provides both direct aid to individual children and to the schools and other institutions that support children in many poor countries around the world. The means for that support is linking donors to individual, specific kids and providing updates on their progress and insights to their world. I've supported two kids in the 15 plus years that I have been contributing and have enjoyed and learned from the school reports, personal letters and other correspondence. I've been challenged to write to "my daughter" in a way that explains my life to someone who regards clean water as a luxury.

A few days after the truck bombing that killed the outstanding public servant Sergio Vieira de Mello, I received this e-mail from CCF that said in part:

It is with deep regret that Christian Children’s Fund (CCF) announces that an aid worker for the Richmond-based international child charity was among those killed in yesterday’s truck bombing of the UN headquarters in Iraq. The CCF worker is identified as Gillian (Jill) M. Clark, 47, of Toronto, Canada.

Another CCF worker, David W. Brown of Richmond, Virginia was seriously injured in the blast and is being medi-vaced from Baghdad to a hospital in Kuwait City.

Clark and Brown were attending an interagency meeting for non-governmental organizations at UN headquarters at the time of the bombing.

Clark, a long time child protection worker, was in Iraq for CCF, conducting an assessment of the needs of children in Baghdad as part of a UNICEF-funded study. Clark had been working with a CCF team in Iraq since May as an emergency specialist on contract. She has worked in child protection and emergency support for 15 years, and previously worked with Save the Children, International Rescue Committee and Oxfam. Clark is a graduate of the University of Guelph in Canada.

Brown, CCF’s Financial Systems Implementation Manager, had joined the team in Iraq just this week to review CCF’s operations in-country. Brown, 41, has been working for CCF since November 2001. He is a resident of Henrico County where he lives with his wife and three children.

[ CCF Vice President Betty J. Forbes said ] “We also want to extend our thoughts to the family of our Iraqi driver, Omar Kahtan Al Orfali, who is missing and presumed dead.”

CCF is one of four non-governmental organizations in Iraq, conducting the UNICEF–funded assessment on the humanitarian needs of children as a result of the war. CCF has been serving as a key technical advisor for the assessment and focused its efforts on the children in the Baghdad area. Other non-governmental organizations were conducting the assessment in other parts of Iraq. The purpose of the assessment is to provide a national perspective on the situation facing children, identify key child protection issues and promote children’s psychological well-being following the war.