The Marketing Technology Blog

Doug,

I don’t think it’s the Democrats who have made this about the Iraq war, how do u think bush won in 2004. he’s been riding that since it started.
Of course politics on both sides are saying what they think it will take to get elected.

@douglas: … but the reason why we tell the story over and over is to try to change peoples’ perceptions.

It may be the reason we do it, but at least in business, it is generally not effective. What is effective is to use advertising to either insert a new belief where no belief previously existed, or far more effective, to reinforce an existing belief which keeping the brand top of mind. And noted marketing expert Al Ries agrees with me on this (or more truthfully, I learned it from reading his books.

@douglas: I’m being honest when I say that I’m simply amazed at how effectively the Democratic party has made this election about the Iraq War, when Bill Clinton himself signed the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998.

Sigh. I being honest when I say I’m continually amazed at how so called “independents” (who are in truth right leaning) and especially “conservatives” have such a willing ability to identify retconning in the Democratic party but are blind and/or oblivious to it in the Republican party!!

For every example of a Democratic rewriting history, I can find at least 1 equivalent from the Republican party. This is especially true for the past 8 years given how the Republican’s strategy for winning a majority was to polarize and divide the country and energize their base. And since they ruled the land from 2001 through 2007 with a majority in both the White House and Congress there was no inter-party oversight, itself a damnable occurence. Republican’s during that period felt it was better to unite against and demonize the Democrats, because it brought them short-lived power than it was to actually work with those in the other party to look out for the best interest of the American people.

Truth be told, both Democrats and Republicans are both of the same species; move any one of the across the align and they’d be no different. Demonizing one side as you did simply demeans you and sullies the otherwise excellent reputation you have been building on your blog.

What’s even more incredulous to me than the Democrat’s retconning is how those on the right continue to defend the war in Iraq while at the same time complaining bitterly about taxes! No time in history have we fought a war and lowered taxes! The money spend on the war, invested wisely over that same period, would have established the USA as the continued leader in education, research and development, innovation, infrastructure, and caring for the health of its people and ensured the USA lead the world in all aspects for decades to come. Instead one-party rule with an unwillingness to question the value of proscecuting a war in Iraq has brought the USA financial hardships for what will likely be decades to come and may possibly end up financially bankrupting our country. Yet the hawks always fail to acknowledge that as if, like religion, huge miltary budgets are sacred and use of miltary is beyond question or oversight.

I listened to a podcast on negotiations where a Stanford Graduate professor spoke about how people who make bad decisions are far more likely to continue making bad decisions to justify their prior bad decisions rather than to acknowledge their mistakes and move to correct them. She described the psychology of it being that those who have committed sunken costs are far less risk averse with future potential loss in order to justify their prior failed actions, and she was describing this with examples in bad decision making across the board, not just related to any specific war.

It’s very clear to me that the combination of the intense division in the country architected by Karl Rove et. al. resulted in bitter debate over going to war with strong supporters on both sides leading the US to be a country half filled with people who staunchly supported the war and thus it was effectively as if it were their own bad decision. Now rather than acknowledge that the war was a mistake their subconscious defense mechanisms kick in and they circle the wagons; anything else and they would have to acknowledge to themselves the unmitigated disaster that was this war.

Minimally it has been financially disasterous but beyond that it has created a devastating loss of life (for Iraqi civilians, if not our own soldiers); given many Arabs and Muslims reason to choose terrorism over pursuing personal and national prosperity; resulted in what is now a failed state in a volitile region; strengthened a country with lots of oil, allies who are not our best friends, and strong anti-American sentiment in the ruling class (Iran); has destroyed our reputation for holding the moral high ground among the rest of the world (you know, the other 95% of the world’s population), and has continued to divide people in this country when we need more than anything else to stop being divisive and come together as a nation (united we stand, divided we fall…)

Eric Hoffer described in his 1951 book titled The True Believer how one of the most effective ways for leaders to cement blind loyalty in followers (i.e. a head of state cementing nationalism in citizens) is to get them to be complicit in horrific acts, and the more horrific the acts the more blind the loyalty becomes. Most people believe themselves to be good so for them to live with themselves after supporting horrific acts they have to justify the actions resulted in good. Yet the reality is there is almost never good vs. evil and the more horrific the act the more horrific the follow on acts until something external interjects to stop it. During this Iraq war the US has killed somewhere between 75,000 and 300,000 Iraq civilians; as Stalin said “One death is a tragedy; a million are a statistic.” Today we are just totally desensitized to their losses and many of us continue to beat the drum that “It was all worth it.” Yeah, tell that to the remaining family members of Iraqis who lose their love ones. Let’s contrast their loss of life to the around 3000 for the Trade Towers. How can we even in good faith compare and still view ourselves as the good guys? The pyschology of the rationalizing mind.

Listen, I’m not anti-war, I’m just anti-stupidity and given the number of counter-arguments for the war from people who were well-respected (until they had their character’s assasinated because they spoke out against the war in Iraq), it was just plain stupid to go to war with Iraq. But what was 10 times more stupid was not to plan for reconstruction then what was 100 times more stupid was to put party loyalists rather than techocrats in charge of rebuilding. STUPID, STUPID, STUPID, and anything short of a close-minded adherence to The Fox Network as one’s exclusive news source reveals that to be so. Had the war planning process been lead by rational-minded apolitical people we’d have never chosen to go into Iraq but instead it was dominated by divisive political rhetoric by those with veiled and still unknown agendas who were arguably enabling if not directly participating in war profiteering. And to not even be willing to consider that the justifications for war might have been severely inappropriate is nothing more than willful ignorance, but then there is that psychology thing I mentioned. Because of that psychology thing that disables those who made huge mistakes from acknowledging them and changing course, and the bigger the mistake the harder it is to admit it, we have to continue pumping money and lives into this huge mistake in Iraq until those who come to power had no part in the decision to enter into the war. Only then can we start to reverse this tragic course and begin to heal as a nation.

Unfortunately there are still be those who can’t get beyond this “Democrats/Republicans disingenous” thing (pointed reference intended) that we won’t heal anywhere nearly as quickly as we might otherwise.

Whew, now that I’ve got that off my chest I feel much better. For a couple hours, at least.

I love the quote Gary Player used to always offer about how to be successful in golf … “have short memory”. To be in politics is to have amnesia. How do you position around what seems like a mistake in hindsight? Very tough to do with credibility.

One of my recent blog posts was about the Authenticity Election so I realize how difficult it is to talk politics in a business blog. But the point is awfully compelling isn’t it? Do you think its any coincidence that the two candidates that look like they’ll be left standing (Obama and McCain) were authentic on this issue. They never changed positions even when it looked convenient to do so.

The rest of this stuff will get very clouded depending on your political mindset but I did find the above insightful and even a bit funny. I’m sure you could do the same on Repulicans but isn’t that really what folks are getting tired of. Leadership isn’t about taking a poll and making suring your current position will be popular with the most folks. It’s about identifying real problems that exist and being committed to solving them.

Phil

Unfortunately, the ‘Democrat vs. Republican’ debate (in my opinion anyway) is being used to keep America divided, and as the line says “divided we fall”. In today’s society, it seems to me completely ridiculous (and somewhat archaic) to say I am one or the other.

We, as a nation, are no longer isolated from the rest of the world. With this in mind, the political structure of yesterday doesn’t seem to fit today’s needs. Many of the decisions made in this country have a global reach, and I don’t think the citizens of (insert country here) care whether a Democrat or Republican made the decision to either help or harm them.