Musings, perspectives, rants

I've read how the US has tried to improve its image through branding, employing Charlotte Beers, a commercial advertiser, as if selling the US was as easy as selling Uncle Ben's rice.  What the US fails to understand is that no matter what sort of image they try to portray through the media, the facts speak for themselves, and those who are fortunate enough not to live there can see for themselves objectively just what effect US foreign policy has had on the rest of the world.

You cannot brand a government as if it's a packet of food.  Author Naomi Klein noted that aggressive branding ensures corporate monologue not social dialogue and when governments try to implement global image consistency

"they can look distinctly authoritarian.  It's no coincidence that the political leaders most preoccupied with branding themselves and their parties were also allergic to democracy and diversity.  Historically, this has been the ugly flipside of politicians striving for consistency of brand: centralised information, state-controlled media, re-education camps, purging of dissidents and much worse."

America is Not a Hamburger, 2002

Opinion of the US by anyone who is not American, is influenced more by what the US does, than by anything it can say.  Naturally there are those in the west who believe anything they see on TV, but you will not sway those in the Middle East to accept American 'democracy' when you keep on bombing them and giving those bombs to Israel.