SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!

For those of you in my Global Communication class, I'm going to be presenting about Karen Hughes, the latest Undersecretary of Public Diplomacy to flee the White House. While she did last longer than most of her predecessors, her time in the position was rocky, to say the least. I knew that I would find some criticism of Hughes because it's impossible to be in politics and not have many enemies. However, I was very disappointed to learn about her efforts at what she called "public diplomacy."

Without giving too much away, how would you react to "listening tours" in which the audience was hand-picked to ensure complacency and appeasement so that when Hughes told a roomful of Saudi women that they should learn to drive in order to "fully participate in society," no one would laugh? Or, when the undersecretary said that Osama bin Laden killed "hundreds of thousands" in gas chambers (in reality, he did give heinous orders that led to the gassing of approximately 1500 humans, which is bad enough that I'm not sure why Hughes felt the need to exaggerate).

Hughes began in journalism, and moved into politics when she helped Bush the Elder get into office. She stuck with the family and has been a long-time confidante of W's, and her loyalty has apparently paid off for her. I guess it doesn't matter that she had no prior international experience, because Public Diplomacy's just like PR, right?

WRONG.

I'm trying to decide what will be worse for our country: leaving that appointment vacant during this tumultuous time, or appointing somebody just as incompetent or worse than Karen Hughes.

Yesterday, a US National Intelligence Estimate said that Iran stopped developing nuclear arms in 2003. Is anyone else sick of being lied to? I wouldn't say that Iran still isn't a threat to us, but it's not like they'll be able to turn enriched uranium into an n-bomb overnight. It's angering that as recently as October, President Bush said that Iran could create "World War III." In the same way that nuclear weapons don't happen overnight, neither do national intelligence reports. If we can't even have open communication within our country, it's no wonder we don't have much success with transparency overseas.

I was supposed to blog on this thing once a week this entire semester. The only catch was I was supposed to relate it to global communication. Some people thrive without rules and structure, but I am obviously not one of those people. It's not that I didn't think about this blog often. In fact, quite the opposite is true. I would sign in, click "post an entry," and sit here with the sound of crickets going through my head rather than the words I should have been typing.

I guess I could have just written what I just said a couple months ago, but I was embarrassed to admit that maybe I'm not a globally-conscious person. I try to be, and when I'm in class I like to really get engaged in our conversations. But when I come home, I just don't enjoy thinking about the world because all that comes to mind are the horrible things that go on every day. I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me to write about the many beautiful things this world has to happen.

I often leave class with my heart in my gut, so disappointed that our country is in this mess we've created. I don't want to forget the wonderful things, though. We should never neglect all of the need surrounding us, but if we forget the joys then nothing's even worth it.

Last week, our global comm class had a paper due based off of Thomas Friedman's book, "The World is Flat." When I was reading it, I found myself enjoying it and agreeing with it much of the time.

Then, that same day in class, we had a guest speaker who basically proved why everything Friedman says is wrong. He did this in the nicest way possible, but still. We were presented with two versions of reality that could not both exist in the same universe without a little bit of compromise.

It just seems like so much of what we see and read and hear and smell is propaganda. [Side note: have you smelled propaganda before? it's like a mix of apples, wet dog, and bacon. Weird.] We talk so much about deliberation, but what if you spend all that time deliberating about how to convince people you're right? "The World is Flat" and our speaker's presentation were extremely well thought-out, but neither seemed entirely rounded-out. As in, I don't think we got the whole picture from either person.

I'm just getting tired of everything presented in terms of hot and cold, black and white, yes and no, left and right, cats and dogs! Typically I would never use a blog for school - or anything for school, for that matter - to vent, but all of this is really starting to get my goat. The reality is that this world is a luke-warm, gray, maybe, center, dog/cat mutant that isn't easy to figure out, it isn't easy to explain, and it certainly isn't easy to deliberate.

As I was reading the top international news stories of the day, I discovered a strong reoccurring theme of pessimism towards diplomacy. In the first article, Condoleeza Rice was discussing her upcoming trips to begin discussions in the Middle East about the formation of a Palestinian nation. She warned reporters not to expect too much from these discussions, because all parties are resistant and opinionated.

Another article dealt with the violence occurring in the DR Congo right now. The goal is to unite the rebel army Tutsi army and the national army, but leaders from both say that a peaceful union is highly doubtful.

Finally, the UN is encouraging talks between ethnic Albanians and the Serbians about the future of Kosovo. The Albanians want full independence, but Serbia is offering "broad autonomy." The two groups have until December 10th to come to an agreement, but analysts say the chances of a breakthrough are very slim because neither side is willing to budge.

These three stories, and countless other ones from recent history, all show one of the problems facing our world today. Everyone wants peace, but not at the sacrifice of their own nation's gains. In class, we briefly discussed the possibility and need for a global form of journalism. Initially, I was very skeptical because I believe in the value of national identity and perspective. But stories like these make me think that perhaps we could benefit from a stronger emphasis on global needs. Patriotism is important, but the sustainability of our world - including long-term peace - depends on a more global view.

I was at a fabulous wine-tasting party this weekend and had an interesting conversation with a young man from Greece. We were observing the group of males intensely watching the Red Sox game, and he said to me, "Men are the same everywhere. No matter what country you're in, they all act the same." Later in the evening, we witness a group of females talking about hairstyles and colors. This was a very international group of women, representing the US, Germany, and Greece (and our Global Comm class, too!), and I said to my new friend, "I guess women are the same everywhere, too."

I'm not trying to make the point that men like sports and women like beauty, but we do seem to have more in common than differences. If this is the truth, why is our world so torn apart?

Yesterday, a house committee passed a resolution that would officially declare the mass killings of the Armenians after the Ottoman Empire a "genocide." Over a million Armenians were killed in that region, but the debate concerns whether or not they were killed by the Turkish government as an organized attempt to purify their nation. Turkey today argues that the ethnic clashes occurred because of chaos that ensued after the fall of the Empire.

To further complicate the matter, Turkey has warned our country - vehemently - that if this resolution passes the House, there will be strong repercussions. Turkey is one of our most important allies in the war in Iraq, and it would be devastating for our troops if we lost Turkish supply routes.

The consequences of this one word - genocide - are enormous. For Armenian Americans, it means that our government has finally recognized the struggle their people have gone through in the not-so-distant past. For Turkey, it means a loss of credibility and respect because, on an international scale, genocide is a word that brings dishonor to any nation. For American soldiers in Iraq, though, the word could possibly mean less supplies and more obstacles to coming home. With all these definitions of "genocide," how does our government proceed?

A lot of people criticize Fox News for having only a conservative, Republican perspective of the world. Even though Fox claims to be "fair and balanced," I would guess that most correspondents would admit to some degree of a political slant. But let's take a look at some of the characteristics of the Fox audience:

• Compared to the CNN audience, Fox News watchers are less likely to follow stories that are critical of the Bush administration but more likely to follow entertainment-based news stories.
• Fox News watchers enjoy news that shares their personal views, while the CNN and network news audiences prefer news that has more in-depth interviews with public officials.
• Fox News watchers were more likely than non-watchers to underestimate rather than overestimate the number of American casualties in Iraq (Jonathon S. Morris, "The Fox News Factor," 2006).

It's impossible to say what causes these facts. Do conservatives turn to Fox News in order to have their own beliefs reaffirmed? Or does Fox News have enough persuasive power create such a homogeneous audience?

Or, does it really even matter?

Aristotle was a firm believer in deliberating and critical thinking. But he also knew the importance of persuasion, giving advice that Fox News seems to have taken to heart:

"... the rule of good taste is, that your style be lowered or raised according to the subject. On which account we must escape observation in doing this, and not appear to speak in a studied manner, but naturally, for the one is of a tendency to persuade, the other is the very reverse; because people put themselves on their guard, as though against one who had a design upon them, just as they would against unadulterated wine (Aristotle, On Rhetoric [Buckley's 1972 edition]).

So it seems as though the things we criticize Fox News for, at least some of them anyway, were designed first by Aristotle. It is the job of the rhetor to persuade, but more importantly, it is the job of the audience to think. Fox News can say what it wants. Any retelling of reality through a news outlet is arguably biased in some way because all interpretations of reality are skewed by individual background and preference. I think we should stop criticizing a conservative news network and begin by acknowledging that the problem is us and our indifference towards critical thinking.

As the leading British historian of propaganda, Phillip Taylor, said in a 1992 lecture:

"What we really need is more propaganda, not less. We need more attempts to influence our opinions and to arouse our active participation in social and political processes."