[Infowarrior] - Baseball Disses National Security

[Richard Forno]

Baseball Disses National Security

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2007/04/baseball_disses_national
_secur.html

Despite two years of efforts and a major annual drive, the Department of
Homeland Security has failed to enlist over two-thirds of the nation's Minor
League Baseball teams in its patriotic program to "to educate and empower
Americans to prepare for and respond to emergencies including natural
disasters and potential terrorist attacks."

The Minor League Baseball "Ready Campaign" includes specially-themed banners
and public service announcements, a duct tape race between innings, and even
Rex, the Office of Emergency Management mascot.

So what's wrong with the Arkansas Travelers, the Charleston Riverdogs, the
Hudson Valley Renegades, the Pawtucket Red Sox, and the Tampa Yankees, just
to name a few recalcitrants? Why don't they go to bat for America? Are they
Al Qaeda sympathizers?

And what about the new Rockhounds team in Midland, Texas, which has so far
failed to support home team America? Maybe first lady Laura Bush needs to
give them a call.

For over five years, the government of the United States of America has been
courting Minor League Baseball teams to join its "Ready Campaign," a
national public service advertising effort to promote emergency preparedness
to deal with a terrorist attack.

"Ready," as the DHS calls the campaign, has also enlisted the Boy Scouts of
America to push for families to put together an emergency supply kit, make a
family communications plan, and educate themselves about potential
emergencies and "appropriate responses."

"As we all know, going to the ballpark is a family event and an American
tradition," the DHS wrote to teams last month, kicking off the 2007
campaign. "This makes a baseball game the perfect place to share the Ready
Campaign's emergency preparedness message with our nation's families."

And what is that message? It is simply, simple, that everyone "should have a
plan."

A government-produced "fun and easy" toolkit sent to teams at no charge
includes suggested English and Spanish language banners, public service
advertisements, JumboTron announcements, brochures, potential events and
activities to hold during games. And of course there is the Emergency
Preparedness merit badge to award.

During the 2005 season, the Department of Homeland Security proudly
announced that 48 Minor League baseball teams had signed on to promote the
Ready Campaign in their ballparks. Last year, 45 teams signed on. This year,
according to an internal DHS Minor League spreadsheet (thanks K!), only 41
of 145 Minor League Teams have signed on for the 2007 season.

I smell declining interest, perhaps even readiness, on the part of the
custodians of America's pastime.

Or growing wisdom: wisdom that despite government calls and kits, the effort
is sophomoric and wasteful.

I have no idea how much the Department of Homeland Security and its public
relations firm, the Neiman Group, spends on this effort.

As a local emergency official wrote me, "with high profile campaigns like
this, we shall all be prepared . . . for sunburn, hot dogs and overpriced
beer."

The ongoing Ready effort is seemingly harmless, and the DHS has even managed
to repackage the ham-fisted terrorism focus since hurricane Katrina to fold
in natural disasters. But the truth is that this government effort only
began after Sept. 11 and is emblematic of Homeland Security's continued
unfocused and confused state.

Should there even be a federal government civilian readiness program,
particularly one like this that is so simplistic? I say the answer is no,
because not only are all those federal employees wasting their time on their
fun and easy toolkits not doing something more focused and useful - or
sucking off someone else's payroll - but also because they are foot soldiers
in the government's national brainwashing efforts.

Today's mechanisms of government "advertising" are merely tomorrow's
politically motivated color-coded fear-mongering manipulations of public
opinion.

At least at 104 Minor League ballparks, people will be able to enjoy the
game without having the government - the government! - remind them that they
also need at the same time to be fearful of the world, even in their home
town. It is a government message with only one "appropriate response:"
worship at the altar of national security and war.