Walkabout propaganda

 Posted on 8/20/1996 by J. Michael Straczynski <71016.1644@compuserve.com> to CIS


{original post unavailable}

There's really no need for propgaganda. By about now,
everybody out in this part of space knows the situation...and what's
going on back home is secondary to winning the war. Also, you can be
sure that if they set up a network -- and who has time in the middle of
a war -- you can be sure Earth would find some way to jam it.

jms



Walkabout propaganda

 Posted on 8/20/1996 by J. Michael Straczynski <71016.1644@compuserve.com> to CIS


{original post unavailable}

Okay, John, lemme ask you a question, since you keep harping on
this issue of propaganda.

You're the leader of an isolated space station with a quarter
million inhabitants, who need air, food, supplies, space, support. You
no longer have ties to Earth, no support from there, no money, so you
have to rely on whatever docking fees you can get from other worlds.
You're in the midst of a war in which you have few resources, little
money, allies that have a tendency to turn on one another, nobody's
giving you a break, your position is tenuous as hell, you're constantly
undermanned, shorthanded....

Now you tell me where the heck you're going to get the time,
resources, money and manpower to launch a propaganda operation, which
if you're going to broadcast (and what's the point otherwise?) on an
interstellar basis is going to require extensive and expensive
facilities, broadcast repeaters, tacyhon carrier wave generators to get
around the time-delay aspects, writers, directors, broadcast engineers,
spokespersons, propaganda specialists, psychologists, technicians,
camera equipment, space in which to PUT all of this stuff...on and on
and on.

You keep beating this particular horse, but your objection has
nothing to do with the reality of their position.

jms



Walkabout propaganda

 Posted on 8/21/1996 by J. Michael Straczynski <71016.1644@compuserve.com> to CIS


{original post unavailable}

John...you're getting too wrapped up in this. For starters,
having just had a MAJOR WAR with the Minbari, which nearly wiped out
Earth, and many folks back home *hating* the Minbari...do you think for
one second that they're going to believe a word of what the Minbari say
to them? Do you think the government would allow this to go through
unjammed? Hell, EarthGov would have a field day with this..."See?
It's all alien propaganda, just like we told you, they're trying to
destabalize Earth."

Second, I don't think the Minbari have the propagandists,
writers, directors, and others needed to put together a propaganda
network, and would find the whole idea immoral to begin with...and a
couple of paragraphs of text are meaningless...Earthgov says "it's not
true," and it's your word against theirs. That's why you must have
absolute, unvarnished PROOF, otherwise it blows up in your face, which
any journalist worth his or her salt knows.

Again your suggestions don't touch reality at any two contiguous
points.

Also, I can't keep track of, or answer, 15 or 20 questions in
one message; if you've got a point to make, do so concisely.

jms



Walkabout propaganda

 Posted on 8/23/1996 by J. Michael Straczynski <71016.1644@compuserve.com> to CIS


{original post unavailable}

Yes, they do...but bear in mind that the Minbari are currently
having their own problems. The Grey Council has fallen apart, the
Military Caste (as we'll see in one of the next episodes) is having
some serious doubts about how the Religious Caste is handling things,
and that much of the support given Earth (by way of B5) has been
covert; the White Star program was launched in secret, and the greater
amount of the Minbari population aren't aware they're so much "in bed"
with the humans (as it were). As far as they're concerned, we're
apparently necessary to the plan, but not much more than that. So I
think they wouldn't be warm to the notion of extending their services
overmuch to Earth.

You keep trying to make everything cut and dried, but in the B5
universe, there ain't no such critter.

jms