- posted by demo kid
Let me interrupt my amusement over conservatives’ lack of understanding of radiative heat transfer and polling with a big cup of WTF: Jean Godden’s recent “editorial” about the Seattle waterfront tunnel in Crosscut. I don’t think that I’m going too far when I say that this essay is a big steaming pile of shit. While this awful excuse for an opinion article tries to discount McGinn’s concerns about cost overruns, it instead reveals how paper-thin and pathetic the City Council’s rationale for opposing McGinn is at this point, and how just plain inept Godden is at stating her positions.
In other words… it’s a perfect article for Crosscut. :)
I went home the other night and looked under the bed. Then I looked in the closet and the alcove by the fireplace. Nothing. Not one single “cost overrun.” Not even a stray “legislative intent.”
That’s when I became more convinced than ever that it’s time to put an end to all this fearmongering and begin the task of creating a waterfront for all.
I wonder if this is what she does for all important issues in the city. Seriously, does she come home and say, “No homeless under my bed! No need to worry about them!”?
For too many months, Mayor Mike McGinn has been trying to scare the public with his repeated outcries over “cost overruns.” You have to give the guy credit for his approach. He’s been using a technique commonly known as F.U.D. - sowing fear, uncertainty, and doubt.
Or the technique of raising a legitimate question that city council and the state government haven’t seen fit to answer.
His tactics remind me of a class I took at the University of Washington School of Communications. It was titled “Techniques of Persuasion,” and better known as “Propaganda 101.” The class studied techniques used for centuries to change attitudes and manipulate public opinion. These same techniques have been used to prop up dictators, popularize wars, and sell soap.
If the “manipulation of public opinion” involves asking questions that tunnel proponents cannot answer, this “technique of persuasion” should actually be called “giving the people more information to make a decision”. Doubt that many dictators were propped up because of that.
But hey… the Killing Fields and the surface option are the same exact thing, right?
The assigned text was J.A.C. Brown’s Techniques of Persuasion: From Propaganda to Brainwashing. As an unreformed book lover, I still have the text on my bookshelf. It’s interesting to see how many propaganda techniques the mayor has used in his mission to blow up the tunnel. Among them:
I see… so the best way to fight “propaganda” is to provide false motives for why the question was being asked instead of actually answering the question?
Simplicity and repetition. Make the issue something easy to grasp and repeat it over and over. In time, it will be accepted by your audience. In other words, instill fear of ‘cost overruns’ and “Who Will Pay?”
Sounds like a simple fear that is easy to grasp and SHOULD be repeated over and over again to me. Who will be paying, by the way?
Selection. Present one side of the picture only. Don’t talk about successful tunnels such as San Francisco’s Bart, the Third Avenue Transit Tunnel, or the 100-year-old railway tunnel under Seattle’s downtown.
All three of which, oddly enough, are tunnels for transit and not traffic. And note as well that the Downtown Bus Tunnel came in 56% over budget in the 1990s.
Odd that she isn’t raising the Big Dig in Boston or the tunneling for Brightwater, though…
Assertion. Make bold statements. Unveil graphs showing that everyone will be forced to pay big taxes for cost overruns.
Bold statements and graphs that haven’t been refuted, as far as I can see.
Find a scapegoat. Convince people that the governor and the city council are to blame. Offer to debate those who differ and if they don’t take the bait, have your surrogates stereotype them as cowardly.
You’re not a “scapegoat” if you’re actually the one creating the problem here!
The Big Lie. During his campaign the mayor said that, while he personally opposed the deep-bore tunnel, he would not stand in the way. He is now on the record as saying that he would oppose it, even if the cost overrun issue were removed.
Make the cost overrun issue irrelevant, and he won’t have a leg to stand on.
Ignore or discredit conflicting evidence. No matter that the city attorney has stated that the cost overrun language isn’t enforceable. Never mind that the governor pointed out that cost overrun language is merely an expression of legislative intent, not enforceable law. Nor that the state attorney general has said that further legislation would be required to make the legislature’s intent operative.
Despite the claims of the state government that Seattle will not be on the hook, there is no mechanism identified to pay for cost overruns with this project. Pardon me if I think this could all go horribly wrong; despite the lack of “enforceability”, that language is still there.
These propaganda techniques have all been employed by the mayor to oppose the tunnel project. Yet his most formidable weapon is the use of FUD, scaring everyone into thinking they’ll be taxed to the max for a project that they cannot influence or afford, spreading uncertainty about the ability of the project to be completed on budget, and casting doubt on the wisdom of preserving a vital transportation route.
Someone will need to pay for a tunnel that is very likely to cost more than what is budgeted now, and there is a proven track record for overruns in the region with the Beacon Hill Sound Transit tunnel, the downtown bus tunnel, and the drilling for the Brightwater plant. Less expensive plans have been developed that preserve a “vital transportation route” without relying on a tunnel. How is telling the truth “propaganda”?
Because the propaganda campaign has gone on long enough, it was timely and welcome Monday when I joined a majority of city council members in sponsoring a resolution that affirms the council’s intention to move forward on agreements with the state. After months of negotiations, the city council has introduced Resolution 31235 stating the council’s intention to authorize agreements if the state awards a contract to a bidder who can complete all elements of the deep-bore tunnel project within budget.
“Within budget”… for now. But later?
The resolution protects the city of Seattle and reaffirms the city’s policy that the state is solely responsible for all costs associated with the deep-bore tunnel, including any cost overruns related to the implementation of the state transportation department’s program. The resolution directly addresses potential overruns, stating that “it is the city’s policy that in no event shall the city or any Seattle area property owners be specially required by the state to pay for costs or any cost overruns related to implementing (the Washington State Department of Transportation’s) program.”
Because if costs skyrocket and the state refuses to chip in, the city council can just force the governor to pay more? I’d like to see THAT game of chicken, where drilling equipment lies idle beneath the Seattle waterfront while Olympia tells the Seattle City Council to go fuck themselves.
The hope that the mayor might give up on his mission to make “cost overruns” a perennial rallying cry is probably an empty one. Like the “birthers” who refuse to give up on their campaign to make the president seem an alien, the ‘cost overrunners’ are hell bent on spreading their propaganda, even after it has been repeatedly revealed as an empty threat.
Yes, folks… Godden just fucking went there.
It’s been an interesting exercise to witness. But now it’s time to move on and to focus our energies on moving the project forward and providing a corridor that works for the city, region, and state. We must take advantage of the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to unite Seattle with the sweetest deepwater harbor in the world.
Don’t forget that sweet, sweet deepwater port!
The last sentence pretty much sums up the type of attitude that a lot of people find infuriating. In the face of some very serious questions about long-term budget issues, the response from a city councilmember is not crafted to address them and put them to rest. Instead, it’s simply, “Trust us… we know better than you. We wouldn’t want to lose this ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ opportunity, would we?”