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Golf Balls

By Arnold Stieber

Think of it this way: you are a manufacturer of golf balls. To sell golf balls you need to promote golf. The more golfers, the better the sales. Thus you promote golf classes, golf courses, golf leagues, golf tournaments, golf in schools, golf accessories and golf equipment. You work to make the game easier for everyone. You help politicians who promote golf. You help community leaders to promote golf. In other words, you do everything you can to make golf the first thing people think about for an activity.

Hold those thoughts. Now switch from a golf ball manufacturer to a weapons (let's say bomb) manufacturer. To sell bombs you need to promote war. The more wars, the better the sales. It's a little trickier to promote war. The stakes are much higher for the participants, but the profits are much higher for you. Thus, you need very high-powered people. People who can get to people's roots and affect their beliefs. You need super-slick promotional tools — slogans that drip of patriotism and heroes and freedom and all the things that people admire. You also need to generate fear and hatred and get the masses rallied behind war and thus your product. You find things that work and you have them repeated over and over in every conceivable manner — directly and indirectly via movies, TV, radio, print, billboards. You squash the peacemaking competition. You need to get the message to every segment of the market — old, young, rich, poor — so that when you push the button, there is no doubt, war is the only solution.

It must work. We have military bases in over 150 countries and always have a "conflict" going on somewhere. The average Army private in Iraq earns about $20,000 a year. The average CEO of a defense contractor makes $11,000,000 a year. What a great business.