A truth squad

All across America today, the liberal media is advancing blaring propaganda. “Look at the Northern Marianas,” they all protest in unison. “Just look at that revolting spectacle there: at the abuses committed there–on American soil.”

They will try to conjure up every vicious, wretched and damned image imaginable. They will claim that Asian women are routinely being raped, beaten, starved and tortured to death. They will claim that women are being locked down, chained, forced under house arrest, guarded with barbed-wire fences and trained attack dogs. Every conceivable malicious lie will be offered up for federalization and the destruction of our local garment industry, under the pretexts of justice and human rights.

Unfortunately, the American public doesn’t know any better. They will believe whatever they read in their newspapers, whatever they hear on their radio sets, and whatever is distorted on sensational television programs. Our perpetual detractors are skillfully exploiting the ignorance of the American people–many of whom know little to nothing of our actual situation.

About a year ago, for example, our detractors reported the abuse of child labor in our garment factories. No such practice ever took place. Child workers were never imported from Asia to slave in CNMI factories. Still, the statement, however grossly inaccurate, stood. We were left to suffer the damaging consequences of such horrendous national publicity.

According to the Honolulu Advertiser column I cited yesterday, “Forced overtime and 70-hour work weeks are common, and the hourly wage amounts to pennies. Injury, malnutrition, unhealthy food and physical abuse round out the dismal picture.”

This is clearly false, libelous and malicious material. The local minimum wage does not amount to pennies per hour. The minimum wage is at least $3.05 an hour–plus free housing, transportation, food, full medical expenses, and a whole host of other employer expenses.

If wages were in fact being withheld, a factory would be shut down. A torrent of lawsuits and fines would ensue. The US departments of labor, justice, OSHA and other federal agencies would crack down hard on any such violation. Not to mention our own local agencies: the AG’s office, the Department of Labor and Immigration, our own Commerce Department–as well as many of our own local ambulance-chasing attorneys.

We need to counter these lies every step of the way. For every nasty article that emerges, we need to strike right back with an immediate rebuttal. We also need to plant favorable news articles representing the truth.

The governor’s Public Information Office must take the lead, by forming a truth squad, a war room–a special forces anti-political terrorism public relations unit, to get the word out, to expose the truth about the Northern Marianas.

If we don’t take a firm, hard, aggressive, decisive stand today, we will only be bullied into federalization by political default. And that would be our fault.