'Grassroots' Cultural Exchanges

Well, I guess since the Complaint against the seizure of the infamous Baltimore Coins in the ACCG Coin Stunt could be cobbled together for free from the conspiracy theory stuff on Peter Tompa's blogs, all the money the ACCG had raised from its members for fighting this case is now free to be used for other purposes. Sadly the ACCG show themselves to have more money than sense. They have just released another PR-wire press release, this one grandiosely entitled: "Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs Ignores 'Grassroots' Cultural Exchanges" which is going out worldwide. So far 775 hits. Who can spot their mistake?

Well, first of all the authors assume that everybody knows without being told its the US State Department discussed and not the one in Nigeria or Albania, which of course is a dumb assumption based on a conviction that the USA is the centre of the world. Secondly there is a bit about the ECA and then... a paeon about the collecting of contextless dugup ancient coins and how its good for "grassroots cultural exchange" without ANY hint to the puzzled reader as to how and why that is connected to the ECA, and why the word "ignores" is used in the title of the piece.

Well, that at least means the ACCG are on the road to being ignored by all those that saw the piece. But these things cost money, are the funds for this shambles coming from members' contributions to the fighting fund? In what way does THIS press release benefit coin collectors? In my opinion, it merely shows them in a bad light as a group of people that cannot even formulate a coherent argument. Pathetic.

As I have said earlier, things like this do nothing to dispell the impression I have at the moment that the ACCG is rushing around like a headless chicken desperately trying to create the impression of activity for the benefit of the members that have put so much trust and money in it. It seems that the Guild is not so concerned about the quality of the complaint they have deposited with a court, it can be suggested that they know they are going to lose the case, the important thing is that their members will see they "tried" to do something. The Guild is not overly concerned to create a press release that makes sense to the outsider, since this text was written for the benefit of those that know to what the text obliquely refers and nobody else. Again it is intended to lull the ACCG member into thinking that the Guild is "doing something". It can instead be seen that the Guild has in reality no long-term plan, no strategy, it is merely lurching from one extempore action to another for effect. The important thing - as in all conspiracy theories - is to present the no-questions-asked collector and dealer as a "victim" of outside circumstances, somebody else's malicious conniving, rather than being at fault themselves for not trying to prolongue nineteenth century attitudes.
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