Military community-outreach meetings function as sales pitches rather than genuine consultation

Evidence

Later, I asked Miguel and Janice if they felt their concerns were heard at the meeting. “No,” Janice replied. To her, it seemed the military was just trying to persuade people to go along with their plans. “I feel like they have an agenda. I honestly feel like they were trying to sell a product,” she said. “It’s a product I don’t want to buy.” — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 429

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the ‘product I don’t want to buy’ framing of public consultation as manufactured consent that runs throughout critiques of militarism and to Janice’s other testimony in this chapter. — connects to: Establishment outreach mechanisms function as instruments of co-optation
• SEED: Angle for an essay on how the US military’s community engagement rehearses corporate marketing playbooks — treating affected residents as consumers of base expansion rather than constituents.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — David Vine, Base Nation_ How U.S. Military Bases…, 429