The revolution™ will be not be televised without express permission

Today's Philadelphia ******er offers a story about the controversy at Valley Forge, where neighbors are angry over a private company's plans for an American Revolution Center. The center would include a museum, a hotel, a conference facility, a restaurant and a campground, all within the boundaries of Valley Forge National Historical Park. Still, said a lawyer for the project, "This is not commercialization."

In the same story, however, the center's president says: "We believe this will be one of the foremost centers for study of the Revolutionary era. ... We are an aggressive marketing organization, and we will be branding the American Revolution."

A reader up on his or her history but unschooled in the ways of marketing might have thought that George Washington, Thomas Paine, the Battle of the Brandywine, the Declaration of Independence, et al. constituted sufficient "branding."

© Peter Rozovsky 2007