internationalization, the two way street.

Several weeks ago, I fired off a snobby little email to our local listserv in response to a couple of messages about "internationalization".

As a consequence of that mail, I was contacted by another monbushou recepient who was researching precisely that stuff, and who consequently shared a bit of useful knowledge about the application process.

But my real point: I also got a direct response from the person who wrote the original mail that triggered a lengthy one on one discussion (including an email of 2440 words) about some aspects of the program, and gripes back and forth and what not. I don't think the exchange itself is particularly remarkable, but as I'm working on writing another rebuttal for the japanese team, something occurs to me. There is some sort of communication breakdown occuring at a very fundamental level.
In the last couple weeks, I've been an apologist for Japan over and over, and on occasion, changed some people's minds... but how did that get to be my job? Shouldn't the jet program and the japanese community surrounding these jets be able to get the message through much more effectively? Why does it take someone like me to get people to shake off the fundamental attribution errors about japan?

It's cuz I'm american, and I have no special allegiance to the jet program... in fact I'm broadly critical of it. Because I speak, at least in part, from the gaijin's perspective, it's an awful lot harder to think that I'm one of those inscrutable japanese types who are just out to bilk the poor jet community for all of its 4 WEEKS OF VACATION every year.
I'm only ever making the same arguments that CLAIR does though. I'm not especially eloquent, and if you're reading this, you know that I'm not much of a sympathetic character either.

Why does the messenger change everything? Can't clair get their messages across more effectively, to cut off the continual bile of the jet community? If not, can I have some money to do it?