Weekend Poll #1
In a Washington Post poll, 69 percent of interviewees said that going to war with Iraq was the right thing to do even if the United States fails to turn up biological or chemical weapons, up from 53 percent in a survey taken the day after the war started.
Weekend Poll #2
A Los Angeles Times poll suggests fairly strong support for attacks on Syria (42%) and Iran (50%).
and ...
Nearly 80% accept that Hussein has "close ties" to Al Qaeda and 60% say they believe Saddam bears at least some responsibility for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Thoughts?
posted by dackHow the 'american bubble' manages to bounce around without bursting, I don't know. It tells us what the population really isn't about: freedom.
Posted by: Native on April 7, 2003 04:08 AMHow the 'American bubble' manages to bounce around without bursting, I don't know. But, one thing's for sure, it tells us clearly what the population is not about: freedom.
Posted by: Native on April 7, 2003 04:11 AMOnce I finish developing my Un-Stupiding Ray, America is going to rock.
Posted by: Jake on April 7, 2003 04:21 AMThe degree of disinformation and misleading the US population is simply frightening.
on another note:
In Cuba Journalists are thrown into jail for saying anti-Castro words.
In the USA Journalists are tried for treason for making a remark somewhere in the middle of the Iraqi desert.
Wake up US of A, you are so going down the wrong alley with your ultra cool new freedom fries!
(...who were actually invented by the Belgium folks!)
You should've included that Trading Card picture from the US Crusade that shows American public as docile sheep. :)
I have no more thoughts. The world is lost. The media has too much power in the US, similar to how the media tried to demonize the democratically-elected Chavez in Venezuela. If you can convince 80% of public into a lie and start a war by those same lies, you have already won.
Bush will win the next election in a landslide, thanks to media and 'electronic voting booths', and US will move on to Syria, Iran, North Korea, and whoever else dares stand in their way (Canada and France too).
Posted by: Johnny on April 7, 2003 07:30 AMI have cancelled my local newspaper. I have cancelled my cable so the tv is OFF. I am NOT giving up. I am not going to support a propagandistic American media. I'm going to find as many alternative news sources as possible (rational enquirer is one) and try to keep learning. I am protesting. I am writing letters. I am clarifying my values and continuing to take positions in line with them. I am calling the White House and my representatives. I have become an activist!! DON'T GIVE UP. DO whatever it takes to combat the ignorance and fear. If you give up, the liars and peddlars of fear have won. Thanks, Mara Evans
Posted by: mara evans on April 7, 2003 08:40 AMThe media is pathetic, not only in their misinformation leading up to and during the war, but their unwillingness to educate the average person about Iraq and the Middle East.
80% of Americans support war on Iraq, but what percentage could A. point out Iraq on a map or B. give a condensed history of Iraq? Or even name a single historical event in Iraq's history besides Gulf War I?
So the media is to blame not only for their vapid, bullshit war coverage, but for their utter lack of background and context.
Posted by: Eric on April 7, 2003 11:46 AMThis war is starting to feel like a "missing 10-year-old white girl" media event. I understand that people are fighting and dying out there, but how much time can one television station spend on the same "early morning mist" shot of a mosque in Baghdad? I liked it better when the military didn't let the cameras near them (or at least directly controlled the content heading back home). At least then there was no question about the spin.
Posted by: jdf on April 7, 2003 12:37 PMI do find the media, and thus the public's, oversimplistic world view scary. The Reischtag fire was what the Nazis needed to start invading country after country. We had 9-11.
However, The "war on terror" will make Americans want to fight Syria or Iran or Libya or whomever without the media even saying a word. After this war is "won," there will (of course) be a terrorist attack, either in Iraq or here, from an organization coming out of Syria, Iran, Lybia or some other country in the region and the American people will demand another war.
Of course, the media will be there to remind us that the government of country x is pursuing weapons of mass destruction and oppressing their own people. Or perhaps that is where Iraq sent its WMD ....
Posted by: Ted on April 7, 2003 12:54 PMOh my dear fekking god...
I would like to laugh this off, but I fear that any laughter would be of the nervous kind.
Click my heels 3 times and I'll wake up in a nice world. Eh, no. Unfortunately not. And when North Korea kicks off or Russia gets involved, thats when it all goes pear shaped.
Smoke 'em if you got 'em.
Posted by: stef on April 7, 2003 03:21 PMPoll #1 and #2 just go to show you what a grand success a public relations campaign can be. It was not until December 2002, more than a year after 9/11, that people began to think that Saddam had any links to Al Qaeda. What does that tell you?
Warmly,
Leona
Posted by: Leona Lip on April 7, 2003 05:27 PMYou can sell Americans anything if it's on TV -- just watch the infomercials.
"If you tell a big enough lie, and keep on repeating it, in the end people will come to believe it.
"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."
- Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Minister of Propaganda, 1933-1945.
This tenet holds today, and we can fully expect the support for US-led wars to rise, and for objective US journalists and anti-war activists to continue to be fired and fired-at.
Posted by: and by on April 7, 2003 06:17 PM"Look at the prison you are in... [that] we are all in. This is a penal colony that is now a death camp."
--William S. Burroughs
What we have here with this so-called 80% of respondents is a Nation of Chumps.
See you at the day of destruction and doom...
Posted by: Franz Biberkopf on April 7, 2003 11:23 PMyeah yeah this all sucks, but all dwelling is doing is encouraging my bad habits. we're all in agreement that the problem is that 80% are stupid, and after a certain point most people shut off learning. so tutor kids, pull people together... i'm donating 100 books to an inner city school this week so that MAYBE the system pumps out a couple fewer redneck dumbasses this year. the fascists are taking our country a mind at a time- let's start fighting for every one.
Posted by: Anon on April 7, 2003 11:43 PMThe US coverage of the war has been atrocious to say the least. The US reporters' flag-waving is appreciable from a "nation at war" standpoint, as well as from the standpoint of supporting the first US victims of this war -- the troops. (The second victims will be the US civilians who will die in terrorist attacks in years to come.)
What is truly remarkable is that the media in every coutry outside the US of A is opposed to the war.
A really good read from the Canadian CBC talks about how the coalition military is unapologetically censoring non-embedded reporters: http://www.cbc.ca/news/iraq/canada/correspondents_workman030407.html
Some highlights:
"The embedded journalists [...] sound like cheerleaders."
"'An American officer in the public affairs division made his country' s position utterly and maddeningly clear to my producer Ian Kalushner. "I don't give a damn about the unilateral journalists," he said. "We've fulfilled our obligation to the media and if you don't like it, you can go home." That was after telling us the CBC had been listed as a "state" broadcaster, much like the Russians and that we were little more than a mouthpiece for a government that doesn't support the war. In fact, the Americans and the British have admitted there's a policy of favouring journalists from countries who belong to George Bush's 'coalition of the willing.' Should we have expected less? "
Facts 80% of American public will never hear on CNN.
Posted by: KS on April 7, 2003 11:56 PM