Iraq War Less Popular
"The latest quarterly average for Iraq shows that 50% say it was a mistake to send troops (the most recent single measure on this indicator, from an Aug. 5-7 Gallup Poll, shows 54% saying the war was a mistake).
In the comparable quarter for the Vietnam War (the third quarter of the war’s third year — that is, the third quarter of 1967), Gallup found 41% saying the conflict was a mistake. It was not until the third quarter of the fourth year of the Vietnam War (August-September 1968) that a majority of Americans said the war was a mistake. In short, it took longer for a majority of Americans to view the Vietnam War as a mistake than has been the case for Iraq."
- I'm not sure what's the point of above other than "it took longer for a majority" to see VN as a mistake. Is this a hope offering to the peace movement? That over a span of 40 years 10 percent more of the people view a war as a mistake? What are the odds for sustainable peace at that rate?
Other than senseless death and destruction the factors involved are different in Iraq than Vietnam. For instance :
Who is fighting : Vietnam was fought by the poorest class of Americans, drafted, forced to serve. Run-ins with the legal system compelled many with the option of joining the army, or prison. Troops engaged in VN were politically the most disposable class of Americans. Today's troops in Iraq are closer to middle class status, many enlisted for college money and under the impression, however mistaken, that major long-term wars were a thing of the past. Today's poll numbers reflect the difference in the poor and coerced sent to VN and today's middle class volunteers who feel they have a choice. It took longer for the middle class of the 1960s to indicate the VN war was wrong b/c most of them were able to avoid fighting in it. Why do you think there's been a deliberate shrinking of a true middle class since the '60s? Middle classes are dangerous to the status quo. Ask any third world dictator.
The global stakes : VN was one of many proxy wars of the Cold War with corporate wealth and influence at stake. Iraq has the same at stake and then some, much more sum. Iraq is not a little sliver of jungle the US is bickering over in order to profit a few and beat the chest at the USSR. Iraq is big-time geopolitics, more similar to WWI and WWII power shifts. It took a great deal of death and fighting in VN and at home, to bring the troops in from VN. Are today's college students and middle class at home willing to do the same? Or will they spend years believing they can vote in the right party to end it, sort of like the VN era when Nixon promised if given a second term he would bring the troops home. He did, but after what cost in human life compared to so little at stake for America in Asia? How many of those percentage points in today's polls who say the war is a mistake are willing to pay more than lip service to end it?
Power of the people : In the 1960s the US corporate political hegemony was still somewhat constrained by Americans who still held some power over their own government. And self-constraint by a corporate world willing to return enough "trickle" to the middle class population in the form of wages, benefits, etc. Corporate power in government today is total. Today, corporate fascism has succeeded in relegating America to a people who can only hold their politicians accountable for blowjobs and burglary. America today is a nation designated as just another (cheapening) labor pool with its only attractive feature being military prowess in service to corporate world domination.
Failure of Information Age : Communication & information technology today are much better than the '60s, to say the least. Considering the instantaneous amount of information available today, are those few percentage poll points indicative in any way of a better informed population? Personally, I believe we should at least have been sufficiently aware to prevent the Iraq War from even being launched. Appears to me approximately half the population use the IT age for information (half of that half is misinformation), and the other half for entertainment. I expect the pro/anti war numbers will see-saw at 50/50 while pundits spin, politicians lie, and folks are forced to spend more effort on daily survival as a new world pattern emerges. Unless Americans engage in civil war (highly unlikely), US troops will continue as corporate servants abroad and citizens at home will argue about it for many, many more years, until it's too late to do anything but serve the masters. A gloomy prospect indeed, but I think most Americans sense it and are consciously or subconsciously making their choice, and we'll soon know.
6 comments:
A gloomy prospect indeed, but I think most Americans sense it and are consciously or subconsciously making their choice, and we'll soon know.
What should be readily apparent to all is from the corporations all the way on over to the president, this oligarchy doesn't care a damn about the population that lives in these parts at this point. We're all just noisy cattle for them, making grunts groans and bellows to little or no effect.
But we're hopeless "pigs" too, and I don't mean to malign the beast of the field farm yard variety. But we pamper ourselves, live beyond our means, purchase and consume more than we realistically need, completely out of proportion to the rest of the globe for the most part. Drive automobiles around to the corner store when we could just as easily walk or travel by some other means.
Come to think of it, a "pig" wouldn't ever even do that. . .
If we're depressed we take a drug and life is rosy. If we can't get an erection we take a little something for that too.
We want children in order to perpetuate our myth, even though it's a rat's race and crap shoot and nature is on it's way into some weird kind of a melt down. You can get work at McDonald's. Plus we can't afford the time and travel to see the natural world wherever it is anyway. Alaska? Canada? It's cold there. We want kids so that we can plunk them down in front of the goodness of corporate entertainment indefinitely.
Nevermind we need to propagate, it's a natural drive. We deserve it because of our inherent virtuousness.
To lead a productive and or creatively meaningful life? well real estate is making that prospect less and less feasible for some unless you are bestowed with a trust fund, but you can still "sell yourself," it"s free market economy.
Because, seriously, nothing really matters. Look out your door at the stream of traffic going by creating constant sound and air polution. Even the quietest country road is become an industrial revolution of some sort. Everything's up for sale. It's hard to breath, I swear it causes me to have allergies or asthma or something. I never anticipated that. . .
and still we have insisted on perpetuating this reality for ourselves, and facilitate the desires of the ruling class because it's easy, and efficient, and clean. and we don't have to know anyone's name or identity if we don't want to. It's all just anonymous stuff until it happens to us. . .
But how long can a population live unconsciously, really, until some calamity or act of nature or a even a shortage of natural resources causes the center to collapse entirely and we reel towards some chaos and affliction beyond our current understanding.
as history is not necessarily entirely a linear adventure, but progresses in fits and starts and ways that can't be entirely predicted or anticipated.
probably at that point we will all wake up to the foolishness of our ways. But without that we may just as well continue in an easy somnanbulant bliss, with the air conditioner furiously keeping things cool. . .
There is no lack of information anymore. The problem is the way polls are done. Either they are designed to mislead or they do not take into account the majority of the populace. If it is a phone poll, for example, the majority of the populace have answering machines and voice mail. The only people who tend to answer the phone are the technophobes. Clearly not an honest sample to base any poll on.
As far as modern US society goes we are no different than any other society to ever exist on the face of the planet. No culture was ever ecologically sound or deeply interested in their environment.There are Cedars that disappeared from Lebanon and trees that disappeared from Easter Island. Primitive societies had just as much adverse impact on their world, relatively speaking, as we do today.
Today we live in the Golden age and mythologize about times gone past. Certainly we are a society of consumers, all cultures consume. All would consume as much as possible if given the opportunity. That is simply human nature.
Consumerism is much the same as the reason dogs lick their balls, because they can.
Some native American cultures were ecologically aware, and respectful of nature.
And some dogs are neutered.
Prove they were.Worshipping nature fetishs is quite different from being "ecologically aware". The fact is at the time no one realized there were only a finite number of anything. All world views considered everything to be infinite and a bounty from the gods.
Native peoples being environmentally conscious is just more new age mythology. Usually a people would use an area to it's fullest then move on to a new one. Back then there were plenty of new untouched areas. By the time people again returned the first area had renewed. But it was not their intention to do so.
Primitive thought is still primitive thought no matter how much we wish to read into it.
Anon,
I never try to convince anyone who already knows it all, but thanks for the offer.
"I never try to convince anyone who already knows it all."
you really are wonderful Kate-A!!!
in some politically correct manner of speaking:
of course regard the fortune of the sorry non progressive peoples ("native americans," "ecologically aware," sure, whatever...) who used to be the indigenous population of this land mass...
wait, what is indigenous anyway? and, heck, how the hell did I get here?
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