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that Gallup is always the outlier poll favoring Bush. I would guess they weight it in the 5% to 10% range to favor Bush and rightwing policy, over and above other polls. So I would say that Bush did not have 33% approval in early June (more like 26%-27%--which is more in line with other polls), and that his approval now is in the low 20's (down to the very hardest of hard core wingers). Also, on the war, they have 20% of Americans ("one in five" is how they put it) thinking that the "surge" (ESCALATION of the US killing) is improving things. Figure more like 10-15% have that mingbogglingly stupid opinion. And more like 8 to 9 out of 10 Americans (rather than Gallup's 7 in 10) want "nearly all U.S. troops" out by April. (And I'd bet the numbers on "ALL" troops--not just "nearly all"--and on an much earlier withdrawal than April--are quite high as well.)
I had a very specific reason for undertaking a study of the polls. I started following them closely in early 2003, as Bush embarked upon preemptive war, because I very much wanted to know: Have other Americans gone mad, or are they just not being listened to? The answer was important to me as an activist. Was the problem, say, fear, which could be addressed with more education on the issues, or with some kind of character-building that the American people needed? Why be so afraid of "terrorists" that you'd vote for Bush, and/or surrender all your rights to that stupid little bastard and his heinous puppetmasters? Were we cowards, or stupid, or what? Or was something else going on?
One of my first discoveries was that 56% of the American people opposed Bush's war, way back in Feb. '03, before the invasion, before Colin Powell's 100% pack of the lies to the UN was fully exposed. 56%! That would be a landslide in a presidential election. Yet if you looked at the TV, or read any newspaper, it was all war and war mongering all the time. That significant majority of Americans against this war was nowhere reflected in the corporate media. The numbers wobbled a little during the months of the invasion--with US soldiers at max risk--but soon they began a steady increase in opposition that has now reached over 70%.
The majority of Americans never supported this war, and now it's a staggering majority. I was even more amazed at other issue polls --torture (63% opposed "under any circumstances"--May '04), privatizing Social Security (80% opposed), the $10 trillion deficit (90% opposed). Americans oppose all major Bush policy, foreign and domestic, way up in the 60% to 90% range, and have done so for several years, including before the 2004 election!
These reviews of the polls that I did convinced me that the problem was NOT what Americans believe. They had not fallen for Bush's lies. The problem was/is that the majority of Americans are gravely demoralized, disempowered, and, above all, DISENFRANCHISED.
And you don't have to look very far to see how the disenfranchisement occurred. It is quite blatant. During the 2002 to 2004 period, electronic voting systems run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations, were fast-tracked across the country with $3.9 billion in boondoggle funding from the Anthrax Congress.
Non-transparent vote counting--controlled by major Bush supporters! How convenient for the fascists of both parties! It wasn't just the Bushites. Our Democratic leaders colluded in this destruction of our vote counting system. That's a chief reason why so few people know about it, and why it's so hard to change. If the Democratic Party leadership had screamed about it, it could never have succeeded. Dead silence.
A real eye-opener, that. So we've got the vast majority of the people wanting progressive, peace-minded policy, and no one representing them--except a minority in Congress whom we've managed to elect by outvoting the rigged machines, and even they seem bullied and silenced on this issue: the elephant in the room--'trade secret' vote counting.
I urge people to read the polls. You will be amazed. And if you are a grass roots activist, know this: You don't have to convince anyone of anything. The people are with you. They just need empowerment and transparent vote counting, and the American people will reform this country like never before. Forget arguing with that teensy winger minority of rabid Bushites. That's just a trick that the corporate media is playing on you--getting you to think that winger views count for anything. Talk to THE PEOPLE! Empower the people! And help them understand about this fascist vote counting system, and that it's still fixable--and the best venue for that is probably state/local registrars and other election offices, where ordinary people still have some influence.
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