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Edited on Wed Oct-03-07 11:12 AM by Peace Patriot
Feb. 2003. NYT poll. Other polls put it at 54-55%.
I was following this very closely at the time, because it was the most important strategic question for the left: Were most Americans brainwashed, stupid 'sheeple'--requiring mostly education and deprogamming--or were most of them still peace-minded and progressive but unable to be heard--requiring action to hearten and empower the majority?
The article ALSO greatly understates current opposition to the war, which has risen to 70%. They use only Gallup stats--Gallup is heavily weighted toward fascist views, and often the outlier poll (--way to the right, compared to all other polls).
The use of only Gallup polls in the article is a red flag. Do. not. trust. one. word. of. this.
I think the political establishment is very worried about the American people. Witness its installation of electronic voting systems all over the country, run on 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations, with virtually no audit/recount controls, and other unprecedented fascist measures to curtail civil rights, destroy the Constitution, monopolize the "news" with pro-war fascist crapola, and shove one fascist policy after another down our throats, as quickly as possible, with the Diebold II Congress.
The lack of antiwar demonstrations, and relatively low attendance (considering the provocation), is a BAD sign, from the fascist perspective. For one thing, it deprives them of the premier photo op for their delusionary narrative that the U.S. is a legitimately governed democracy. ('See, we're not a fascist tyranny! Anybody can protest here!') It also deprives them of the opportunity to add people to their lists--people to spy on, people to fire, people to deny loans to or target for credit card fraud, people to round up and detain if necessary. (Let us not be naive about what massive domestic spying is FOR.)
But mostly it is a sign of a massively demoralized, sullen, boiling beneath the surface rebellion. It's like when the "native drums" suddenly go quiet.
The American people are actually pretty smart--and far better informed than people give them credit for. They are THINKING, is what they are doing--figuring things out. That's my read on it. They are well aware that we could put a million people on the streets of DC, and nothing would change. Our government has gone deaf to us. There is no way to change things, in the short term. The fascists control the vote counting with 'trade secret' code. (FIFTY PERCENT of California voters--a huge increase--voted by Absentee Ballot in the last election, a strong indication of mistrust of the rigged machines, and something of an unorganized, grass roots boycott of the machines. People are looking for a way around the rigged electronics.) So why waste time, energy, resources and adrenalin protesting the war to the stone deaf, and giving the fascist political establishment a photo op for its heinously deceptive narrative about "freedom and democracy"? Eventually people will figure out--and many have already figured out--that your time is better spent protesting down at your county registrar's office, or state elections office, demanding vote counting that everyone can see and understand, and re-building the fundamental democratic structures and grass roots strength necessary to taking our country back from the war profiteers and global corporate predators who have seized it. There is hope at the state/local level, where ordinary people still have some influence. That is where we must seize back our right to vote.
I think that a serious danger for America's great, peace-minded, justice-minded majority--a majority that the fascists have failed to destroy, and that has only grown with every fascist outrage--will come when they install Emperor Hillary, because I think our corporate rulers' idea is to dampen the American peoples' anger with a liberal-seeming 'victory,' while they consolidate the enormous corporate gains under Bush and prepare for the final looting, and realization of their long term war/oil goal: Iran. They've already hijacked the U.S. military and ensconced it in the Middle East, with the goal of killing Iraqis until they sign over their oil rights. Hillary is totally on board for this, and will institute a military Draft to get it done. Then the shit is going to hit the fan from several different directions: massive rebellion of the youth; economic meltdown ($10 trillion deficit; massive borrowing against Social Security and government pensions coming home to roost, etc.); and also, pending planet-wide ecological collapse--including yet more loss of ocean fisheries--a catastrophic loss of protein--flooding/drought and wild weather impacts of global warming, and much else).
I'm not sure, but either Hillary is going to be blamed for all this, to be followed by installation of Hitler II, or Hillary IS "Hitler II," in the sense that she will not hesitate to use all the fascist powers that Bush/Cheney have pioneered, to crush protest and bring the final boot down on American democracy. I think she may have delusions of being some kind of "neo-liberal"/corporate savior (like her husband, but with powers of torture, detention without trial, massive domestic spying, writing her own laws, etc.) But she is no savior. Saving corporate rule, at this point, means crushing the American people. There can be no detente between the two. The corporate rulers have gone too far. They've ruined everything--our economy, our middle class life, jobs, benefits, health, schools, emergency services, our Constitution, our democracy, our reputation in the world, world peace, and the planet itself. The crisis is so serious--on multiple fronts--that this raging, boiling, seething beneath-the-surface anger of Americans is going to erupt.
The key to our future will be HOW it erupts. Will it be mindless rage and civil disorder--easily crushed? Or will it be focused rage, and a strong, long term determination to get our country back? I sense the latter. I already see many signs of it--not the least of which is the relatively low number of antiwar protests and protest attendees. I DON'T think this has to do with divisions in the antiwar movement. The '60s antiwar movement--and the huge progressive movements of that era (on civil rights, women's rights, gay rights, et al)--were riddled with divisions, often of seering bitterness. Nor does it have to do with, say, all the "issues" at ANSWER protests. (There were plenty of "issues" in the '60s as well.) Nor does it have to do with poor organization--say, ANSWER bringing out a lot of people, but then having speakers harangue them on what some feel are side-issues. I think it has to do with a common realization--among grass roots protest groups, and among the American people in general--of the futility of street protest. Street protest is useless without the power of the vote to back it up. And we have lost the power of the vote to privatized, Bushite-controlled, 'TRADE SECRET' vote counting, with the active complicity and connivance of both the Democratic and Republican parties' leaderships.
THAT is what has to come to consciousness--and IS coming to consciousness among the American people--despite the utter black-holing of this matter by the war profiteering corporate news monopolies, and the blindness and stupidity of many leftist pundits. Our main power as a people is our vote, and it has been quite deliberately taken away from us.
This piece of shit propaganda from Yahoo and Gallup is yet another attempt to demoralize us. But it won't succeed. Democracy is too deeply rooted here--and, as we are slowly finding out, through word of mouth and internet--democracy is breaking out all over South America, a vast sea change in South American politics--with leftist (majorityist) governments elected in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Chile and soon, Paraguay. Central America will be next (Nicaragua already gone "blue," and Mexico came very close--0.05%--last year). If the South Americans can do it--after all they've suffered of brutal oppression--so can we.
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