Polls Show Many Americans are Simply Dumber Than Bush

[Guest guest]

" Zepp " <zepp

Sat, 28 Jan 2006 22:09:47 -0800

[Zepps_News] #Polls show many Americans dumber than Putsch

 

 

 

 

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11696.htm

 

*Polls Show Many Americans are Simply Dumber Than Bush

*

*By Paul Craig Roberts

 

01/29/06 " **ICH* <http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/>* " *-- --

Two recent polls, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll and a New York

Times/CBS News poll, indicate why Bush is getting away with impeachable

offenses. Half of the US population is incapable of acquiring,

processing and understanding information.

 

Much of the problem is the media itself, which serves as a

disinformation agency for the Bush administration. Fox " News " and

right-wing talk radio are the worst, but with propagandistic outlets

setting the standard for truth and patriotism, all of the media is

affected to some degree.

 

Despite the media's failure, about half the population has managed to

discern that the US invasion of Iraq has not made them safer and that

the Bush administration's assault on civil liberties is not a necessary

component of the war on terror. The problem, thus, lies with the absence

of due diligence on the part of the other half of the population.

 

Consider the New York Times/CBS poll. Sixty-four percent of the

respondents have concerns about losing civil liberties as a result of

anti-terrorism measures put in place by President Bush. Yet, 53

percent approve of spying without obtaining court warrants " in order to

reduce the threat of terrorism. "

 

Why does any American think that spying without a warrant has any more

effect in reducing the threat of terrorism than spying with a warrant?

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which Bush is disobeying,

requires the executive to obtain from a secret panel of federal judges a

warrant for spying on Americans. The purpose of the law is to prevent a

president from spying for partisan political reasons. The law permits

the president to spy first (for 72 hours) and then come to the court for

permission. As the court meets in secret, spying without a warrant is no

more effective in reducing the threat of terrorism than spying with a

warrant.

 

Instead of explaining this basic truth, the media has played along with

the Bush administration and formulated the question as a trade-off

between civil liberties and protection from terrorists. This formulation

is false and nonsensical. Why does the media enable the Bush

administration to escape accountability for illegal behavior by putting

false and misleading choices before the people?

 

The LA Times/Bloomberg poll has equally striking anomalies. Only 43

percent said they approved of Bush's performance as president. But a

majority believe Bush's policies have made the US more secure.

 

It is extraordinary that anyone would think Americans are safer as a

result of Bush invading two Muslim countries and constantly threatening

two more with military attack. The invasions and threats have caused a

dramatic swing in Muslim sentiment away from the US.

Prior to Bush's invasion of Iraq, a large majority of Muslims had a

favorable opinion of America. Now only about 5 percent do.

 

A number of US commanders in Iraq and many Middle East experts have told

the American public that the three year-old war in Iraq is serving both

to recruit and to train terrorists for al Qaeda, which has grown many

times its former size. Moreover, the US military has concluded that al

Qaeda has succeeded in having its members elected to the new Iraqi

government.

 

We have seen similar developments both in Egypt and in Pakistan. In the

recent Egyptian elections, the radical Muslim Brotherhood, despite being

suppressed by the Egyptian government, won a large number of seats. In

Pakistan elements friendly or neutral toward al Qaeda control about half

of the government. In Iraq, Bush's invasion has replaced secular Sunnis

with Islamist Shia allied with Iran.

 

And now with the triumph of Hamas in the Palestinian election, we see

the total failure of Bush's Middle Eastern policy. Bush has succeeded in

displacing secular moderates from Middle Eastern governments and

replacing them with Islamic extremists. It boggles the mind that this

disastrous result makes Americans feel safer!

 

What does it say for democracy that half of the American population is

unable to draw a rational conclusion from unambiguous facts?

 

Americans share this disability with the Bush administration.

According to news reports, the Bush administration is stunned by the

election victory of the radical Islamist Hamas Party, which swept the

US-financed Fatah Party from office. Why is the Bush administration

astonished?

 

The Bush administration is astonished because it stupidly believes that

hundreds of millions of Muslims should be grateful that the US has

interfered in their internal affairs for 60 years, setting up colonies

and puppet rulers to suppress their aspirations and to achieve, instead,

purposes of the US government.

 

Americans need desperately to understand that 95 percent of all Muslim

terrorists in the world were created in the past three years by Bush's

invasion of Iraq.

 

Americans need desperately to comprehend that if Bush attacks Iran and

Syria, as he intends, terrorism will explode, and American civil

liberties will disappear into a thirty year war that will bankrupt the

United States.

 

The total lack of rationality and competence in the White House and the

inability of half of the US population to acquire and understand

information are far larger threats to Americans than terrorism.

 

America has become a rogue nation, flying blind, guided only by

ignorance and hubris. A terrible catastrophe awaits.

 

/Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the

Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street

Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is

coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at:

paulcraigroberts <paulcraigroberts

 

 

/

 

 

--

" Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government

talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court

order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about

chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order

before we do so "

-George W. Bush, April 20, 2004

 

Not dead, in jail, or a slave? Thank a liberal!

Pay your taxes so the rich don't have to.

 

http://www.zeppscommentaries.com

For news feed, http:////zepps_news

For essays (please contribute!) http://zepps_essays

[Guest guest]

It's remarkable, that media can be the focus of the charges made in the piece by

Craig Roberts, and be left off the hook to the extent that they are. It's

impossible to imagine institutions that causes as much trouble and are as

opposed to the interests of the people they supposedly serve, as are U. S.

media, and are left more or less completely free to continue their nonsense. In

fact, even the language used to describe the horrors committed by media, tell us

something about this peculiar problem. Roberts tells us in one paragraph, that

media serve as " ...a disinformation agency for the Bush administration. " But in

the very next paragraph, we are told that this is a " ...media failure. "

Failure, suggests something completely different than was suggested in the

previous paragraph, namely that an honest attempt was made to convey information

to the public, accurately and without bias, but the process " failed. " But media

are not failing at their task. They're " complicit. " Complicity suggests that

there was an effort made to deliberately convey false information, to the

benefit of the Bush adimistration. When the process is intentional, and entered

into consciously and deliberatly, we don't speak of failure, we speak of a media

success.

 

The whole piece produces distortion in our minds. It tells us " ...many

Americans dumber than Putsch. " Then it tells us that these Americans are

" ...incapable of

acquiring, processing and understanding information. " But isn't it clear, that

if " ...media are acting as a disinformation agency for the Bush administration, "

Americans, who take it for granted that media are more or less being honest with

them, are being deceived and lied to? Doesn't that mean that we can't assume

that it's a lack of the ability to understand information, but simply that

they're not even getting the information in the first place?

 

JP

 

-

califpacific

Sunday, January 29, 2006 5:59 AM

 

 

" Zepp " <zepp

Sat, 28 Jan 2006 22:09:47 -0800

[Zepps_News] #Polls show many Americans dumber than Putsch

 

*Polls Show Many Americans are Simply Dumber Than Bush

*By Paul Craig Roberts

 

01/29/06 " **ICH* <http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/>* " *-- --

Two recent polls, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll and a New York

Times/CBS News poll, indicate why Bush is getting away with impeachable

offenses. Half of the US population is incapable of acquiring,

processing and understanding information.

 

Much of the problem is the media itself, which serves as a

disinformation agency for the Bush administration. Fox " News " and

right-wing talk radio are the worst, but with propagandistic outlets

setting the standard for truth and patriotism, all of the media is

affected to some degree.

 

Despite the media's failure,....

(snip)