This might have something to do with all those media reported false starts in the WMD search, like when mustard gas was supposedly found in the tigris river.
This kind of ignorance is frightening. Democracy doesn’t work without an informed voting public. It frightens me to live in a country where decisions are being made by a populace that has a proclivity to believe things that is not only not true, but for which they have no reason to believe as true (such as a inaccurate news report).
And, to get into partisan squabbling, I do think this is one of Bush’s tactics. It worked well enough to get us to believe there were WMDs in Iraq in the first place. He gave us so many false starts (aluminum tubes, African uranium, etc.) that people started connecting dots that wern’t there and coming up with a false picture of the situation. Embedded reporters were definately a calculated government decision, and you can bet that there were rules stating that showing people suiting up in protective gear is one of the things they were allowed (and therefor implicitly encouraged) to show. This is a new form of propaganda, misinformation by false start, and it is apparently an effective one.
How can we stop ignorance? I’ve got some ideas…maybe I’ll open up a thread in GD.
Actually, you can. All it requires is a governmental commitment to funding education and adherence to high educational standards in all respects.
But of course, an ignorant public is also much more malleable, and less likely to hold it’s leadership accountable. Makes you wonder why it has been such a struggle to fund education in some sectors, huh? At least the military will still get its $300+ billion dollars. Not that any of it prevented 9/11.
i think you guys are making too big a deal out of this. Insane war propaganda has been around forever. And like i said, all the iraqis who had atropine & gas masks on them, the supposed mustard gas found in the tigris, and gulf war syndrome from gulf war I, which has symptomoloy similiar to exposure to the nerve agent Sarin are going to throw people and make them assume things.
Now if you want to see some nutty war propaganda, look at what the middle east muslims have to say about Israel.
Good Grief.
I have started hearing this more and more from liberal or left-leaning acquaintences. The idea that democracy doesn’t work, that the American people are too stupid for self government. Bah. You know, because if the American people weren’t idiots, they agree with THEM. The fact that people don’t agree is taken as evidence that they aren’t fit to govern themselves.
The illiberality of this is shocking. And disheartening. I might expect conservatives like Pat Buchanan or Trent Lott to believe that the people are sheep who must be firmly controlled by the leaders, even if they are wise enough not to say so in public. But to hear so-called liberals longing for an authoritarian system to keep the foolish masses from disaster is pathetic. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
Here ya go…a thread in Great Debates for proposals to end ignorance about current events.
AHHHHHH!!!
CHICKENS OF MASS DESTRUCTION!!!
So it is now a liberal belief to say that Saddam Hussain did not use chemical or biological weapons against American troops in the recent conflict?
We’re not talking about predictions for the future, or opinions about an events qualities or something. We are talking about a fact, an easily verifiyable fact. And it’s not an insignifgant fact. People arn’t claiming that Saddam kicks puppies or something. Use of chemical and biological weapons has been decreed as adequate justification for nuclear retaliation. A belief that Iraq used these weapons against as will severely distort a person’s ideas of what our future actions should be. I’d support the war if I thought Saddam was walking around releasing smallpox on our troops.
I’m not saying we need to set up an authoritarian system because our people can’t take care of ourselves. Thats already been taken care of, it seems.
I didn’t see any posts longing for an authoritarian system. I did see at least one that demonstrated an inability to process sarcasm.
How else would you characterize Plato’s Republic, and the “noble lies” that underpin it?
Um. Dude. Thousands of artifacts were looted. Count is courrently at 6000 and climbing.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17897-2003Jun20.html
You really need to read your RNC bulletins and keep track of when certain spin points are ‘no longer operative’
If you asked 1000 people if they thought badgers were conspiring to dye the world’s chocolate plantations blue, at least 25% would probably say yes. Maybe they don’t understand or can’t remember the question, weren’t paying attention, can’t enunciate clearly or tick the right box, or deliberately give false answers to tease the pollsters. All this survey proves is that opinion polls are a load of bollocks.
As opposed to the 170,000 that folks like you were oh so certain had been looted? Sorry that I didn’t have the exact number on hand, but that’s a still reduction of over 96%, bud.
Sorry, but my original point stands: anyone who claims that they know just exactly what happened on the ground at this stage, and belittles others for holding contrary beliefs, is the one who’s an idiot.
You’re still missing the point Doghouse. This isn’t about partisianship (well, maybe for a few posters, but not the majority). This thread isn’t pitting Republicans. It’s pitting the general ignorance of the American public. WMD’s weren’t used on the soldiers. 25% of America thinks they were. That’s a fair bit of ignorance. That 25% doesn’t have anything to do with whether the war was right or not or any of that crap. It is has to do with the fact that 25% of the American public is grossly misinformed about a basic facet of the war, and that is alarming.
My problem is in the title of the thread as it implies a preexisting faith in the American people. I lost that when polls showed a majority of Americans believed in a substantial link between Al Qaeda, Saddam, and 9/11.
Either that or faith in polls. I used to think surveys were mostly crap. Then I worked in the industry. Calling most polling data crap would be a compliment.
Just to clarify to y’all folks…
I still think Democracy rocks. It’s the best system ever. The American people need democracy, etc.
I just think they aren’t taking full advantage of it, and that is what scares me.
I wonder if we can get a pollster to ask the following:
“Do you think 25% of Americans are ignorant people?”
My gut feel is that the result will come out as follows:
No – 33%
Yes – 33%
No opinion – 33%
So, what would the above result indicate?
How can I know, for sure, whether 25% of Americans are ignorant or not?
I don’t know. How many times did we see it? Personally, I’d prefer to take my chances with the mustard or sarin that the Iraqis might have used rather than the 600 odd tonnes of uranium 238 the coalition did litter Iraq with. This so-called depleted uranium was (and is even more so now) the real reason for the NBC gear.
We’ve heard the panic-mongering and panty peeing from Bush and Blair regarding dirty bombs and now we’re about to find out the real-world effects of non-fissile radiological weapons. God have mercy on us. Not that we deserve it.
I like this quote from Harry Reasoner (I think I got it from somewhere on the SD, so I don’t know if it is valid),
“When 25% of the population believe the president should be impeached and 51% believe in UFO’s, you may or may not need a new president, but you definitely need a new population”
I don’t know why people are surprised about a poll like this. I can imagine that 25% of the population couldn’t give a rats ass about what is going on in Iraq for more than the initial fireworks, saw people with NBC suits on, and thought that Saddam was using WMD. Most people could care less what happens on the other side of the planet. They have things they are interested in and things they are not. They might be far smarter than some of you give them credit for, they just don’t care enough about this issue to keep abreast of what is current.
I get the impression that some of you sit in front of the TV watching the BBC or CNN 24 hours a day. Your SO comes by every once in a while to poke you with a stick to see if you’re still breathing.
Wait a minute Uzi, how many a 9/11 would it take for “most people” to Wake Up and start caring what the US foreign policy is doing on the other side of the planet?
I’d hate to see it happen, but one more 9/11 and you’ll see how “most people” will start caring about what is the root cause of the tragedy. Eventually, people will realize how, in the long run, the impact of the US foreign policy comes back and haunt them at home.
Unfortunate that it has to take a horrible mayhem to wake people up and make them keep abreast of what is going on.