[Peace-discuss] Bush admin torture policy

[Sarah Tedrow-Azizi]

Thank you for putting this so eloquently.

It's a dangerous path to write off an entire population as "idiots," or 
even "willingly ignorant," and takes the tone of elitism. We only have 
access to the information we are given, and often that access is a 
product of privilege. It makes little sense that anyone would make a 
deliberate choice to be uninformed.


C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> Given that policy is largely insulated from politics in the US, why 
> don't we pay attention to what US citizens actually think, rather than 
> what the media tell us they think -- and rather than dismissing them 
> as "idiots" on the basis of that very policy?
>
> Both political parties and the media are far to the right of the 
> general population on a whole host of issues and the population is 
> purposely atomized and kept apart from political issues; they know 
> they can't really affect them -- which is why they don't care too much 
> if Gore/Bush, Kerry/Bush. or Clinton/Obama/McCain become president.  
> Specifically on foreign policy, the point has been made recently by 
> Benjamin Page and Marshall Bouton in their book, "The Foreign Policy 
> Disconnect."
>
> "Drawing on a series of national surveys conducted between 1974 and 
> 2004, Page and Bouton reveal that -— contrary to conventional wisdom 
> -— Americans generally hold durable, coherent, and sensible opinions 
> about foreign policy. Nonetheless, their opinions often stand in 
> opposition to those of policymakers, usually because of different 
> interests and values, rather than superior wisdom among the elite ... 
> [For example] the public consistently and overwhelmingly favors 
> cooperative multilateral policy and participation in international 
> treaties. Moreover, Americans’ foreign policy opinions are seldom 
> divided along the usual lines: majorities of virtually all social, 
> ideological, and partisan groups seek a policy that pursues the goals 
> of security and justice through cooperative means."
>
> "Sometimes government-media propaganda dupes the public -- on Saddam 
> and 9/11, to take a dramatic example. We know the means very well: 
> huge government-media propaganda exercises, which do have detectable 
> effects. But quite often the public is not duped and continues to 
> oppose the policy decisions of the government, the media, and elite 
> opinion, as public opinion studies reveal."
>
> "The Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, which regularly monitors 
> American attitudes on international issues, illustrates the 
> disconnect. A considerable majority of Americans favor 'working within 
> the United Nations, even when it adopts policies that the United 
> States does not like.' Most Americans also believe that 'countries 
> should have the right to go to war on their own only if they (have) 
> strong evidence that they are in imminent danger of being attacked,' 
> thus rejecting the bipartisan consensus on 'pre-emptive war.'
>
> "On Iraq, polls by the Program on International Policy Attitudes show 
> that a majority of Americans favor letting the UN take the lead in 
> issues of security, reconstruction and political transition in that 
> country."
>
> We see what voters actually say on these matters in countries like 
> Venezuela and Spain, which are more democratic than ours.  Even after 
> the intense media campaign that was the "Reagan revolution" (in no 
> election did more than one fourth of the eligible voters vote for 
> him), polls showed that about 80 percent of the public thought that 
> the government works for the few and the special interests, not for 
> the people. (The numbers have undoubtedly gone up in the Bush years.)
>
> So we can pay attention to what serious survey data reveals about the 
> real political views of Americans, or we can trust what we "know" 
> about those "idiots" (so different from us) -- our knowledge being a 
> product of the US media...  --CGE
>
>
> Jenifer Cartwright wrote:
>> I agree absolutely, from "idiots" (maybe "willingly ignorant voters" 
>> would be more accurate?) thru "get their attention." I do think that 
>> a large head shot with very large letters saying, e g, EXPOSED 
>> TORTURE AT ABU GRAHIB might work. Short, and legible from a distance. 
>> Also gets my vote because he's a Fillipino who experienced 
>> discrimination from fellow officers during his military career and 
>> knew he'd have no career if he blew the whistle. Definitely a hero.
>>
>>  --Jenifer
>>
>> --- On *Wed, 6/18/08, LAURIE /<LAURIE at ADVANCENET.NET>/* wrote:
>>
>>     From: LAURIE <LAURIE at ADVANCENET.NET>
>>     Subject: RE: [Peace-discuss] Bush admin torture policy
>>     To: peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
>>     Date: Wednesday, June 18, 2008, 5:09 PM
>>
>>     Well, if they weren't, we would never have been in these wars and 
>> Bush would
>>     not have been re-elected.  Arguably, there would be an influx of 
>> anti-war
>>     floats in the July 4th parade, protesting the war rather than 
>> celebrating
>>     wars and the military, patriotic duty to support the troops while 
>> they
>>     engage in maiming and killing in the name of making the world 
>> safe for
>>     Democracy and U.S. corporations, among numerous other inane 
>> things like
>>     capitalism (i.e., the JM Jones and two trucks) rather than merely 
>> the birth
>>     of the country.  Also arguably, if the public were not idiots, we 
>> would not
>>     need to even have a float - never mind one that presents them 
>> with anti-war
>>     heroes and people of courage to stand up against their 
>> government's wrong
>>     doing.
>>     I am willing to wage that if you polled most of the public on the 
>> names that
>>     you are proposing, over half would not know who the hell you are 
>> talking
>>     about and half of those would not get the message even if you 
>> conveyed it on
>>     the float.  Before you can get their attention to educate them, 
>> you have to
>>     get their interest and the easiest way is through things that 
>> they have some
>>     familiarity with. I doubt if many know who the hell Major General 
>> Antonio
>>     Taguba, USA (Ret.) is or that he was not in support of the 
>> administration
>>     stand. 
>
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