Damn, but we’re slow learners
Bookworm on Aug 19 2006 at 10:55 am | Filed under: Uncategorized
An Investor’s Business Daily poll that shows America waking up to the threat of Islamic terrorism:
A majority of Americans, 51 percent, believe that “militant Islamism is no less a threat in the 21st century than Nazism, fascism and communism were in the 20th century,” 63 percent are “very concerned” about the desire of Islamo-fascists to establish a worldwide Muslim rule, and 58 percent doubt that diplomacy or negotiation will work in dealing with Islamic fascists.
And Americans are now most aware of the Iranian role in promoting fascism: 58 percent in the poll think Iran is now the “main promoter of Islamic fascism in the Middle East,” and 76 percent believe Iran must be prevented from obtaining nuclear weapons “at any cost.”
It’s a good thing that Americans are coming to grips with what’s going on, but I actually found it very depressing that it’s taken five years for only slightly more than 50% of Americans to figure out that the world is facing a huge threat from Islamists generally. I mean, think about what had to happen over the past five years to nudge people over the halfway point: Five years ago, these Islamists blew up almost 3,000 of our citizens. In the five years since, they’ve been busy blowing up people all over the world. Last week, they were caught attempting to blow up ten airplanes. Daily, we get rhetoric about their desire to murder us en masse. Regular news reports come out of Iraq with stories of beheadings, tortures, bombings and mass murders. And despite all that news, a mere 51% of people think there might be something going on with Islamic fascism! I’m at a loss to understand this ostrich mentality.
Hat tip: Political Fan
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19 Responses to “Damn, but we’re slow learners”
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I think you can put a positive spin on this. I believe in another post you mentioned that Americans like their history boring.
I think that as a people we are pretty good natured and friendly. It would be against American nature to quickly jump to the conclusion that there is a large and powerful culture out there that hates us and our way of life. We just find that hard to believe. “Hate TV, McD’s and Hollywood? Who would hate that?”
It is a sign that we are a good and noble people that we take so long to identify an implacable enemy in our midst.
btw: this one won’t have anyone sleeping any easier.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525897203&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Best,
Joe
I hope Joe’s right, but I think he’s an optimist. We all watch, for example, when Jay Leno goes out on the street and can’t find anyone who knows who Dick Cheney, Condy Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, or John Robets are. We’re all amazed - and amused - to discover that 80% of Americans can’t find New York City on a map - forget Baghdad or Darfur.
Those are just two of the hundreds of available examples firmly establishing what a rotten job we do of educating people.
Which is an excuse, really - and it’s fine as far as it goes. But what’s really disheartening, at least to me, is the total lack of intellectual curiosity that any event anywhere in the world seems to arouse in the average American breast. On the evidence, nobody owns an atlas, or even a dictionary anymore, and certainly nobody’s going to expend five minutes of their valuable time stopping off at the local library to find out much of anything.
We have the information superhighway piped into just about all of our houses - and Leno can’t find one person who knows who the VP is. Identify an implacable enemy in our midst? You must be joking…
We are dopes about our own, let alone anyone else’s, history; we are dopes about who’s in charge; we are dopes about what’s currently transpiring in the world, and where: I’m afraid we’re dopes.
And that is really off the disheartening scale.
In 1979 John D. MacDonald wrote: “No matter how much security we lay on, they are going to create one hell of a series of bloody messes from border to border and coast to coast. A lot of sweet dumb people are going to get ripped up. Headlines, speeches, doom, the end of our way of life, and so on. Terrorism is going to pay us one big fat bloody visit. But it will only be a visit. They underestimate our national resilience. Aroused by that kind of savagery, we can become a very tough kind of people.”
I don’t know - five years on and we’ve just managed to convince a little over half of the people that there is in fact a problem? There seems to be no national will for even getting control of the damn borders!
That’s a little depressing. The evidence so far seems to indicate that John D. MacDonald and Joe are perhaps more optimistic than the facts would warrant.
We have a problem here, people - and after five years most of us haven’t bothered to figure out where the hell the Middle East can be found on a map!
JJ, remember that the U.S. has been hit with only a single one of MacDonald’s “big fat bloody visit(s)”…..you may be right about Americans, but I don’t think that MacDonald’s test has been met, at least not yet.
That said, I do tend to agree with you, rather than Joe about why only half of us now believe that we’re at war with militant Islam…..Americans may well be a “good and noble people” (I certainly believe that), but I think distraction and stupidity is a much better explanation of what’s going on at the moment.
I don’t care much for populism. Sure I can make use of it if it is to my advantage, but even for populism there is a statistical curve. Meaning, if you look at statistical quarters and quadrials (or whatever they call it), then you will notice that the bell curve is always around for any population segment.
There’s always those on the left that go down to zero and on the right that go down to zero, with the majority being in the middle section. The rarities and outliers are at the two ends.
In this case, the 51% are 25% of the Left and 25% of the Right. There is 11% to 25% in America that seek to destroy America and remake it in their own image, more or less. That leaves you 75% to work with. 25% of the 75% either don’t care, are too busy, or they some combination of the two.
You’re not going to get 80% or 90% Bookworm, so you have to drop the expectations in pure number crunching.
Now if I was a populist, then all that would matter to me would be the numbers, which has more or less. But I’m not just a populist, I’m concerned about the quality of the numbers, not just the quantity of the support.
Without more details, the poll numbers do not provide enough infrastructure for a more accurate analysis. For example it would be useful to know the Democrat/Repbulican breakdown, as well as previous polls after and before historic events 9/11, as well as perhaps including geographic, county, and racial qualifications.
By segmenting and collating the various variables that exists to influence public opinion, you can find out why 51% believe things are a threat and why the others don’t believe such things are a threat. Until the basic reasoning is hammered out, I do not believe you can make any concrete conclusions concerning whether people are in real denial or not.
There are things occuring now that you can infer as denial. But statistically speaking, it is included in the numbers and the range. I’m not worrying too much about that.
So long as you do have a majority, you have an advantage. It is when you lose that majority that problems occur. Israel is a good example of how public support can be high, but without good leadership, it doesn’t matter how populist a war is based upon.
Given that 48% of about 55% of American citizens, voted for Kerry, that’s about more or less 25% of the total US population. So it is consistent with my conclusion that 11% to 25% of America as a total seek to destroy America. This combined with voters who either don’t know what’s going on, or are paying attention to something else like Bush being the main threat, and you got a streamlined statistical result that is rather predictable.
This is just how a democracy works, with Constitutional limits that is. 25% is a goner. 50% is more or less set in stone. It’s the 25% that can be shifted one way or another.
You would see more than 51% in the polls, Book, if Teddy Roosevelt had been in power on 2001 and for 5 more years. But Bush isn’t Roosevelt, and neither is he Lincoln.
Good comments all. Bookworm is right; the current state of MSM-induced apathy and near despair we fight is wrong. Let me return to Hillsdale College’s archives for these words from Zell Miller. You will want to read his whole address. It is his faith in US and his unflinching condemnation of the ‘Blame America first’ generation that stand out. His reference to the common man is also applicable to the hundreds of thousands of those men and women who fight for us everyday in Iraq, and elsewhere.
What indeed would be the toll of death and destruction from fanatic Islam without the US?
excerpt–
“As the shrill charges of the post-Vietnam crowd rained down, Americans.. wondered: If America is not a liberator, why are our old enemies today free, prosperous and independent? If America creates puppets, why are countries we liberated now free to object to what we do? If America is the problem with the world, what would the world look like today without us?
..(skip)..
“If you take one thing away with you tonight, I pray it is this: American civilization deserves protection and has earned the benefit of the doubt. Do not let barbarians use our civility and freedom to destroy our liberty. Do not let barbarians sack civilization simply because they knock gently. Holding the course for freedom is hard. But with all I’ve learned from study, age and experience, I believe, with every fiber of my body, that there comes a time when a civilization has to choose between good and evil, between freedom and tyranny.
.. And I thank Providence above for the wisdom our Founders demonstrated by entrusting the direction of this nation to the common man and woman. From these ordinary folks, we have again seen extraordinary leadership, and for that we can all rejoice.”
http://www.hillsdale.edu/imprimis/2005/January/default.htm
..
YM is right - the real battle against Sauron is waged between the less-than 50% in Middle Earth who cared. The rest are hobbits. It has always been so. The American Revolution had the support of a minority of the population http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolutionary_War, but they were the ones who cared. My relatives have told me that it was the same in France during the Nazi occupation…it was a small minority that supported the resistance, the rest either collaborated or really didn’t give a Gallic shrug. Off course, once it was over, everyone claimed to have been with the resistance, just as the same Liberal/Democrats who did everything they could to undermine Reagan today claim credit for how “we” beat the Soviet Union. I am sure the day will come when the Liberal/Left takes credit for how “we” overcame Islamo-Fascism, when, in fact, the historical record will amply demonstrate that they were its biggest enablers.
The Democrats beat racism and the KKK
Ymarsakar, I usually agree with you, but…
re: “The Democrats beat racism and the KKK”
The KKK WERE Democrats. It was people on both sides of the political aisle who beat them.
I think the common practice in contemporary history, politics, and the media may be to choose numbers instead of understanding. In the MSM we are ‘told’ every day what the polls ‘think’ WE think.. has anyone discussed a poll question WITH YOU personally lately?
We are informed how the ‘experts’ say we should act.
We, the public, get ‘free lessons’ in parenting, lifestyle?, health, financial issues–to name just a few. But no one fathoms OUR thinking. Q: Does anyone in NY/LA/Washington know WHAT you think?
Which is one great reason for the blogosphere (and Bookworm! Yea)!!
In my latest reading about the Revolutionary War, historian McCullough (I’m on his second book) never indulges in majorities, minorities, or percentages. He talks about groups, yes, but never subsumes their identities to statistics. I agree with that. He talks in terms of people, ideas, causes, actions, character, Providence.
We are mired in statistical enumerations today. Result,
ARE we even a real people?
So, consider: BEFORE Vietnam, were any of America’s foreign conflicts SUBJECT to public opinion POLLS?–either here or abroad? Should they have been?
Please remember some terrible consequences of number-crunching and poll-swallowing,i.e. William J. Clinton’s vacillation during his ‘failed watch’ which paved the way for 9/ll.
I ain’t a religious freak but I do not see a reason of associating some religions with fascism. Can it be more of a issue of a particular group which happens to follow Islam?
I think you have to be careful in writing generalized articles. While I respect your freedom, it is too much of a child game to bash others based on a notion which prevails in the public who have limited knowledge about history and international relations.
Hi Dreamnepal,
I tend to agree with you, but there is certainly enough in the Koran and in Islamic teaching generally to support the notion of the Islamic religion as antithetical to peaceful coexistence with other religious and with democracy. But you could say the say thing about Judism or Christianity by selecting certain passages from the Bible. What is shocking to me is that the more radical elements seem to control Islam and the Islamic voices for reason, peace, coexistence, etc. are nearly silent. It may not be fair to say that Islam is, by its very nature, fascist. But it is fair to say that the fascist elements of Islam have taken control of that religion and I see little hope of it ceding that control any time soon. The “particular group” that is fascist and is Islamic controls the religion. Remember, Christians brought down Hitler. Will peace-loving Islamists fight equally hard to bring down the extreme elements in their religion? I’ll believe it when I see it.
Currently, most Muslims have no reason to bring down the extreme elements like Hizbollah, Hamas, Iran, etc. Why should they? Don’t Islamic Jihad give pride back to the community? Don’t Islamic Jihad provide for the welfare of the citizens? Don’t Islamic Jihad execute those who shun the word of Allah and help the infidel Jews and Amis?
When you have every reason to help an organization and every reason not to betray it, few are suicidal enough to challenge the status quo.
By showing Arabs something better, we give them an alternative. But you can’t just do that with words, or else the Islamic Jihad will find the converts to the new system and kill them, and then it will return to the old status quo.
Since you have to protect the Arabs to give them a chance, you have to be physically there to do so. The terroists don’t swarm into Hizbollah and Hamas territory like they do with Iraq, because their converts control Hamas and Hizbollah territory. Why would they reinforce a controlled sector of the Arab geo-political-graphy?
Peace loving Islamists can fight, but they’ll get slaughtered just like the Shia got slaughtered trying to rebel against Saddam in 1992. No revolution that overthrew a superior force in terms of numbers and quality ever did so without help from the outside, an outside power. If the ones in power are ruthless enough, they can and will crush any attempt to overthrow the ruling order. Islamic Jihad is pretty ruthless, I believe we can all agree on that.
A bunch of peasants with pitchforks are no match for heavy cavalry.
The KKK WERE Democrats. It was people on both sides of the political aisle who beat them.
I was speaking tongue in cheek. Since my comment disappeared the last part of that sentence cause of some weird formating, it might be harder to tell if you don’t remember what I used to say about the South, Grant, and post Civil War reconstruction.
It was after Danny’s comment that the Democrats keep claiming victory over things they were not apart of, so that is the context.
An addendum to number crunching is that 25% of the US pop voted for Kerry, but not all 25% were part of the 11%-25% in the US that seeks to overthrow the status quo through revolutionary means.
Most of the 25% of total US pop who voted for Kerry is part of the blame America first crowd, but there are always percentages of people who don’t know any better, who don’t care, who just vote what their fathers voted, and so forth. So if you combine the voting totals, that’s still less than 60% more or less. So what’s the other 40% of the US total pop doing if they aren’t voting? Most of them don’t care, most of them are too busy working, significant part are without citizenship and working against INS.
When you start doing statistics number crunching on 300 MILLION people, it is not as simple as seeing how many out of a 100 voted for whom what and where, you know.
Most of the Democrats believe in their own propaganda, they are not the best people to explain things in a way that makes sense. The Republicans have a lot of engineers and mathematicians that can explain the numbers, but they don’t pay a lot of attention to the politics and the psychology overall, so they can only crunch some numbers if you ask them a specific question and provide them with all the relevant data. Polls these days don’t provide the necessary data for anyone to make any real analysis over.
It’s more useful to take 100 polls and compare them to each other, and you might get some useful trends. But to take one and use it? No. There was that one time I remember in 2003 I think, that MSNBC article said that 65% of the people distrusted the Bush Administration. The poll actually asked if you distrusted people in the Bush Administration. They had another question asking if you distrusted Bush himself. So MSNBC turned a poll about Donald Rumsfield and SecState into one about Bush. Clever, but not exactly accurate analysis you know. So you got 2 layers to go through. The media who falsely interpret polls, and then the polls itself when it has inadequate questions and answers.
I have written something in my own site regarding Islam and America. However, I sharply differ from your views Bookworm. Do read it and comment on it.
DQ - I take issue with your statement about Christianity. Where, exactly, in the New Testament is there anything that remotely argues against peaceful coexistence with non-believers? Those so-called Christians who actively promoted hatred toward one group or another on “religious” grounds almost always quote from the Old Testament, which gives me ample reason to question their professed faith. Also…you aren’t suggesting that the Christians who brought down Hitler brought down a “Christian”, are you? Hitler was rabidly and openly anti-Christian! In fact, the Nazis actively tried to reestablish a State religion based upon the old Nordic deities, not because they believed in them, but because it was a means whereby to control the population.
Hi Danny,
Thanks for the comments. Christians believe in BOTH the Old Testament and the New Testament (and both are a part of the Bible), so it is perfectly legitimate to say you can make a case for religious intolerance from the Bible, even if you are only quoting from the Old Testament.
As for Hitler, you make a good point, but the Germans were a part of the Judeo-Christian tradition more than any other and I believe the point still stands, even if Hitler himself rejected that tradition. When a part of the Christian world turned to pure evil the rest of the Christian world not only condemned it, but took action and ended it. When, as now, a part of the Islamic world turns to pure evil, will the rest of the Islamic world not only condemn it, but take action to end it? I’ve seen little evidence that it will. The fact that the evil-doers are acting in Islam’s name (and Hitler was not acting in Christianity’s name) should make the Islamic reaction stronger, not weaker. Yet the reaction has not happened and it appears it never will.
And that last, point, DQ, is what troubles me the most. You are absolutely right! It demolishes the Muslim “don’t blame Islam because everyone does it” argument. However, I do see individual Muslims speaking out and there are Muslim governments that have been actively helping us with the GWOT. When the Mahdi of Sudan rose up against the British in the late 1800s, it inflamed Muslim sentiments of jihad. When he was killed by the British, those sentiments died with him. For an encouraging word of how things could eventually become in even as God-foresaken place like Iraq, look at: http://www.reason.com/0608/fe.mt.the.shtml. The bad thing about the Arab street is that opinions can turn on a dime. The good thing about the Arab street is that…opinions can turn again on the same dime. Don’t lose heart, yet.
Dream’s post is wrong because there are no sovereign countries. Not only that, there is no such thing as public opinion, only masses to be manipulated through oration and rhetoric.
Since it doesn’t matter what the US does, with enough money and propaganda, anyone can be convinced of anything. The Soviets did it, and they weren’t an example that outshone America.
Dream talks much about what people think of the US and what the US should or should not do, and why it is wrong to support this or that country. But in terms of the real world, none of that matters. The only thing that matters is who has the power, how much of it are they willing to use, and how many guillible people are around for that power to affect. That’s more or less all that matters in terms of planning on an international scale.
I am sure Iraqi people had a better life during Saddham’s period compared to the life after American invasion.
It doesn’t matter people, really it doesn’t. All that matters is whether you, personally or the nation you are apart of, can convince enough people to side with you instead of siding with the enemy.
Now does that mean it don’t matter what you actually do or whether you can maintain your promises? Of course it matters, but it only matters in tertiary mode, not primus.
Because propaganda is limited, it does help to actually be who you claim you are. But it is not necessary to convince people to fight against a common foe. Human self-survival instincts are enough for that in the short term.
It isn’t necessary to convince everyone or even just one person.
It’s a lot more efficient to convert people in masse, then to do each individual singlely. For example. You could convince people by doing one simple thing. Get everyone in Iraq and in most of the world, to side with the US, in fighting those who disagree. WHen you do that, does it matter that people claim that others don’t like the US and hate the US? No, because actions still trump words when it comes to fatalities. No amount of propaganda can reattache your head to your body.
Gain enough allies in the real world, to get real power, and it doesn’t matter what people “believe”. Belief is fickle, it is mercurial, it can be changed and affected. As with gravity.
America needs an advice: hold yourself within your domain. Nobody gives a damn unless you mess with them. Have you ever seen the honey bees attack you unless you want to steal the honey from its domain? Exactly, same point is applicable here as well.
To make an end point. Arabs and the world peeps like Frenchmen aren’t honey bees, they are African relocated killer bees, and people should know that the domain of killer bees are whatever territory they are in including the ones they expand into on a regular basis. Killer bees will actually chase you a very very long distance, should they even sense you within their territory. Aggressive, territorial, and not exactly peaceful.
What America needs to do is to expand the domain. To push the limits, to surpass the genkai, to demonstrate beyond a shadow of the doubt the difference between utilizing 100% of potential and 10% of US current potential. Only then will things get better.
America will literally be destroyed by a prolonged period of peace, for the ultimate consequences of such actions is a slow societal degradation that will eat America from the inside out. Without the threat of war, the military virtues disappear not only because the funding is cut, but because there is no need. Without the martial virtues, there is little standing as pillars of the strength of America, the power that guarantees law and order. Without power, there is no law and order.
Here’s some hammer for the anvil.
B5: How did you earn the trust of the local Iraqis?
By action. We have performed various tasks that have shown the locals that we do what we say we are going to do. There was a large amount of debris and trash in the streets of a local housing complex. I said my team would set about to finding a solution to get rid of the trash. It was a health issue that we took seriously. What we ended up doing was hiring the people of the complex to pick up their own trash and dispose of it away from the complex in an appropriate manner. It provided a solution to the problem and provided jobs to over 50 local men and financial gain for their families. Actions - they speak volumes in our field.
People talk, and that has some effect, but talk is limited. Limited in its use like nuclear weapons are limited in use.
B5: What is the one story that you would want told that is not being told about Iraq?
How much the people want democracy. I get tired of the MSM articles about how it was better before we came. Maybe it was because all of the life and will of the people had been crushed. Is that any way to live? I think not and I think most Iraqis would agree. There is a lot of healing going on in this country and it is moving forward in baby-steps. It won’t happen over night, but I feel the people here [want to] be allowed to make something of their nation worth being proud of.
I wrote my post and then read this post from black five. Since it’s about action, I don’t need to read it before talking about it. Action is still action even if you have not heard anyone saying that people should act more and talk less.
If that makes little sense, then let’s just say that some things are true regardless of who supports it.
http://www.blackfive.net/main/2006/08/blackfive_inter.html