posted on November 30, 2004 02:50:25 PM new Helen, I didn't mean that morals shouldn't be taught in school, just that I didn't think it was the responsibility of the school to teach them because the school's idea of morality might be different than the parent's
KD, I understand what you mean. I was thinking of early childhood education and referring to those morals and values that we would all agree are important such as honesty, kindness, responsibility, not to harm others and to have respect and consideration for everyone. School is an ideal place to teach such good behavior since that environment offers supervised socialization by qualified teachers. Some children in primary grades may not have that opportunity at home.
posted on November 30, 2004 03:07:07 PM new
There are day cares out there that do teach values. If I had to work that many hours a day, which I did many nights. I had a husband that had values that he taught. We had only one child. Our reason was raise one child right instead of many. Our daughter never had a baby sitter. I was fortunate in my career to be able to change schedules according to my husbands 7-4 job. The profession I was in was a 24 hour one and I worked the night shift with call so that I could be home with her during the day. We had a nice home, 2 cars, bank account. We did not over spend. I did not care what my neighbors had. I didn't have to look good for anyone but we provided for our family. We did go to church and my daughter to Sunday School.
I think it was how WE (all of us) were brought up and what kind of values our parents instilled in us and that is passed on to our family. It's like a domino affect and it starts with the first generation. Of course as we get older values change but that doesn't change until our children are out in the world with the values we have taught them.
_________________
To Quote John Kerry in his concession speech. "But in an american election, there are no losers, because whether or not our candidates are successful, the next morning we all wake up as Americans
posted on November 30, 2004 07:03:30 PM new
Heck why not do both and add one more thing to the mix. Sex, drugs and rock and roll. Now, don't bogart that joint my friend.
posted on November 30, 2004 07:39:44 PM new
Don't Bogart That Joint
Lyrics: Elliot Ingber
Music: Elliot Ingber
Played by Little Feat's Paul Barrere and Bill Payne with Phil & Friends. The original verson (on the soundtrack of "Easy Rider" was by Fraternity Of Man. It was subsequently covered by Little Feat.
Don't bogart that joint, my friend
Pass it over to me.
Don't bogart that joint, my friend
Pass it over to me.
Roll another one
Just like the other one.
This one's burnt to the end
Come on and be a friend.
Don't bogart that joint, my friend
Pass it over to me.
Don't bogart that joint, my friend
Pass it over to me.
Ro-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-oll another one
Just like the other one.
You've been hanging on to it
And I sure would like a hit.
Don't bogart that joint, my friend
Pass it over to me.
Don't bogart that joint, my friend
Pass it over to me
Recordings
1969? Easy Rider (Soundtrack)
1988 The Last Record Album (Little Feat)
[ edited by yellowstone on Nov 30, 2004 07:42 PM ]
posted on November 30, 2004 07:50:12 PM new
bogart
Definition: to selfishly take or keep something; hog
Example: She was drunk and bogarted attention at the block party.
Etymology: probably from Humphrey Bogart, US actor
Usage: slang; bogarted, bogarting
posted on November 30, 2004 08:35:58 PM new
::Who should instill moral values or just values in our youth or younger children. I would like to hear an answer from yeager or an atheist. Or a non church going poster. ::
I'm just curious Libra - do you think non church goers cannot have and therefore instill morals? I was never baptised, had no religious influence in my life and the only time I have ever attended church was the mandatory sunday services I attended in boarding school where I sat in the back and read a book.
I don't hurt other people, I give to others when I can, I run a successful business that allows me to give to those others and I do not feel that others are inferior, damned, etc simply because they believe differently from myself. I would teach any child in my care to hopefully do the same.
Oh yes... and I try to know something about topics before forming opinions on them. Medicinal Marijuana has a multitude of uses including fighting thrush and helping to instill an appetite in chemo and AIDS patients. Marjuana was used for its medicanal purposes for hundreds of years before it found favor as a recreational drug and it is incredibly arrogant for uninvolved tird parties to decide what medications someone should or should not be given access to.
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on November 30, 2004 09:09:52 PM new
These were questions that I asked because I was interested in knowing. I didn't mean anything bad about it I just wanted to know.
Where did you get yours from and this is not a put down or anything but you had to have someone that helped along the way. Do you think going to boarding school helped with values?
_________________
To Quote John Kerry in his concession speech. "But in an american election, there are no losers, because whether or not our candidates are successful, the next morning we all wake up as Americans
posted on November 30, 2004 09:50:55 PM new
fenix, Medicinal Marijuana has a multitude of uses including fighting thrush and helping to instill an appetite in chemo and AIDS patients.....
Why do you suppose they can make or transfer to synthetics,as they do the opiates like in methadone (or any of the other ingrients)in pain relief medications and not duplicate the properties of marijuana synthetically? I just cant believe with all the laboratory technology and everything else at their disposal they cant do that??
Then I wonder even if they did duplicate it near perfectly, would people still want to smoke weed because there is some psychological attachment to smoking, more than say, popping a pill?
edited to add: when I was growing up word was half the pot out there was either treated with some chemicals or not a very good grade.
So I also wonder how many even smoke full natural marijuana?
[ edited by neroter12 on Nov 30, 2004 09:54 PM ]
posted on November 30, 2004 10:13:52 PM newWhere did you get yours from and this is not a put down or anything but you had to have someone that helped along the way.
:o you think going to boarding school helped with values? ::
Good god no! I think that a boarding school is about the worst thing you can when it comes to morals. Every kid has their own little bag of tricks. Their own little habits and cons and rotten little things you do to irritate those around you. It's only natural. The problem is that when you lock them up with a few dozen other kids and they spend every hour of every day.... working, eating, going to classes, hanging out, studying...living.... with them, then the kid who walked in with a small bag of tricks, walks out with with a 7 piece matching set of luggage full of them. Not a good idea!!
As for who taught me my values... I think even my family will admit that I came upon them on my own. I did not have family ties when I lived with my family. If anything, my tolerence comes from experiencing a lack of tolerance. I treat others with respect because I know what it is like to be treated otherwise.
I never embraced religion because I never felt the need for it in my life but I respect that others have and have found a way to fill that need. It constantly amazes how many of those that have "the love of god" in their life don't seem to be able to return that level of respect though and then deem themselves to be morally superior. (BTW - That was in no way meant to be a personal dig - just a general observation or irony.)
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on November 30, 2004 10:24:03 PM newWhy do you suppose they can make or transfer to synthetics,as they do the opiates like in methadone (or any of the other ingrients)in pain relief medications and not duplicate the properties of marijuana synthetically? I just cant believe with all the laboratory technology and everything else at their disposal they cant do that??
There are pills that have a synthetic form of THC but it does not work for everyone and if I remember correctly, there are other ingredients in it that do not interact well with the battery of meds that the typical medical marijuana users are on.
When I was growing up word was half the pot out there was either treated with some chemicals or not a very good grade. So I also wonder how many even smoke full natural marijuana?
Medical Marijuana users are not buying from the streets. There is a network of users and growers. In California a person with a user card is allowed to keep two plants for personal use. There are also cards that enable people to grow and distribute within the legal user community. The stuff they are getting is high quality and clear of contaminates because the community looks out for itself.
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on November 30, 2004 11:22:00 PM new
fenix, that may be in california....but what about the rest of the country? I knew a girl who was shot in the back by her husband for cheating on him (really tragic), she is a life long parapalegic now and smokes pot to relieve her constant pain.
She's not getting it from any medical community! They give her codine-whatever she wants-but the only thing that comforts her is pot. (Probably in conjunction with the other meds. I dont really know..but last I saw her, she told me she's pretty much stoned daily.)
I think some people just want to smoke pot. If they legalize it every body who has a backache, a toothache, a bunion on their toe.. then wants to smoke pot -- omg, we will be a nation of potheads!! lol - can ya imagine? Cheech and Chong en mass! I will say, though, some people who smoke are more functional stoned than not. I never got how that is, but when I was younger I knew people like that, and they werent stupid people. They were teachers and other professionals.
edited to add: I guess you will say we are already a prozac-nation, so why not a pot-nation? LOL
[ edited by neroter12 on Nov 30, 2004 11:24 PM ]
posted on December 1, 2004 05:27:29 AM new
"she is a life long parapalegic now and smokes pot to relieve her constant pain. "
What's wrong with "standard" pain medication? I can sort of understand medical marijuana for chemo cases where they can't keep the pills down, but that doesn't apply in this case.
--------------------------------------
Brian S. - "God's own emissary to the Vendio heathens"
Maybe the marijuana helps to relieve her emotional pain...even if the substance in question is just a placebo and makes a paraplegic feel better, why should anyone be concerned?
posted on December 1, 2004 06:51:24 AM new
::fenix, that may be in california....but what about the rest of the country?::
In states that have legalized medical marijuana, that is the case. There are "Marijuana Clubs" where people that do not grown can purchase from the club, where those that do grow donate their extra to the club for sale, etc. You friend should group together with others like her and work to change the situation in her state. Most states that have introduced medical marijuana amendment have passed them. The public is not against it, just the DEA
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
Besides California, the states allowing marijuana to be used as medicine with a doctor's recommendation are Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington state.
Even some states without medical marijuana laws have criticized the federal government's position. Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi told the court they "support their neighbors' prerogative in our federalist system to serve as laboratories for experimentation."
posted on December 1, 2004 05:46:42 PM new
She is in new york. I havent seen her in ten years or so...so they may have something of a club, or a internet related networking as fenix suggests now even though its still not legal in there.
Replay: she was shot in the middle of her spine. I'm not a medical expert, but I would imagine the nerve damage done there leading to all points of the body would be excruiating. I am even with Helen on this a bit about the emotional trauma of it all, too. I felt sad to see her now dependent on weed..and so far away from the girl I knew growing up...but I couldnt judge her for getting through the day however she could. I mean, I dont think its in any way good to have an addiction for anything,.but I think I understand when all you have is pain, nothing else really matters. It must be a horrible thing to live with chronic unrest.
posted on December 1, 2004 06:29:15 PM new
Nero, that's awful about your friend, but if she had to take mass doses of pain killers, she'd be a zombie and totally addicted. (See Rush Limbaugh for results on how your mind is destroyed by pain killers.) Pot helps many people, and for Bush to say there's no medical benefit, is naive at best.
posted on December 2, 2004 03:59:12 AM new
Hi classic. yes, ny - but northern nj technically.
She married this guy from one of the boros and moved over there. And you know what? No, he did not go to prision. I never talked to her about the actual incident. She was a very popular girl in hs and it spread like wildfire after it happened, so I think she assumed i had heard..,which I did, thru the grapevine, but there's more to the story, and I was never one to rely on people's talk because alot of things get assumed and overblown. We lived in two houses away from each other and were fairly close growing up, so even though we'd all moved away, my sister had ran into her mother and she had told her that that SOB had shot her. So I knew it was for real. But I didnt see the sense of broaching the subject with her - it seemed nosy or inapproariate somehow, especially since I hadnt kept in touch with her in years.
But she went back to him. I can only assume she wouldnt press charges or testify against him. They have two kids. But they (her & husband)were both a bit wild. Even when she first started dateing him, he was real possessive about where she was going and all this - even if she was just going to her mother's house in the middle of the day! But she was into going to the clubs-that whole nightlife scene, and hanging out with her friends big-time, too, so..I dont know what she was or was not doing either.
I think she wanted out, just knowing her. But I dont know why she decided to stay with him. I got the impression she sort of blamed herself, but we only touched on that momentarily and chose instead to reminise and laugh about old times. I thought that did her spirit alot of good. - (remind me to tell you all about two kids in grammer school stomping with the herd down 3 flights of stairs during a fire drill and one of them winding up with boogies on their hand from touching the bannister - then flipping out and getting in trouble for it by the teacher.... )
But if anythings changed in her life since,...I dont know.
Kraft, maybe youre right. She was way far out, the way she spoke and stuff, but she seemed at least semi-functional and not a total zombie.
--
[ edited by neroter12 on Dec 2, 2004 04:00 AM ]
posted on December 2, 2004 10:17:36 AM new
neroter12-well we dont live to far from each other.I live in N.Y. in Dutchess co.I can make it to the Jersey border in a little over an hour.I assume you must live near Rockland county off the Garden State Pk.
posted on December 2, 2004 10:19:19 AM new
Noam Chomsky wrote a good analysis of the 2004 election ....an excerpt that applies to the moral values issue which really doesn't exist for the Bush administration other than a political tool to manipulate voters.
As for "moral values," we learn what we need to know about them from the business press the day after the election, reporting the "euphoria" in board rooms – not because CEOs oppose gay marriage....
It means little to say that people vote on the basis of "moral values." The question is what they mean by the phrase. The limited indications are of some interest. In some polls, "when the voters were asked to choose the most urgent moral crisis facing the country, 33 percent cited `greed and materialism,' 31 percent selected `poverty and economic justice,' 16 percent named abortion, and 12 percent selected gay marriage" (Pax Christi). In others, "when surveyed voters were asked to list the moral issue that most affected their vote, the Iraq war placed first at 42 percent, while 13 percent named abortion and 9 percent named gay marriage" (Zogby). Whatever voters meant, it could hardly have been the operative moral values of the administration, celebrated by the business press.
posted on December 2, 2004 10:36:50 AM new
Looks like the site is down right now, so I will post the entire article.
Elections/Public 2004
Noam Chomsky
The elections of November 2004 have received a great deal of discussion,
with exultation in some quarters, despair in others, and general
lamentation about a "divided nation." They are likely to have policy
consequences, particularly harmful to the public in the domestic arena,
and to the world with regard to the "transformation of the military,"
which has led some prominent strategic analysts to warn of "ultimate
doom" and to hope that US militarism and aggressiveness will be
countered by a coalition of peace-loving states, led by - China! (John
Steinbruner and Nancy Gallagher, Daedalus). We have come to a pretty
pass when such words are expressed in the most respectable and sober
journals. It is also worth noting how deep is the despair of the authors
over the state of American democracy. Whether or not the assessment is
merited is for activists to determine.
Though significant in their consequences, the elections tell us very
little about the state of the country, or the popular mood. There are,
however, other sources from which we can learn a great deal that carries
important lessons. Public opinion in the US is intensively monitored,
and while caution and care in interpretation are always necessary, these
studies are valuable resources. We can also see why the results, though
public, are kept under wraps by the doctrinal institutions. That is true
of major and highly informative studies of public opinion released right
before the election, notably by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations
(CCFR) and the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the U. of
Maryland (PIPA), to which I will return.
One conclusion is that the elections conferred no mandate for anything,
in fact, barely took place, in any serious sense of the term "election."
That is by no means a novel conclusion. Reagan's victory in 1980
reflected "the decay of organized party structures, and the vast
mobilization of God and cash in the successful candidacy of a figure
once marginal to the `vital center' of American political life,"
representing "the continued disintegration of those political coalitions
and economic structures that have given party politics some stability
and definition during the past generation" (Thomas Ferguson and Joel
Rogers, Hidden Election, 1981). In the same valuable collection of
essays, Walter Dean Burnham described the election as further evidence
of a "crucial comparative peculiarity of the American political system:
the total absence of a socialist or laborite mass party as an organized
competitor in the electoral market," accounting for much of the
"class-skewed abstention rates" and the minimal significance of issues.
Thus of the 28% of the electorate who voted for Reagan, 11% gave as
their primary reason "he's a real conservative." In Reagan's "landslide
victory" of 1984, with just under 30% of the electorate, the percentage
dropped to 4% and a majority of voters hoped that his legislative
program would not be enacted.
What these prominent political scientists describe is part of the
powerful backlash against the terrifying "crisis of democracy" of the
1960s, which threatened to democratize the society, and, despite
enormous efforts to crush this threat to order and discipline, has had
far-reaching effects on consciousness and social practices. The
post-1960s era has been marked by substantial growth of popular
movements dedicated to greater justice and freedom, and unwillingness to
tolerate the brutal aggression and violence that had previously been
granted free rein. The Vietnam war is a dramatic illustration, naturally
suppressed because of the lessons it teaches about the civilizing impact
of popular mobilization. The war against South Vietnam launched by JFK
in 1962, after years of US-backed state terror that had killed tens of
thousands of people, was brutal and barbaric from the outset: bombing,
chemical warfare to destroy food crops so as to starve out the civilian
support for the indigenous resistance, programs to drive millions of
people to virtual concentration camps or urban slums to eliminate its
popular base. By the time protests reached a substantial scale, the
highly respected and quite hawkish Vietnam specialist and military
historian Bernard Fall wondered whether "Viet-Nam as a cultural and
historic entity" would escape "extinction" as "the countryside literally
dies under the blows of the largest military machine ever unleashed on
an area of this size" - particularly South Vietnam, always the main
target of the US assault. And when protest did finally develop, many
years too late, it was mostly directed against the peripheral crimes:
the extension of the war against the South to the rest ofIndochina -
terrible crimes, but secondary ones.
* State managers are well aware that they no longer have that freedom.
Wars against "much weaker enemies" - the only acceptable targets -- must
be won "decisively and rapidly," Bush I's intelligence services advised.
Delay might "undercut political support," recognized to be thin, a great
change since the Kennedy-Johnson period when the attack on Indochina,
while never popular, aroused little reaction for many years. Those
conclusions hold despite the hideous war crimes in Falluja, replicating
the Russian destruction of Grozny ten years earlier, including crimes
displayed on the front pages for which the civilian leadership is
subject to the death penalty under the War Crimes Act passed by the
Republican Congress in 1996 - and also one of the more disgraceful
episodes in the annals of American journalism.
The world is pretty awful today, but it is far better than yesterday,
not only with regard to unwillingness to tolerate aggression, but also
in many other ways, which we now tend to take for granted. There are
very important lessons here, which should always be uppermost in our
minds - for the same reason they are suppressed in the elite culture.
Returning to the elections, in 2004 Bush received the votes of just over
30% of the electorate, Kerry a bit less. Voting patterns resembled 2000,
with virtually the same pattern of "red" and "blue" states (whatever
significance that may have). A small change in voter preference would
have put Kerry in the White House, also telling us very little about the
country and public concerns.
As usual, the electoral campaigns were run by the PR industry, which in
its regular vocation sells toothpaste, life-style drugs, automobiles,
and other commodities. Its guiding principle is deceit. Its task is to
undermine the "free markets" we are taught to revere: mythical entities
in which informed consumers make rational choices. In such scarcely
imaginable systems, businesses would provide information about their
products: cheap, easy, simple. But it is hardly a secret that they do
nothing of the sort. Rather, they seek to delude consumers to choose
their product over some virtually identical one. GM does not simply make
public the characteristics of next year's models. Rather, it devotes
huge sums to creating images to deceive consumers, featuring sports
stars, sexy models, cars climbing sheer cliffs to a heavenly future, and
so on. The business world does not spend hundreds of billions of dollars
a year to provide information. The famed "entrepreneurial initiative"
and "free trade" are about as realistic as informed consumer choice. The
last thing those who dominate the society want is the fanciful market of
doctrine and economic theory. All of this should be too familiar to
merit much discussion.
Sometimes the commitment to deceit is quite overt. The recent
US-Australia negotiations on a "free trade agreement" were held up by
Washington's concern over Australia's health care system, perhaps the
most efficient in the world. In particular, drug prices are a fraction
of those in the US: the same drugs, produced by the same companies,
earning substantial profits in Australia though nothing like those they
are granted in the US - often on the pretext that they are needed for
R&D, another exercise in deceit. Part of the reason for the efficiency
of the Australian system is that, like other countries, Australia relies
on the practices that the Pentagon employs when it buys paper clips:
government purchasing power is used to negotiate prices, illegal in the
US. Another reason is that Australia has kept to "evidence-based"
procedures for marketing pharmaceuticals. US negotiators denounced these
as market interference: pharmaceutical corporations are deprived of
their legitimate rights if they are required to produce evidence when
they claim that their latest product is better than some cheaper
alternative, or run TV ads in which some sports hero or model tells the
audience to ask their doctor whether this drug is "right for you (it's
right for me)," sometimes not even revealing what it is supposed to be
for. The right of deceit must be guaranteed to the immensely powerful
and pathological immortal persons created by radical judicial activism
to run the society.
When assigned the task of selling candidates, the PR industry naturally
resorts to the same fundamental techniques, so as to ensure that
politics remains "the shadow cast by big business over society," as
America's leading social philosopher, John Dewey, described the results
of "industrial feudalism" long ago. Deceit is employed to undermine
democracy, just as it is the natural device to undermine markets. And
voters appear to be aware of it.
On the eve of the 2000 elections, about 75% of the electorate regarded
it as a game played by rich contributors, party managers, and the PR
industry, which trains candidates to project images and produce
meaningless phrases that might win some votes. Very likely, that is why
the population paid little attention to the "stolen election" that
greatly exercised educated sectors. And it is why they are likely to pay
little attention to campaigns about alleged fraud in 2004. If one is
flipping a coin to pick the King, it is of no great concern if the coin
is biased.
In 2000, "issue awareness" - knowledge of the stands of the
candidate-producing organizations on issues - reached an all-time low.
Currently available evidence suggests it may have been even lower in
2004. About 10% of voters said their choice would be based on the
candidate's "agendas/ideas/platforms/goals"; 6% for Bush voters, 13% for
Kerry voters (Gallup). The rest would vote for what the industry calls
"qualities" or "values," which are the political counterpart to
toothpaste ads. The most careful studies (PIPA) found that voters had
little idea of the stand of the candidates on matters that concerned
them. Bush voters tended to believe that he shared their beliefs, even
though the Republican Party rejected them, often explicitly.
Investigating the sources used in the studies, we find that the same was
largely true of Kerry voters, unless we give highly sympathetic
interpretations to vague statements that most voters had probably never
heard.
Exit polls found that Bush won large majorities of those concerned with
the threat of terror and "moral values," and Kerry won majorities among
those concerned with the economy, health care, and other such issues.
Those results tell us very little.
It is easy to demonstrate that for Bush planners, the threat of terror
is a low priority. The invasion of Iraq is only one of many
illustrations. Even their own intelligence agencies agreed with the
consensus among other agencies, and independent specialists, that the
invasion was likely to increase the threat of terror, as it did;
probably nuclear proliferation as well, as also predicted. Such threats
are simply not high priorities as compared with the opportunity to
establish the first secure military bases in a dependent client state at
the heart of the world's major energy reserves, a region understood
since World War II to be the "most strategically important area of the
world," "a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest
material prizes in world history." Apart from what one historian of the
industry calls "profits beyond the dreams of avarice," which must flow
in the right direction, control over two-thirds of the world's estimated
hydrocarbon reserves - uniquely cheap and easy to exploit - provides
what Zbigniew Brzezinski recently called "critical leverage" over
European and Asian rivals, what George Kennan many years earlier had
called "veto power" over them. These have been crucial policy concerns
throughout the post-World War II period, even more so in today's
evolving tripolar world, with its threat that Europe and Asia might move
towards greater independence, and worse, might be united: China and the
EU became each other's major trading partners in 2004, joined by the
world's second largest economy (Japan), and those tendencies are likely
to increase. A firm hand on the spigot reduces these dangers.
Note that the critical issue is control, not access. US policies towards
the Middle East were the same when it was a net exporter of oil, and
remain the same today when US intelligence projects that the US itself
will rely on more stable Atlantic Basin resources. Policies would be
likely to be about the same if the US were to switch to renewable
energy. The need to control the "stupendous source of strategic power"
and to gain "profits beyond the dreams of avarice" would remain.
Jockeying over Central Asia and pipeline routes reflects similar
concerns.
There are many other illustrations of the same lack of concern of
planners about terror. Bush voters, whether they knew it or not, were
voting for a likely increase in the threat of terror, which could be
awesome: it was understood well before 9-11 that sooner or later the
Jihadists organized by the CIA and its associates in the 1980s are
likely to gain access to WMDs, with horrendous consequences. And even
these frightening prospects are being consciously extended by the
transformation of the military, which, apart from increasing the threat
of "ultimate doom" by accidental nuclear war, is compelling Russia to
move nuclear missiles over its huge and mostly unprotected territory to
counter US military threats - including the threat of instant
annihilation that is a core part of the "ownership of space" for
offensive military purposes announced by the Bush administration along
with its National Security Strategy in late 2002, significantly
extending Clinton programs that were more than hazardous enough, and had
already immobilized the UN Disarmament Committee.
As for "moral values," we learn what we need to know about them from the
business press the day after the election, reporting the "euphoria" in
board rooms - not because CEOs oppose gay marriage. And from the
unconcealed efforts to transfer to future generations the costs of the
dedicated service of Bush planners to privilege and wealth: fiscal and
environmental costs, among others, not to speak of the threat of
"ultimate doom." That aside, it means little to say that people vote on
the basis of "moral values." The question is what they mean by the
phrase. The limited indications are of some interest. In some polls,
"when the voters were asked to choose the most urgent moral crisis
facing the country, 33 percent cited `greed and materialism,' 31 percent
selected `poverty and economic justice,' 16 percent named abortion, and
12 percent selected gay marriage" (Pax Christi). In others, "when
surveyed voters were asked to list the moral issue that most affected
their vote, the Iraq war placed first at 42 percent, while 13 percent
named abortion and 9 percent named gay marriage" (Zogby). Whatever
voters meant, it could hardly have been the operative moral values of
the administration, celebrated by the business press.
I won't go through the details here, but a careful look indicates that
much the same appears to be true for Kerry voters who thought they were
calling for serious attention to the economy, health, and their other
concerns. As in the fake markets constructed by the PR industry, so also
in the fake democracy they run, the public is hardly more than an
irrelevant onlooker, apart from the appeal of carefully constructed
images that have only the vaguest resemblance to reality.
Let's turn to more serious evidence about public opinion: the studies I
mentioned earlier that were released shortly before the elections by
some of the most respected and reliable institutions that regularly
monitor public opinion. Here are a few of the results (CCFR):
A large majority of the public believe that the US should accept the
jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and the World Court,
sign the Kyoto protocols, allow the UN to take the lead in international
crises, and rely on diplomatic and economic measures more than military
ones in the "war on terror." Similar majorities believe the US should
resort to force only if there is "strong evidence that the country is in
imminent danger of being attacked," thus rejecting the bipartisan
consensus on "pre-emptive war" and adopting a rather conventional
interpretation of the UN Charter. A majority even favor giving up the
Security Council veto, hence following the UN lead even if it is not the
preference of US state managers. When official administration moderate
Colin Powell is quoted in the press as saying that Bush "has won a
mandate from the American people to continue pursuing his `aggressive'
foreign policy," he is relying on the conventional assumption that
popular opinion is irrelevant to policy choices by those in charge.
It is instructive to look more closely into popular attitudes on the war
in Iraq, in the light of the general opposition to the "pre-emptive war"
doctrines of the bipartisan consensus. On the eve of the 2004 elections,
"three quarters of Americans say that the US should not have gone to war
if Iraq did not have WMD or was not providing support to al Qaeda, while
nearly half still say the war was the right decision" (Stephen Kull,
reporting the PIPA study he directs). But this is not a contradiction,
Kull points out. Despite the quasi-official Kay and Duelfer reports
undermining the claims, the decision to go to war "is sustained by
persisting beliefs among half of Americans that Iraq provided
substantial support to al Qaeda, and had WMD, or at least a major WMD
program," and thus see the invasion as defense against an imminent
severe threat. Much earlier PIPA studies had shown that a large majority
believe that the UN, not the US, should take the lead in matters of
security, reconstruction, and political transition in Iraq. Last March,
Spanish voters were bitterly condemned for appeasing terror when they
voted out of office the government that had gone to war over the
objections of about 90% of the population, taking its orders from
Crawford Texas, and winning plaudits for its leadership in the "New
Europe" that is the hope of democracy. Few if any commentators noted
that Spanish voters last March were taking about the same position as
the large majority of Americans: voting for removing Spanish troops
unless they were under UN direction. The major differences between the
two countries are that in Spain, public opinion was known, while here it
takes an individual research project to discover it; and in Spain the
issue came to a vote, almost unimaginable in the deteriorating formal
democracy here.
These results indicate that activists have not done their job
effectively.
Turning to other areas, overwhelming majorities of the public favor
expansion of domestic programs: primarily health care (80%), but also
aid to education and Social Security. Similar results have long been
found in these studies (CCFR). Other mainstream polls report that 80%
favor guaranteed health care even if it would raise taxes - in reality,
a national health care system would probably reduce expenses
considerably, avoiding the heavy costs of bureaucracy, supervision,
paperwork, and so on, some of the factors that render the US privatized
system the most inefficient in the industrial world. Public opinion has
been similar for a long time, with numbers varying depending on how
questions are asked. The facts are sometimes discussed in the press,
with public preferences noted but dismissed as "politically impossible."
That happened again on the eve of the 2004 elections. A few days before
(Oct. 31), the NY Times reported that "there is so little political
support for government intervention in the health care market in the
United States that Senator John Kerry took pains in a recent
presidential debate to say that his plan for expanding access to health
insurance would not create a new government program" - what the majority
want, so it appears. But it is "politically impossible" and has "[too]
little political support," meaning that the insurance companies, HMOs,
pharmaceutical industries, Wall Street, etc. , are opposed.
It is notable that such views are held by people in virtual isolation.
They rarely hear them, and it is not unlikely that respondents regard
their own views as idiosyncratic. Their preferences do not enter into
the political campaigns, and only marginally receive some reinforcement
in articulate opinion in media and journals. The same extends to other
domains.
What would the results of the election have been if the parties, either
of them, had been willing to articulate people's concerns on the issues
they regard as vitally important?Or if these issues could enter into
public discussion within the mainstream?We can only speculate about
that, but we do know that it does not happen, and that the facts are
scarcely even reported. It does not seem difficult to imagine what the
reasons might be.
I brief, we learn very little of any significance from the elections,
but we can learn a lot from the studies of public attitudes that are
kept in the shadows. Though it is natural for doctrinal systems to try
to induce pessimism, hopelessness and despair, the real lessons are
quite different. They are encouraging and hopeful. They show that there
are substantial opportunities for education and organizing, including
the development of potential electoral alternatives. As in the past,
rights will not be granted by benevolent authorities, or won by
intermittent actions - a few large demonstrations after which one goes
home, or pushing a lever in the personalized quadrennial extravaganzas
that are depicted as "democratic politics." As always in the past, the
tasks require day-to-day engagement to create - in part re-create - the
basis for a functioning democratic culture in which the public plays
some role in determining policies, not only in the political arena from
which it is largely excluded, but also in the crucial economic arena,
from which it is excluded in principle.
Noam Chomsky is the author of Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for
Global Dominance (now out in paperback from Owl/Metropolitan Books)
posted on December 2, 2004 11:03:43 AM new
dems/liberals still trying to figure out why they lost? They've got four more years to try to see the obvious. Might happen...might not. I wouldn't count on it happening myself.
was by Fraternity Of Man. It was subsequently covered by Little Feat.