New Poll: 12 Year Olds Know Congress Could Cut War Money, Adults Believe Congress Powerless to End Iraq Occupation By David Swanson
A pair of new polls may suggest the power of falsehoods repeated ad infinitum on our televisions and in our newspapers. The first poll asked 2,000 American 12 year olds whether Congress has the power to end the occupation of Iraq. Minorities believed Congress did not, or believed it could do so if the Democrats had larger majorities. But a 61 percent majority of those polled believed that Congress could simply stop funding the occupation, and that the Democrats in Congress had sufficient majorities to accomplish this without any Republican assistance.
Those 61 percent of 12 year olds were correct. Blocking funding in either the House or the Senate would be sufficient, because bills must pass both houses. Blocking funding in the House would require 50 percent plus one, and in the Senate would require 41 senators.
A second poll, this one of likely voters, all over the age of 18, found that only 32 percent believed that Congress has the power to end the occupation of Iraq. Meanwhile, 49 percent believed Congress would have that power if the Democrats held larger majorities. Richard Ovvio, Professor of Statistics at the University of Bugia, concluded that the primary reason for adults' failure to understand their government as well as sixth graders was adults' increased news media consumption. In fact, of those adults who gave the correct answer, 78 percent said they watched little or no television news, and 63 percent said they would consider it animal cruelty to line a bird cage with the Washington Post.
Furthermore, the fact that I completely made all of this up is more reflective of my failure to own a polling company than anything else.
http://www.davidswanson.org
DAVID SWANSON is a co-founder of After Downing Street, a writer and activist, and the Washington Director of Democrats.com. He is a board member of Progressive Democrats of America, and serves on the Executive Council of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild, TNG-CWA. He has worked as a newspaper reporter and as a communications director, with jobs including Press Secretary for Dennis Kucinich's 2004 presidential campaign, Media Coordinator for the International Labor Communications Association, and three years as Communications Coordinator for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Swanson obtained a Master's degree in philosophy from the University of Virginia in 1997.
Can They Figure Out That Small Military = 0 Troops Abroad?
Going along with your imaginary survey, I wonder how people realize that if there were very few men (and women) willing to be part of the US military that there would be no troops to send into (or keep in) Iraq, Afghanistan and anywhere else the President decides "US national security" is jeopardized. This is not the same as defending the US from actual attack upon/within its borders from foreign troops, which I expect that most people of any age, race gender, economic status, etc. would likely step forward to assist in any way they could.
Sure can't imagine Bush & Buddies or any of the current supportive Congress Critters getting out there to "fight terrorism over there" or physically forcing any regime changes.
**Kitty Antonik Wakfer
MoreLife for the rational - http://morelife.org Reality based tools for more life in quantity and quality Self-Sovereign Individual Project - http://selfsip.org Self-sovereignty, rational pursuit of optimal lifetime happiness, individual responsibility, social preferencing & social contracting
by
Kitty Antonik Wakfer (19 articles, 3 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 111 comments)
on Sunday, March 16, 2008 at 2:38:16 AM
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