Most Americans love it when their government tortures other people.
I'm curious.
I'm not defending torture. I'm not defending the other evils wrought by the US government. I'm not waving a flag and yelling "THEY ASKED FOR IT!" or any other redneck nonsense.
I am trying to change the country for the better by voting in every election. By calling, writing, and meeting with my local, state, and national representatives. I am trying to help my fellow men and women who suffer in poverty. I'm just trying to be a nice person.
And I happen to identify as an "american". So… yep - I bristle a little bit at the comment "fuck america"
We've got a lot of work to do. But I'm not sure a "fuck america" comment in some dark corner of hubski is very constructive.
I don't think I'm trying to pick a fight - I'm just curious.
So you are saying that a country that started as a slave nation, then became a de jure apartheid state followed by a de facto apartheid state ... that then that same nation had become the country with the highest incarceration rate both per capita and per total ... thinks mistreating humans is OK for itself?
Like somehow US Americans think that they are exceptional?
I trawl a right wing Facebook group and these numbers do not shock me. Almost all of them see it as justifiable because of 9/11. There's not a whole lot of thinking, just a whole lot of emotion, all of which is anger and vengeance stemming from fear.
Ask how many Israelis approve of "killing Arabs". You will be shocked about the numbers.
As mentioned below, it's usually a mix of emotional reactions and radical Zionism.
Remember all the books teaching us that violent revenge is stupid? Looks like no one read them
Yep, and today there was a pretty big reaction to the Peshawar school attack. I saw more than a few posts that look like:
- This is why we tortured those assholes!
25 likes
Yep, I really need to quit FB. I have a friend that is a die hard democrat and honestly, while his sentiments may be more in line with mine, his level of crazy fanaticism is not so different than the conservatives. He eats up whatever is fed to him. He is a fanboy. Granted he's not a racist and well, that goes a LONG way with me. But my point is, there's some crazy on both sides. In fact, if your side is a "party" I'd say you are a bit crazy. If your side is a position on a particular topic or policy, I'd say "alright, let's talk."
Generally, these polls indicate that a majority of Americans who take polls are uneducated. After all, 8% of Fox News viewers polled think Elvis is alive.
You also have to keep in mind: American media teaches us that torture works and is usually justified. The idea that storytellers fib in order to make things interesting rarely enters into the mind of the average television viewer.
Unfortunately, they also vote.
I've always thought mass media was a powerful political force that has a significant impact on the way democracies work; I think you're right, the media has a big effect on how people perceive the world around them. It's difficult to consider the US media, despite mergers and acquisitions, as any completely unified force, but when wielded as an ideological tool, I've always wondered how far can mass media control public opinions like that? I know there's no way to test it on a large scale in any purely scientific sense, but I'd think it's fairly significant. I also wonder how the internet and social media is affecting traditional mass media. Regardless, I think it comes as a natural response to peek/look/investigate at these revelations and reaffirm one's preexisting opinions about the issue, although I'd imagine that comes easier for some people than others.
Thanks for the book recommendation, that looks just down my alley; I'll definitely check it out! I was curious, what do you think of Udo Ulfkotte's new book Gekaufte Journalisten? I've got to wait for the English translation, so all that I know about it is just bits and pieces from around the internet.
I'm not sure whether to be flattered or terrified that you think I've even heard of it. I have an inch-deep level of knowledge about a lot of things; if it's mostly been covered in the foreign press, I'm woefully ignorant of it.
But now I've got my eye on it, dammit.
Certainly it's easy to overestimate how much information have actually picked up about what's going on. I had a couple of conversations with friends this week where I mentioned America's torturing, and no-one seemed to have heard anything about it, despite its prominence everywhere I have been looking. Most people have their heads down attending to what's close to them and huge news stories can pass them by. With some other friends I mentioned that I was having trouble managing my anger when I think of Dick Cheney, and it became clear to me that they have only the fuzziest idea who Dick Cheney is.
The question of what to attend to in life is an important and tricky one. A lot of people settle on ignoring the news unless they are forced to pay attention, which I don't think is ideal, but I can understand the urge. We're told to attend to so many things that we can end up letting our lives slip by while we worry about Dick Cheney or whatever. At one extreme you can end up ignoring your own life, while at the other you can end up being ignorant of things that make a difference to everyone's life. And that's just considering world events and politics - when you consider how many other calls for attention there are in life it really does become difficult to know how to balance.
My anger about US torture is doing me no good. But I don't think the best answer to that, for me, is to ignore it. It's a challenge I need to learn to live with.
"Politics is dominated by the extremes because the people in the middle have shit to do."
- Jon Stewart
I think a lot of the "ignorance" or "apathy" is an outcome of powerlessness. I worked like gangbusters to get Kerry elected in 2004. Then he folded like Superman on laundry day. I pretty much stopped caring (or giving) to political causes for about six years. Obama? Yay. But it really felt like major interests were calling the shots, making the moves and paying the bills; whatever individual citizens felt like adding to the mix wasn't rejected, to be sure, but it had about as much impact on the race as the color paint has on the way a car handles.
Wild speculation:
A lot of these polls make it seem like the major shift in American thinking started with the children of the 70s and is still expanding now. If this generic trend holds, America will swing away from these attitudes within 2 generations(~30years) ...which would put America right around that time its speculated that white people will no longer be the majority.
To quote Chris Rock
- White people were crazy. Now they’re not as crazy.