Following the fine example set...,
2002-11-20 02:00:00
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Growing concerns over childhoo...,
2002-11-20 02:00:00
Polls, Proles, and Protest:
Most polls have been showing a decline in support for war, amidst already shallow support, with a PEW study showing a decrease between September and October from 64 to 55 percent. This correlates with: the first stirrings of a mass antiwar movement over the course of September, a namby-pamby speech by Al Gore urging multilateral invasion, North Korea's announcement of its nuclear weapons program with subsequent waffling by the Bush administration, and a sudden realization after the Bali bombing that there are actual security threats that need to be tended to.
Despite these changes 69% of 18-29 year old Americans back a US invasion, an interesting result considering that 58% of those in the student population would apparently refuse to go themselves. While the CS Monitor's expert testimony would have it that young working stiffs have taken up "optimism" and "heeding the political winds" to explain the poll results it goes unmentioned that they might just be sticking to
youthful apathy.
Such would at least be more in keeping with the antiseptic war coverage and monolithic, insepid churning of US media
conglomerates. With all the political anaphrodisiacs readily available for consumers it's a wonder that anybody
cares at all, but a greater wonder still is the idea that somehow our institutions have managed to replace
youthful cynicism with something
substantially more positive just by making the sole consession that this generation needn't worry itself about
returning home in a pine box.
Despite this administration's best efforts to generate international support for an invasion the only thing that appears to really be multilateral about this march to war is the march against it.
My father, among other lifelong Republicans, is convinced that the rhetoric behind the war is so much
saber rattling. I hope that analysis is correct, but
military deployments suggest otherwise.
