Tomgram: Americans in the Opinion Polls, Not in the Streets

[babylonsister]

http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=179009

Tomgram: Americans in the Opinion Polls, Not in the Streets

Demobilizing America
Outsourcing Action in an Imperial World
By Tom Engelhardt

Excuse me if, at 62, and well into my second era of protest against yet another distant, disastrous, and disabling American war, I express a little confusion. Was it actually like this in Rome while the legions were off fighting on the German frontiers? Was this the way it felt in London while the imperial forces conducted their frontier wars in Afghanistan, or Paris when the Foreign Legion was holding down North Africa? Was this how it felt in Washington when Douglas MacArthur's father was suppressing the Filipinos and General Jacob Smith was turning the island of Samar into a "howling wilderness"? Is this the way it usually feels in the heartlands of great empires until the barbarians actually do come knocking at the gates?

I went marching against the President's Iraqi war of choice in my hometown last Sunday. I found myself in an older crowd, many visibly from the Vietnam era. It was relatively quiet, small-scale, and lacking in energy; all in all -- for me at least -- a modestly dispiriting experience, given the crisis at hand and the disillusioned state of public opinion here in the U.S.

I came home wondering whether some Bush-era version of the old Roman formula had indeed been working. Had bread and circuses become croissants and iPods, or Bud and American Idol, or Sony PlayStation 3 and 24? I couldn't help puzzling over the gap between public opinion on the President's war and public action, or between the conclusions opinion polls tell us so many Americans have reached and those generally reached in Washington as well as in the mainstream media.

I know I'm not alone in wondering about such things, so here's my provisional exploration of some of what's puzzled me most. I don't claim to have the answers, only perhaps some of the questions. Think of this, then, as a guided tour of a few of the trees on our landscape -- with the hope that you'll be able to spot the forest.

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[MikeNearMcChord]

1. One thing to remember, there is no draft.

As long as the good number of the nation's youth, are not in danger of getting a letter that starts out "Greetings". They won't care, I suspect even if one of their classmates or relatives died or was wounded badly in this war, many aren't, that concerned. The military is dying a death of a thousand cuts, but Bush and the neocons would rather craw naked dripped in honey through an fire ant hill, than put a nation through a miltary draft.

[Vincardog]

2. do not believe we should support or encourage a draft to support jr's imperial wars of aggression

The neoConvicts started their eternal wars for profit; let them send their children to fight them.

[MikeNearMcChord]

4. I don't support a draft

but the fact that many young people, feel the war is none of their concern, that is why there is a lack of passion. I was at the anti-war rally in Tacoma, and though there was a good number of young people, it was mainly older folks who protested.

[grasswire]

3. beautifully written, thanks (eom)