This is interesting:
A CNN poll released today finds that 73 percent agree with Obama’s decision not to release the photos of prisoner abuse which occurred several years ago, while only 26 percent said the government should release them.
And a poll for Democracy Corps by the Democratic firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner finds higher approval ratings for Obama’s national security policies than for his overall job performance. “At least for now,” the company says, Obama has “effectively erased doubts that Americans have historically harbored about the Democratic Party’s vision and competence on national security.”
Activists wishing to persuade Obama to be more like them might want to consider these poll numbers and see what it is about their strategy that needs to be tweaked.
good poll numbers are nice. good policy is better.
The problem is: How do we convince the rest of America? Especially when the GOP/Media Complex pulls stunts like this one:
All this because of the GOP’s effort to try and change the subject from what Bush and Cheney did.
I, for one, do NOT agree much at all with Obama’s so-called “national security” strategy. But then, I find that the best national security strategy does not include any form or degree of imperialism. coercion, or attempt to impose one’s will on other countries. The most secure nations are those that see and conduct themselves as cooperative members of the world community.
Aside from the ones in fora like this?
Unfortunately, Americans, including the majority of “liberals”, and a huge number (maybe a majority) of “progressives” have so strongly internalized the notion of American exceptionalism that I don’t think it is easy to convince them to relinquish the idea that the U.S. should dominate the world economically, politically, socially, and, of course, militarily. That even applies to a large number of Americans in fora such as this one.
I don’t know, but convincing Americans that the main threat to national security is the way the U.S. conducts itself in the world might require a major cultural change, which would not be easy at all. I doubt many Americans understand the imperial nature of their country, and I doubt most of them would find anything wrong with it if they did understand it.
Because as you say it is ingrained.