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Does This Make You Laugh or Cry?
| quote: | - A third of the American public believes U.S. forces have found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, according to a recent poll. Twenty-two percent said Iraq actually used chemical or biological weapons.
[...]
Several analysts said they were troubled by the lack of knowledge about the Sept. 11 hijackers, shown in the January survey conducted for Knight Ridder newspapers. Only 17 percent correctly said that none of the hijackers was Iraqi. |
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/...ont/6085261.htm
Even worse, you can count the Commander in Chief amongst the misinformed third:
| quote: | | "But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong. We found them." |
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...-2003May30.html
First case I've ever heard of an individual being duped by his own lies.
Seriously though, I find this incredibly distressing. The US government can do what they like, say what they like, and a third of the population will still - purely out of ignorance - believe what the government wants them to believe. I know it's easy to say that there's an ignorant fraction of society in every society in the world, but no ignorant fraction has more power over the rest of the world than than the American fraction. If 33% of the American population cannot distinguish bewteen truth and fantasy - thereby legitimising ill-advised military adventures like Gulf War II - it's the rest of the world that suffers.
So what do you think? Should I take it easy and laugh at something like this, or am I justified in weeping over my keyboard like a big girl?
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http://eschatonnow.blogspot.com/
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