Polls, Peace and Providing for Those in Need

Activist, journalist and author Rahul Mahajan has an excellent blog, Empire Notes. In a recent posting on the need for progressives to challenges themselves, he writes:

The left must come to terms with American public opinion, and, in particular, with polls. ... Let me share with you results of the Communications Omnibus Survey, funded by the Media and Society Research Group at Cornell. It first came to my attention because of an AP story reporting that in this poll, 44% of respondents favored some form of restriction of civil liberties for Muslims.

The poll actually contains some even more amazing results. Only 63% of respondents felt that people should be allowed to criticize government policies in times of war or crisis, and only 60% felt that people should be allowed to protest. 33% believed the media should not cover protests and 31% that it shouldn’t report criticisms. These numbers fly in the face of any comfortable suppositions about Americans and their respect for individual freedom or for informed policy debate in a democracy. Not much over half of people even believe they should be legally allowed, let alone engaged in.

Other striking statistics: Although 70% favored, somewhat or strongly, the so-called "war on terrorism," only 42% believe its primary purpose is protecting the United States from attack. 22%, more than one in five people, believe the primary purpose is controlling Middle East oil. Most interesting, of that 22%, 43% still favored the war on terrorism – with a margin of error of close to 8%.

Since those 22% are likely to be of the more oppositional sort of people, it’s entirely plausible that even if the whole American public knew that control of Middle East oil and U.S. imperial hegemony is the primary reason, half or more might still support the "war on terrorism."

That’s the kind of thing you need to know when you’re doing activism with an eye toward mass mobilization and major policy victories, like, say, ending the occupation. There’s no need to pander to that kind of opinion, but you should be aware of its existence and it should inform your strategies.

Indeed.

In other news, Margaret Hassan will be posthumously recognized for her decades of work in Iraq with the Tipperary Peace Prize, her native Ireland's most pretigious peace award.

Also on Iraq, Al Jazeera is reporting that the Baiji Higher Electoral Commission has quit following death threats to its members. Baiji, a northern city, is home to Iraq's largest oil refinery. This comes after "the entire staff of Iraq's Independent Electoral Commission in the northern city of Mosul - around 700 employees - resigned last week." How can the U.S.-imposed elections be perceived as anything but a sham?

Lastly, if you would like to contribute to relief efforts for the Asian earthquake and tsunami, the East Timor Action Network is channeling aid to grassroots groups in Aceh, the Indonesian province at ground zero of the disaster.