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disclaimer: I'm a Canadian.
As for my view, all americans aren't fat, lazy and stupid. If I were to make a blanket statement; they are mainly just ignorant of anything outside of america, and anything to do with politics. It's ingrained. And the media (in particular, the news media) feeds right into that, enforcing the simplistic view of politics (dem vs rep), the minimal coverage of world issues, and also feeds right into the American need for FEAR. Fear seems to be driving things in the states now, jjnevins has examined that with his little terrorist fearing town.
But the media has been doing this for a long time.. violent crime every night at 6pm, getting told '[some random thing] will kill you (we'll tell you what after the break)', eat this, don't eat that, don't do drugs or you'll get raped, etc etc.
The republicans are just using the status quo of fear to push an agenda, and are helping the fear by issuing blanket terror attack statements, forcing absurd airline security policies, rounding up immmigrants, and catching alleged 'sleeper cells'.
In terms of Clinton leaving, and Bush coming in, the intellectual culture had a field day with Bush until sept 11th. Then they all shut up for fear of their jobs.
Things have gotten more scared in the states it seems.
First post on this forum.. 
I'm posting an article that was posted on http://gnn.tv's forum that somewhat relates to this discussion.
'We shoulda nuked Saddam a long time ago'
(Filed: 12/01/2003)
Julian Coman listens to the bellicose rhetoric of Middle America in the political bellwether of St Louis, Missouri
At the Big Bang piano bar in downtown St Louis, the Wednesday night performer has just taken a request for the John Lennon song Imagine.
"Hey I've got some new words for this," he tells the audience. "Imagine there's no Saddam. That won't be hard to do after we've bombed the hell out of Iraq."
The revised lyrics were guaranteed to raise a cheer in the American mid-west. In France, polls suggest that three-quarters of voters oppose a war with Iraq. In Britain, opinion is divided.
United Nations inspectors are pleading for more time to continue the search for incriminating weapons of mass destruction. But in St Louis, Missouri, at the very centre of Middle America, no one wants to be exposed as a "wobbler" on the war.
"My only problem with George W Bush is he's been too slow," says Roger McDonald, a carpenter originally from Moro, Illinois, across the Mississippi river.
"He should have gone right over there and nuked them straight away after 9/11. They're all tied together - Hussein, Osama Bin Laden and the other terrorists. Nobody does what they did to America and gets away with it."
His friend, Greg Jahnsen, adds: "We've been chasing bin Laden through caves for months now. We've got to get some results somewhere."
American presidents tend to listen to St Louis. The state of Missouri voted for every presidential winner in the 20th century except Dwight Eisenhower. In 2000, it voted for George W Bush over Al Gore by a margin of three per cent.
Despite the failure of UN weapons inspectors to locate Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the majority here in favour of removing Saddam from power is considerably greater than that.
Three blocks away from the Big Bang, John Leyton is preparing to start the 5pm-3am shift at the Tums factory, where America's most famous indigestion pills are manufactured. To nods of agreement from his colleagues, he is happy to make the case for war: "I don't get to read the newspapers much but I think we have to do something about Iraq.
"People are expecting it now," he says. "Those inspectors are never going to find anything because those weapons are hid good. President Bush has done a fine job in the war on terror so far and we have to trust him on this one. They know things we don't."
The rhetoric is bellicose, but the White House would be unwise to treat it as evidence of unqualified support.
The latest national polls indicate that about 65 per cent of Americans back the use of force to remove Saddam from power. Yet that number drops to 30 per cent for a military campaign undertaken without the backing of allies and the UN Security Council.
In St Louis, a political bell-wether for America, the local newspaper recorded the same plunge in support for a go-it-alone war. Americans believe President Bush is right to target Saddam, but they are notably anxious that the rest of the world should agree.
Carroll Doherty, who has conducted a series of polls on behalf of the Washington-based Pew Research Centre, says that support for a war with Iraq is broad but shallow. "People are convinced of the need to topple Saddam," she said.
"But they still need to be convinced of the need to act now and they are very concerned that America's allies should be involved and on board. Before any war, there is a natural concern about casualties.
"But what's surprising at the moment is that the question of whether the United States has the support of its allies is even more central for many people."
In St Louis, the opinion of Tony Blair appears to carry almost as much weight as that of President Bush when it comes to future moves against Saddam.
Courtney Kitson, a teacher in her mid-20s, says: "Tony Blair has been with us all the way from 9/11. If he dropped out or said that now wasn't the right time, that would make an enormous difference."
At the Morgan Street Brewery restaurant, a table of eight trainee stockbrokers is unanimous that military action needs to be taken against Iraq.
According to one, "America shoulda nuked that guy a long time ago." But the same table is divided over whether America could, or should, go it alone.
"We've got to be smart about this," says another of the diners, Marc Miller. "We're going to store up a whole lot of problems for ourselves if we act alone. The Arabs are going to go crazy. If the UN isn't with us then that makes things difficult. If even Blair isn't with us then there's no way we should go in. America must not fight alone."
The prospect of American casualties also diminishes the appetite for war, to a far greater extent than before the first Gulf War.
A recent Los Angeles Times poll found that support for a military campaign dropped from 58 per cent to 49 per cent if the death of one American soldier was assumed. A conflict leading to the death of 1,000 US troops would only be supported by 39 per cent.
"The American people are of two minds on the subject," says Susan Pinkus, who directed the newspaper poll. "The rhetoric has been ratcheting up daily but people still want the United States to get the support of a multi-national coalition, rather than going it alone."
Dale Alleman, the owner of the Team Electronics Superstore just outside St Louis, is not in two minds: "We've got to take Saddam out.
"It's been proven that he's had ties with bin Laden; sooner or later we'll find out that he had a hand in 9/11. If no one else comes in with us that's fine, we can sort this out on our own."
Josh, his employee, disagrees: "What exactly has Saddam done to us? 9/11 was bin Laden and no one has been able to show Iraq was involved. The inspectors haven't found any nukes. They haven't found anything at all. What's the threat from Iraq?"
Mr Alleman turned to me and said: "If you quote Josh in your paper, write down that he's a former employee. That's not the real voice of the heartland."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/01/12/wirq112.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/01/12/ixworld.html |
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