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  • From: "Toni Hawryluk" <tonihawr AT msn.com>
  • To: "Homestead mailing list" <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Homestead] 'while good men remain silent...'
  • Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2004 13:56:01 -0700

my NOTEs are scattered through here - feel free to flame if your opinion is
different.



http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6161506/site/newsweek/



Americans Eat Cheese, Too

Sixty-six percent of Americans favor working within the United Nations, even
when it adopts policies that the United States does not like



Newsweek By Fareed Zakaria

Oct. 11 issue - The Bush campaign believes it has found one soft spot in John
Kerry's debate performance. In the days after the contest, the president has
relentlessly hit one theme: that Kerry is a wimpy multilateralist. "I've been
to a lot of summits," Bush said derisively at a rally in Pennsylvania last
Friday. "I've never seen a meeting that would depose a tyrant, or bring a
terrorist to justice ... The president's job is not to take an international
poll. The president's job is to defend America ... The use of troops to
defend America must never be subject to a veto by countries like France."
Kerry hasn't proposed anything like that. But Bush is right to imply that
Kerry's vision of American foreign policy is attentive to world opinion, and
interested in working with allies and international institutions. What Bush
might be dead wrong about is that such views are unpopular in today's America.

The Chicago Council on Foreign Relations last week released a large opinion
survey, asking Americans about their attitudes on world affairs. 66 percent
of Americans favor working within the United Nations, even when it adopts
policies that the U.S. does not like. 59 percent want to do away with all
vetoes in the Security Council, including America's. 74 percent want a
standing U.N. peacekeeping force, commanded by the U.N., not the U.S. 49
percent approve of a tax on oil and arms that would fund U.N. activities.
Friend of the world though he is, John Kerry would not dare propose any one
of these positions.

(my NOTE : So ?? Bush is *not* doing it either !)

During the debates, Bush chose to mention his opposition to the International
Criminal Court because he thought that would please the crowd. He mocked the
idea of "foreign judges" trying American soldiers.

(my NOTE : why not ? aren't we just part of the people on this globe ? and a
small part at that - and as My Lai in the past and the not so far 'past'
Iraqi-torturing/humiliating has proven that neither our grunts nor are
leaders are "holy and free some sin/criminal actions")

But 76 percent of Americans in the Chicago survey support the court. 71
percent support the Kyoto accords. Eighty-seven percent support the treaty
banning nuclear testing. And 80 percent support the treaty banning land
mines. Washington is not a signatory to any of these agreements.

(my NOTE : why not ? since the majority of Americans want these ????? my
opinion - because "deals" can't be made to enrich somebody from these)

The survey proposes specific scenarios. Asked whether U.N. approval should be
required before Washington takes military action against North Korea, 68
percent of Americans said yes. 74 percent felt that America's allies should
also have a veto on such an action. Another study also released by the
Chicago Council asked questions of Americans and South Koreans. Asked whether
they would support their country's accepting unfavorable rulings from the
World Trade Organization, 48 percent of South Koreans said yes, compared with
69 percent of Americans.

Of course, these are hypothetical. When confronted with the details of what
they would involve, Americans might well become less supportive. When they
realize that signing Kyoto and driving SUVs are incompatible, my guess is
that it's Kyoto that would get pushed aside. When an actual crisis came
along, perhaps the United Nations would seem an irritating obstacle to
action. But these numbers tell us that Americans' basic attitudes toward the
world are remarkably cooperative.

(my NOTE : the quiet majority - when good men remain silent, evil triumphs)

What the Bush campaign understands is that in today's America, silent
majorities are far less important than energetic minorities.

(see previous my NOTE J

There are few people in America who vote on foreign-policy issues-and those
who do tend to believe that international institutions represent something
dark and sinister. If this sounds like an exaggeration, recall that in his
best-selling and hugely influential book, "The New World Order," Pat
Robertson portrayed the European Community and the United Nations as fronts
for Satanic forces that seek "to take away all our property, our values, our
faith, and our freedom." For such groups, the Reverend Robertson explains,
"There must be world government, a world police force, world courts, world
banking... To some there must be an elimination of Christianity;

(my NOTE : Osama bin Laden thinks so - why are Americans and Iraqis dying
while he's still running around loose ?)

to some extreme New Agers there must be the deaths of two or three billion
people in the Third World ... "!

The coded language used by some extremely conservative Republicans over the
past two decades has turned the foreign- policy debate into one where no one
dare propose cooperation, even though such approaches are solidly popular
among the public at large. The left and center run scared of an angry
minority while the right feeds its appetite. But things are changing. America
is becoming more globalized. Almost every American has contact with the
international economy. (Robertson may not have noticed, but we already have
international banks-and the world is still standing.) Many more travel,
especially young Americans. And they understand that America cannot seek to
create a world of order, liberty and law without playing by the same rules
itself. The numbers show that there is a considerable basis to create a very
different American attitude toward the world.

(my NOTE : but *not* until and unless the people creating that basis*vote* it)

© 2004 Newsweek, Inc.







  • [Homestead] 'while good men remain silent...', Toni Hawryluk, 10/08/2004

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