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Departments Election Issues Do We Approve of Murder Based on Political Party? Pollsters Don't Want You to Know What if an organization with money but no partisanship (are there some?) were to commission a poll from a pollster willing to face a firestorm of attacks from the political parties (are there any such pollsters?), a poll that would ask people all their demographic info, including politics and party identification if any, and ask some of them:
The results would almost certainly show that many in the United States do indeed place loyalty to political parties or elected officials above matters of life and death -- at least the lives and deaths of others. This would, of course, be shameful, and if it made it into the corporate news it would make all types of partisanship look bad. It might, very likely, however, make one brand of partisanship look worst. I would predict that Republicans would each be highly approving of these abuses by at least one Republican candidate, and that their approval would diminish for the others, and especially for Obama. Democrats, I expect, would be less approving, but still strongly approving in the case of Obama, but that there would be a particularly significant drop off in approval by Democrats of such crimes if committed by any of the Republicans. What pollster would be willing to test these assumptions? Of course, in reality there is such a thing as being too late. Opposing abuses when Bush is president, but limiting the opposition at the behest of the Democratic Party, was followed by support for Obama's protection of and continuation and expansion of the crimes. Now shady Bush policies have become open "legal" practice. It is too late to take them back from the next Republican president, or any president, without fundamental change to our government. If we continue down the current path, eventually the partisanship will retreat on this issue and supporters of presidential murder will tend to support it by any president and to imagine that no alternative to that exists. David Swanson is the author of "When the World Outlawed War," "War Is A Lie" and "Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union." He blogs at http://davidswanson.org and http://warisacrime.org and works for the online activist organization a href="http://rootsaction.org" target="_blank">http://rootsaction.org |
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Recent Election Issues Articles Republican retreat - Ohio House Republicans defeat their own voter suppression bill Elections: What are they good for? The peace movement needs Kucinich, with or without Congress Ron Paul, "Progressive" for who? Do We Approve of Murder Based on Political Party? Pollsters Don't Want You to Know The State of Obama's 2008 Promises The election we should be following Booing the Golden Rule Six Problems with New Hampshire Elections The hollow democracy Read Election Issues Articles by Year: |
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