Reply #3: I made a similar point repeatedly about the Iraq War...

[Peace Patriot]

Nearly 60% of the American people opposed the war on Iraq (all polls, Feb. '03, just before the invasion). Their views were not only minimized by the corpo/fascist media, their views were positively black-holed by the corpo/fascist media, so that all of us--THE MAJORITY--who opposed that war felt isolated, disempowered and demoralized.

I think that the object of corpo/fascist propaganda--whether on health care, war or other corporate/war profiteer projects--is not to convince the majority, but rather to demoralize the majority. When you start having the thought: "Wow, my fellow Americans must be nuts," or, "The rightwingers are winning the argument," beware of what you are really thinking, deep down--that your views are in the minority and all is hopeless.

That was a VERY IMPORTANT realization for me, personally--pre-Iraq War, when I hunted around for opinion polls (and had to hunt hard) and found, to my utter astonishment, that MOST Americans opposed the war. Frankly, I was wondering if I had somehow ended up in a crazy, fascist, goose-stepping country. Not true. MOST Americans believed, as I did, that the Iraq War was wrong. They just couldn't be heard. Their views were NOT reflected by the corpo/fascist media. And something had gone very, very, VERY wrong with our democracy.

And if you add in some percentage of people who are naive and/or uninformed, or disinformed, say 10%, I think you get an even clearer picture of REAL American opinion--i.e., nearly 70% against the war, or, say, 66% approval of Obama vs 20% approval of Pukes (rather than 56/30, as per the above). I think there is, in truth, an overwhelming progressive majority in the country--not just big, REALLY big. The intensity of the corpo/fascist media propaganda needs to be taken into account. They disinform some--not a lot, but some. But it is not really that small percentage of naive or uninformed/disinformed people that they are after. They are after the rest of us--not to convince us--they know they can't--but to make us believe that there is no hope for change.

Just a note: There IS hope for change, but we have first to get rid of the 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines, now owned and controlled mostly by ONE far, FAR rightwing corporation--ES&S (which just bought out Diebold, and, believe me, is worse than Diebold). Transparent vote counting is the fundamental condition of democracy, and of all beneficial change. Without it, we are essentially powerless. That is why transparent vote counting was taken away. That is how Bush/Cheney got "re-elected" in 2004, with such a big majority having opposed their war policy, and in the midst of revelations of torture and other scandals. There is no other purpose to fast-tracking a system on entirely non-transparent vote counting machines all over the country BUT to rig elections. That system is still in place. It gives the far, FAR rightwing the ability to play our system like a piano--to permit the election of an Obama, then to un-elect Obama; to switch from (s)electing Pukes for Congress to (s)electing "Blue Dogs" for Congress (who might as well be Pukes); and then to crash another rightwing junta right down upon our heads, while we stand helplessly by. Congress is not going to change this. It is up to we, the people, to change it--and this can still be done at the local/state level, where power over voting systems still resides and where ordinary people still have some potential influence. DEMAND vote counting that everyone can see and understand--of your local registrar and local/state officials. Join an election integrity group and get on it. This is the best thing that we can do to insure that government policy is responsive to the will of the progressive majority.