An exerpt from Glenn Greenwald's blog: "George Washington's warnings and U.S. policy towards Israel"
"In a democracy, one could expect that politicians would be afraid to express a view that 70% of the citizens oppose. Yet here we have the exact opposite situation: no mainstream politician would dare express the view that 70% of Americans support; instead, the universal piety is the one that only a small minority accept. Isn't that fairly compelling evidence of the complete disconnect between our political elites and the people they purportedly represent?"
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6 comments:
Hey, Professor. I think that Glenn Greenwald is absolutely correct. Basically, America (the people) support the idea of being neutral but America (the elite) support intervening and that's wrong. This is seen in alot of cases as well. Often times the people reject something, but the elites view us as uneducated and misinformed that they act for us disregarding our opinions. And when America receives backlash for their actions, the media tries to portray as something we all conceeded on, when the truth is that a few individuals acted for us. We have our own affairs as it is; however, we don't like to see other countries bullied on so we intervene. Yet whose to say that Israel can't handle their own affairs? Whose to say that we shouldn't support Gaza? The elites just support Israel, because Gaza has muslims who could presumably be "terrorists." That's wrong, America shouldn't prejudge any particular country. Honestly, I think we should just mind our business until we find a way of dealing with our problems first. Like we have our own recession and Iraq war to worry about. We do not need to worry about any other conflicts that don't specifically involve us.
I think making the leap that 70% of Americans want accurate reporting to 70% support even handed negotiations between Hamas and Israel is a far stretch. Of course Americans want unbias news but to say then they want unbias forgein policy is silly. Hamas, the government of Gaza, is a terrorist organization and should be treated as such.
I think that the reason why politicians are so afraid to express their point of view is because they are afraid that they would be judged by the people. There are so many different nationalities in the world and you can't please them all. Perhaps they think it is best to stay neutral rather than offend anybody.
Hello professor. I really liked this article and I feel that Glenn Greenwald has hit this issue on the head. I tell myself and others constantly that the elites feign listening to the average person and in reality turn a deaf ear to us and do whatever is on their agenda will entertaining us with bread and circuses.
By: Eric Zamani
I found this excerpt from Greenwald to be very interesting. The 70 percent opposition mentioned is certainly a surprising statistic. I would have expected the support/oppose divide to be more along the lines of 50/50 considering we have two major parties here in the US. It is frustrating to know politicians are not making decisions on behalf of their people, when in fact, that is what our government is supposed to be all about. Instead, they choose what they think is best and often, what they will benefit from. This excerpt is definite proof of the blatant disconnect between our politicians and our society.
Who decides what unbiased is. We know the definition of the word but is it really possible to be completely unbiased when reporting?
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