Most Americans Are Not McCain-Palin Neocons

When President Woodrow Wilson decided that America should join the war effort in Europe in 1917, he also made another decision: to trick the American public into joining him.

You see, back in April 1917 when President Wilson decided to drag the American public into a war that had nothing to do with them, public opinion polls showed that the majority of the American public was either opposed or indifferent to US involvement in Europe's World War I.

Yes, the President who was re-elected in 1916 on the slogan "He kept us out of war" made a tactical decision to navigate the public's role in deciding their government's actions - once known as democracy - that would forever change American politics.

Woodrow Wilson and his trusty team of public relations entrepreneurs introduced the modern politics of fear - exactly the kind of us-vs-them, black or white, fright night hogwash that the neoconservative Republican culture of today is based in.

Like the empty rhetoric of George W. Bush and his most visible protege of the day, John McCain, Democrat Wilson abused the term democracy to scare Americans into war: America needs to make "the world safe for democracy" he said in 1917. Like Bush and McCain he repeated his claim that a "war to end all wars" was necessary - one last battle to prevent all the rest; or in Bush and McCain's case one pre-emptive strike.

The secret to Wilson's success was his massive public relations campaign against the American public and for the war. From April 2nd, 1917, when Wilson delivered his War Message until the spring of 1918 when American troops first saw action in Europe, public opinion against the war had been reversed from being mostly unfavorable to being overwhelmingly in favor of the war. Americans didn't change their minds, their minds were changed for them.

On April 13, 1917, just under a fortnight after Wilson's war speech, and just one week after Congress declared war on Germany, Wilson signed an executive order to establish the Committee on Public Information: a propaganda organization, also known as the Creel Commission. It was the first of its kind and it was created with the sole intention of swaying American public opinion in favor of joining World War I. The CPI succeeded with flying colors and was shut down after the war it promoted came to an end.

The rest is not history - it is a repeat of history: the Bush-Cheney-neocon tactics which McCain and Palin have choreographed with belligerent shamelessness are just another act in the Woodrow Wilson play on American brainwashing. These are the divisive and dishonest politics of terror that claim that Obama is a dangerous socialist because he cares about the working class or that he's a terrorist because he doesn't pick fights with people he doesn't agree with, or that he's a foreigner out to destroy the American dream because the father he never knew was - like the relatives of every single American, and even John "I was born in Panama" McCain himself - not born on US soil.

These are the un-American traits of division, intolerance, and bigotry that positioned the Bush regime to get away with stealing an election (or by default, 2 elections), to convince the American public to pre-emptively attack Iraq and are in place to convince Americans to attack other countries, such as Iran.

Just as in 1917, the American public is the victim - not merely the victim of propaganda but also of mischaracterization. Americans then and Americans now are not the overwhelmingly divisive, ignorant and fear-mongering public their leaders have made them out to be.

If anything, Americans are more moderate than conservative, more tolerant than intolerant, and less Republican than Democrat on critical issues such as war, social services, healthcare and foreign policy. And they have been for a very long time - though nobody ever bothered to let them know.

So these cries of "liberal" and "left wing" that John McCain and his below-average vice presidential comrade Sarah Palin have thrust at Barack Obama are actually insults against the majority of Americans. As most observers have by now admitted, the McCain-Palin ticket has made no secret of its contempt for the American public: McCain-Palin have made it very clear that they believe most Americans to be unintelligent, uninformed, and downright gullible.

On November 4th, the American public has a massive opportunity to prove McCain, Palin and all of the enemies of American - and by extension, world - progress wrong. If nothing else, Barack Obama has reminded Americans that they aren't as dumb as their detractors - and the conservative base - tell them they are.

Comments

[DemoMom]

Despite McCain/Palin efforts to paint Obama as a "tax and spend liberal" I think we'll find that he is, if anything, very centrist in his ideas. The group most likely to get upset with him over the next 4 years is the far left, not the far right, because I believe we will find he is moderate in most of his policies and views. What he brings to the national stage is the ability to bring people together, to listen and NOT to be driven by idealogy (as Bush/Cheney have been for the last 8 years). Why should NASCAR supporters or anyone else be so closed-minded on the issue of whether to vote for Obama, unless, of course, they are hiding some racism? Have these people been paying attention to the campaign or are they just voting for McCain as an automatic knee-jerk thing ("always voted Republican, always will")?. Such blind adherence to party is truly scary.
Tomorrow, this country has the chance to elect someone who has the capacity, intelligence and will to reach across the aisles and work in a bipartisan way. The time for hatred and division is OVER, people and, for the sake of this country, we have to move forward together.

[gog5445]

I am fired up / any of you college students?

If so, what college and what is your GPA. Let's show these folks that Obama supporters are no dummies.

I am from Tulane and have a3.97 GPA

[JeffFromDallas]

Thanks for the history lesson. Interesting to note that this "Conservative fearmongering" is frequently correct. For instance, it would have been nice if, in 2003, Barney Frank had listened to reports saying that both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were in trouble. Instead, he and the Democrats who controlled the committee insisted that there was nothing wrong, and further regulation would only detract from affordable housing. Instead, Mr. Frank helped lead us to our most expensive fiscal failure in decades.

Your assumption that Americans are more moderate than conservative just dances around the semantics of those terms. Making generalizations as to what "most Americans" might be are groundless. For instance, I spent yesterday at a NASCAR race in Texas. It would have been difficult to find 10 percent of the crowd who planned to vote for Obama. That's a crowd of more than 100,000 people, mind you. I wouldn't use that sampling to predict the outcome of the election.

Barack Obama DOES have a great opportunity if he wins. He has promised real change, and for the better. If he just keeps talking about change however, he will have a 4-year term at most. Personally, I don't think he has enough experience to get the job done. Further, I don't think he's going to get the mandate he thinks he will have. If he pushes liberalism down America's throat, there will be another swing to the right at the next election.

[KingEdward]

Although it is reported that Mr. Obama is a liberal, he has run as a conservative. Does that make him a neo-con? And if so, how do we then get back to a society where individual liberties are valued, and a government that works for the people? It seems to me that even though "neo-con" is a dirty word now, as "liberal" has been for the last couple of decades or so, the neo-con philosophy is still alive and well--the meaning is still there, we just don't say that word anymore, and eventually, someone will think of a new catchy word to call it. And it also seems that neo-con is the worst of both worlds, and it is breaking this country, and there is no way back, dismal.

[Dameocrat]

neocons is not a philosophy at all. It is just a preference for war.