You don't suppose the first question from the first quoted Decline of Trust is answered by the second question, For What Purpose, do you?
Naw, it must be something else...
Chuck Grimes
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[fwd, Seth Ackerman, A Brookings News Briefing Opportunity Lost: The Decline of Trust and Confidence in Government After September 11..]
According to a new survey by the Center for Public Service, the surge in public support of the federal government that followed September 11 has crested and fallen. In the past eight months, public trust in the federal government, elected officials, and government workers has declined dramatically and across the board. The survey report will be released, and its findings discussed, on Thursday, May 30 at the Brookings Institution. Among the questions to be addressed are: Why was the "September 11 effect" on public attitudes toward government so temporary in nature? What is driving the decline in trust in government? And what, if anything, can be done to reverse this trend in declining confidence?
[fwd jacdon, 9/11 Inquiry...Jack A. Smith and will appear in the June 1 issue of the Mid-Hudson Activist Newsletter...]
9/11 Inquiry: For What Purpose?
What will not emerge from such an inquiry is a serious examination of the role played by the U.S. in creating many of the conditions that ripened to the point where a group such as al Qaeda could launch the terror attacks. Will the inquiry examine the role the CIA played in supporting right-wing fundamentalist forces in Afghanistan (including Osama bin Laden) from 1979 to 1994? Will it analyze the degree to which Washington's role in Iraq and Palestine and Saudi Arabia, among many other areas in the Middle East, contributed to the rising tide of antipathy toward the U.S. throughout the region? Will it investigate the imperialist uses to which the Bush administration has put the terror attack in terms of extending the empire? Will it question why the Pentagon needs permanent bases throughout Central Asia as a consequence of the war against Afghanistan? Will it probe the number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan?
If these and dozens of other similar questions were the focus of the inquiry demanded by Senate Democratic leader Sen. Tom Daschle and House Minority leader Rep. Richard Gephardt, we would have a great deal more confidence that it would serve a politically useful or at least educational purpose....