Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> Carl Remick wrote:
>
> >Figuring out most Americans' reasoning is like analyzing a Monty
> >Python sketch. I believe the thinking goes like this: Saddam
> >wasn't responsible for the 9/11 attacks, but the attacks were just
> >the type of thing he would have done if he'd had the opportunity.
>
> Slavoj argues, in the interview I'll be broadcasting later today,
> that the "reasoning" is this: AQ hates America, SH hates America, so
> they're all the same and must be destroyed.
>
Opinions (passive opinions) are formed and answers to pollsters are given by those who suffer the effects of the "dotlike [Punkualitat] isolation which he [the individual] appears as mere free worker."
That isolation can only be broken by direct relationships with others in collective action against some aspect of capitalism, and through the discussion of that action and its significance with others. It is reasonable to trust one's leaders unless that trust is refuted by direct (collective) experience -- and it is reasonable to resolve any intellectual discordance (was that the phrase someone used recently?) thereby created is _also_ best resolved in favor of the leaders.
Most people work x hours, and stumble through the rest of the day in hopes of reaching the next day still alive and sane. Those x hours do NOT include much reading or much close attention even to TV news (except perhaps for local news). There is no reason whatever to expect that this dotlike individual to know more about 9/11 than that some Arab, perhaps named Sadaam or perhaps that other fellow named hussein, or perhaps Al Kilder was involved. All three opinions would be reasonable ones in light of the citizen's isolation and the worker's crowded day (and this includes workers earning over $70k and up).
And so forth.
And note, no amount of good writing (studiously avoiding jargon and deeply sincere) will reach these dots simply because those dots will never even know the writing exists, and how can a text which does not exist (no matter how well written) affect anyone?
Carrol