>I'm a little surprised Yoshie - who last week was critical of urban
>elites' disparaging generalizations about the American heartland -
>has such a monolithic view of American society. It could be that
>there really are some honest social scientists who want to know what
>Iraqis think lurking among the belligerent/complacent imperial mass.
I don't believe that pollsters like Richard Burkholder are belligerent. If anything, I'd think that most well-known pollsters are probably moderately liberal.
Anyhow, regardless of Burkholder's personal belief and competence, _the very idea_ of a heavily polled, caucused, and focus-grouped military occupation is hilarious. It neatly sums up the dominant tendency of American culture. Today's very American occupation relies on pollsters instead on eminent orientalists to whom the British empire looked. I jotted down some thoughts on pollsters and orientalists, including excerpts from Gertrude Bell's letters to her father, with a nod to Edward Said and Jacques Lacan: "The East Is a Career," <http://montages.blogspot.com/2004_04_01_montages_archive.html#108332184828668294>. -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>