>Where is any evidence that most Americans admire "military culture"?
>Is there any poll that asked if respondents admire or despise
>"military culture"? I've seen polls that ask if Americans trust or
>distrust significant institutions including the military, but that's
>a different question than if they admire "military culture."
It's pretty hard to separate one's feelings about the military from "military culture." According to a May 2004 Gallup poll, here are the top 5 scoring entities on the "confidence in institutions" question:
military 75% police 64 church 53 banks 53 presidency 52
With the exception of banks, these represent institutions of authority. Organized labor, Congress, and the media are at the bottom of the list. This does not suggest promising terrain for radical organizing, I'm afraid.
>Here is a comparative poll that asked Americans and Europeans about
>their trust and distrust in various institutions, and it turns out
>Americans are no different than Europeans with regard to their trust
>in the military and the police
The European countries polled have small militaries, many of them staffed by draftees, that don't do all that much abroad. We have a large professional military that regularly bombs and invades other countries. The populations polled are respecting very different things. And, according to Gallup, 40% of Americans think that our "national defense" isn't "strong enough." Our favorite service branch is the most bellicose, the most disciplined, and the most likely to invade: the Marines.
Doug