A quick bit of good news to end the week. A poll has come out from Gallup exploring Americans' views of various other countries.
The poll has confirmed that the loud voices we know from places such as Daily Kos, where people feel an intense love for the Iranian regime, and an obsessive, deranged hatred for Israel, are very much in the minority in this country.
Iran is the least popular country of the 23 included in the survey, with only a 10% favorability rating in Americans' minds, even below such luminaries as North Korea and Iraq. On the other hand, Israel has a 71% favorability rating, which is pretty darn good, although coming in behind major American allies Canada, Australia, UK, Germany, Japan, France, and, curiously, India.
It is interesting to see socialist-ish Canada with a 96% favorability rating, and even the cliche right wing villain and tourist-abusing France coming in at 75%. In general, it seems that in spite of both right wing and far left deranger propaganda, Americans have pretty good taste when it comes to other countries.
Note to certain of my old 'friends' from that place: when even North Korea tops your favorite regime's favorability rating by 3 points, you're doing it wrong...
ReplyDelete;)
(livosh1)
ReplyDeleteSmall point of clarification: The "loud voices" on Daily Kos which you refer to are a small percentage of the participants on that site. Most stay away from such subjects. The deranged hatred for Israel and love for the Iranian regime come from fringe elements, some of whom aren't even Americans.
Agree and disagree.
DeleteI agree that the loudest voices at said site are not necessarily representative and often are not Americans, but I found that in general there was more tacit agreement and tolerance for their viewpoints than you are portraying, including among the people that matter most - ie the management.
Concur. And especially re: management.
DeleteI think I land on livosh's side on this one. I think the majority of DKos people (as shown by the overwhelming numbers that supported our diary on anti-Semitism) do not suffer IDS (Israel Derangement Syndrome). Also given the lack of support for soysauce's Piece of Crap about the P.I.J. leader starving himself are indicative that the site is not over the edge.
DeleteI do admit that managements reticence (though they will do it) to ban the hardcore supporters of Iran, Hizbollah, and Ron Paul is puzzling and annoying but I don't think that speaks to a hatred of Jews or anything else other as much as it does to pandering to a far-left/right element of the base (who I don't think should be pandered too).
I am less concerned with what happens at the G.O.S. than I am with happens at other sites within our own community and the sheer amount of mis-information and outright lies that gets disseminated in some cases to large amounts of people.
Volley, I have to really disagree with you here. I can't believe you are defending Markos and the Daily Kos management.
DeleteDo you remember when Kalli Joy Gray (front pager) told me to "get over it" referring to antisemitism? Do you remember when she told me I should be "ashamed" and "apologize" to McJoan (another front pager) for criticizing her pushing the work of the insane antisemitic truther commission on the front page? Do you remember what I was banned over, meanwhile the person who quoted PressTV to push the truther commission story suffered no sanction?
Maybe you don't remember because it was during one of those frequent times when you - along with other Jewish members who complain about antisemitism - were unfairly banned.
I can't believe you would defend the obvious antisemites who run that place. Somebody, I forget who it was, pointed it out correctly - they may not be antisemites in intent, they may not think they are antisemites, but when your response to rampant antisemitism and an insane truther commission on the front page is "get over it", then you are an antisemite in effect.
And, aside from the management, if there really is a silent majority of decent Daily Kos people, then where the fuck were they when all of this was happening? Our antisemitism letter got ~200 signatories out of 300,000 registered users and probably 1,000 active users. Why is The fucking Troubadour's deceptive deranger ass on the rec list every single day? That place is chock full of derangers and people who tolerate them.
I would hardly call what I wrote a "defense" of anti-Semites fiz.... let's not get too hyperbolic over this.
DeleteYou and I see things differently, chalk it up to past experiences.
Well, you know I really respect your opinion, and think you are an awesome kick ass person :) But on this one I just think you are just way way off. Agree to disagree, I suppose.
DeleteI think that there is a silent majority at Daily Kos that stands where we stand and where the Democratic Party stands. The problem is that the other side has made the discourse so toxic and shifted it so far from reality that the overwhelming majority simply do not care to enter the particularly toxic shit pile that is I/P over there. The site's management does bear a great deal of responsibility because of their failure to ban those advocating for weapons of mass destruction in the hands of terrorists, those advocating directly on behalf of a terrorist organization and those that advocate on behalf of a terrorist exactly where he belongs.
DeleteWhat made the comment coming from Kaili Joy Gray particularly disturbing is that she is Jewish and she was telling us that we should simply ignore I/P and the antisemitism that flows from that toxic wasteland. I can see a non-Jew who does not have much invested in the situation making a comment like that, but, from a Jew, that comment is beyond belief. Unfortunately, as the behavior of some of the self-identified Jews over there indicates, I really should not be surprised. Relative to their behavior, where they directly enable and/or defend the antisemites in the name of THE CAUSE, her behavior is not particularly bad.
Let me close by saying the following, and getting back to my very first point: If a poll was taken of Daily Kos users and they were asked which of the possible solutions to the Israeli-Arab conflict that they liked best, the winner would likely be exactly what we and our fellow Democrats advocate for: A Jewish and democratic Israel living side-by-side, in peace, with a democratic and independent Palestine. In the end, despite those that carry the IDS banner, I believe most people over there favor a negotiated two-state solution. Remember, many of those posting, as was said, are not Americans and of those on the other side that are American, I seriously doubt they are Democrats.
Yes, but what good is a majority if it's 'silent' and never does a thing? The Letter was brought up before, as an example of this. And it was a great one. Sure, it worked out well enough, I guess, but... what changed after that? Nothing. We still had to spend much more time than we should have fighting hate, and as a direct result of that many of us, myself included, were run off and out of that place simply for trying to clean up messes that shouldn't ever exist in the first place at a site which likes to think of itself as 'mainstream.'
DeleteI certainly agree with the point that the anti-Israel nuts and the antisemites (almost, if not always, one and the same, of course) are a tiny minority of the Democratic Party and of the American Left in general, but I do not agree with the proposition that that particular site isn't a fetid sewer of hate. But again, agree to disagree I guess. It's time to move on and build our own place(s)! Once we do, it very well may even make me numb and shed some tears. ;-P
I think that Kalli Joy Grey's status as a Jewish person is immaterial to how bad the "get over it" comments were. They were simply appalling. There is no other ethnic group, religion, culture, race, orientation, or gender that she or any of those other people would even dream of telling to "get over it". So I think the site management has revealed themselves to be fundamentally compromised.
DeleteAs for whether there is a 'silent majority', in the end I think the presence of such a thing may matter in elections and polls, where every person gets one equal vote. But on a blog the people that comment the most frequently and most aggressively dominate the discourse, and a silent majority, if it exists, is pretty darn useless.
So in the end the more I think about it I come back to my original contention and I'm going to have to disagree with livosh, Volley, and I guess Reuven - and say again that Daily Kos is run by antisemites (in effect certainly and possibly in intent) and dominated by derangers - if not in absolute numbers then certainly in volume.
And not to toot my own horn, so to speak, but I seem to also remember that I called her in particular out weeks before that incident, and it turned out I was even more correct than I could have imagined at that point. So, heh.
Delete(livosh1)
ReplyDeleteWell, I guess we'll disagree. I think a substantial majority there simply stay away from those issues, and express no view whatsoever. Whatever one's feelings may be about the site's management, I think it is inaccurate and unfair to make similar assumptions about the huge number of participants on that site who simply do not delve into such issues.
Fair enough. Our reads of the situation are different, probably given our different trajectories there.
DeleteActually, the more I think about it, what is the use of a silent majority on a blog?
DeleteI think it is absolutely useless and irrelevant if there is a silent majority on a blog. They are useless unless they speak up. A blog is not a vote or a poll, it is a collection of ideas and opinions where the more someone posts, or the louder they are, the more they matter.
Appealing to the existence of a quiet majority of decent people on Daily Kos is like appealing to the existence of a quiet majority of good singers in a choir that sounds like crap. If they are not singing loud enough, who cares? The choir still sucks, and can correctly be discribed as sounding bad. I think my characterization of Daily Kos is appropriately along the same lines. It sounds bad, just like a bad choir might. If the good singers are a majority but silent, they are worthless.
I too am heartened to see this poll and it's results.
ReplyDeleteUnlike many who are crowing over the poor results the Palestinians get - my focus is regarding the postitive image of Israel and it's people. I think that is the thing to be focused on and not how crappy the Palestinians rate in the poll.
Interesting slice of the American brain. It makes sense to me that our warmest positives would be for other Anglophone industrialized nations. Of course we like Canada and Australia, we see ourselves in them.
ReplyDeleteThen, at the bottom of the list, the rogue states and failing nations--I note that Pakistan has fallen a lot since last year. The guys that keep us up nights.
It's the shifting middle I find really interesting. What factors go into a snap decision about whether you feel good about China, or France, or India?
I'm also curious about what factors play into the way people respond to 'Iraq'.
It would be very interesting if there were some followup questions or something to shed some light on that. And maybe some more specifics about the survey, like did they emphasize words such as government or people?
DeleteWhile I am not surprised to see that Americans like Canada, I am surprised to see that it is so popular at 96%. I would figure that a segment of the far right would view it as a socialistic bogeyman, if nothing else than because liberals always cite the single payer health care.