Poll: Most Americans want a more neoconservative, militaristic, U.S. Government.

Eric Zuesse (blogs at https://theduran.com/author/eric-zuesse/)

Among the 524 U.S. pollsters that are rated at fivethirtyeight.com, Marist College gets an “A” rating, and ranks as #9, near the very best in its accuracy.

On November 15th, the Marist College poll headlined “The Looming Government Shutdown: NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist National Poll”, and reported that,

Half of Americans (50%) think it is crucial for the U.S. to play a major leadership role in world events. 47% say the U.S. should focus on its own problems and take less of a leadership role. Democrats (66%) are more likely than Republicans (46%) and independents (43%) to have a more global view of the role of the United States. Majorities of Republicans (51%) and independents (56%) think the U.S. should focus on domestic matters. …

Americans, though, are more likely to sympathize with the Israelis (61%) than the Palestinians (30%). While Republicans (79%) and independents (67%) are more likely to express greater sympathy toward Israel, Democrats divide. 45% say they have greater sympathy for Israelis, and the same proportion (45%) say their sympathies are more with the Palestinians. …

More than six in ten Americans think Congress should authorize additional funding to support the wars in Ukraine and Israel. This includes 35% who say funding should be allocated to support both conflicts, 14% who say the U.S. should provide financial support only to Israel in its war against Hamas, and 12% who say the U.S. should authorize funding to support only Ukraine in its war with Russia. 36% say additional funding should not be authorized for either war.

Regarding the question, “As you may know, Congress must pass another agreement on funding the government by November 17th in order to avoid a government shutdown. Who would you blame more if there is a shutdown of the federal government”?, 49% blamed “The Republicans in Congress”, 43% blamed “Joe Biden and the Democrats in Congress”, and 6% blamed “Both equally.” The main reason why Republicans in Congress are blocking passage of bills to continue operating the U.S. Government is President Biden’s recent demand to add to the federal budget $61 billion more to fund Ukraine’s war against Russia, and $14 billion more to fund Israel’s war against Palestinians; and, so, this finding in that poll means that 49% were blaming “The Republicans in Congress” for an impending Governmental shut-down, and wanted Republicans to agree to Biden’s request to add $106 billion to the existing $1.5 trillion in annual U.S. military spending; 43% were blaming “Joe Biden and the Democrats in Congress” for demanding this added $106 billion for those two wars; and 6% were blaming “Both equally” — which means that Republicans and Democrats ought to reach a compromise in order to keep the U.S. Government running.

The pollster’s phrase regarding whether it is “crucial for the U.S. to play a major leadership role in world events” is a veiled way of asking whether the U.S. empire (which the U.S. Government and its news-media never directly refer to) ought to be expanding, or instead contracting (so that the Government can “focus on its own problems and take less of a leadership role” in the world). The finding there is that 50% want more to be spent in order to increase the U.S. empire, whereas 47% think that “the U.S. should focus on its own problems and take less of a leadership role” internationally.

Right now, the U.S. Government spends annually, $1.5 trillion just on its military (but hides some of that in the budget by spending portions of that military money out of other federal Departments, such as the Treasury Department, Veterans Affairs, and Energy Department — NOT the ‘Defense’ Department). To put that into perspective: it’s half of the total amount that all of the world’s nations spend per year on their military, and it is slightly more than half (53%) of all of the funding that the U.S. Congress authorize and the President signs into law each year. And half of that (half of this 53%) (i.e., 26% of the annual federal budget) is going to America’s weapons-makers and other sellers to the U.S. Department of ‘Defense’ — that field of commerce being (ever since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991) by far the most profitable one in the U.S. economy.

So, according to this poll of registered U.S. voters, Americans, right now, are favorable toward adding $106 billion to the existing $1.5T annual U.S. spending for ‘national security’ for Ukraine (an additional $61 billion) and Israel (an additional $14 billion), to these ‘national security’ issues, for those two countries. Consequently: Congress will probably find some way to make it happen. Non-military federal expenditures will be cut and/or the federal deficit and debt will increase even faster, in order to reach a settlement that both Republicans and Democrats can accept.

Right now, among all industrialized countries, the United States has the shortest life-expectancy (and going down ever since its peak was reached in 2014), and the highest health care costs, and the U.S. scores #22 worldwide on the standardized PISA ranking of the Reading, Math, Science, and problem-solving, skills of its students. So, if it is “crucial for the U.S. to play a major leadership role in world events,” then how can the U.S. possibly do that while its life-expectancies are low and going down, and while its educational system scores #22 (out of the 74 nations tested)? Would it be done by adding the Biden-demanded $106B to the existing $1.5T of authorized annual ‘national security’ expenses? Apparently, most Americans would seem to think so. Perhaps this is a problem which the country that scored #22 in its educational performance can’t think its way through to solving. But wouldn’t such a country then be quite dangerous in any sort of international leadership position?

This poll of American voters ought then to be of concern to people throughout the world.

However, to Americans, the most interesting thing about this poll’s findings ought to be how incongruous those predominant American attitudes are in light of the fact that since at least 2015, the United States hasn’t even had the largest economy: China has — and is increasing the global share of its economy each and every year at a faster rate than America’s economy increases (because America’s global share has been decreasing steadily each year ever since, actually, 1980). However, the economic performance of America’s colonies (‘allies’), such as the nations in the EU, is weaker and falling behind even faster than is that of their imperial master, America. In light of those data (which come from the World Bank), the findings in this poll seem outright bizarre — far out of line with the by-now-clear economic reality. The U.S. Government’s response to that reality (of its falling farther and farther behind) has been — since it is becoming less and less important each year economically — to strain and ratchet-up higher each year its military (which ultimately weakens America’s economy even more).

Every empire goes through this, but the U.S. empire — since this is the atomic age — could, now in this its declining phase, turn out to be the most dangerous one in all of history. The longer that its military continues growing as an already enormous cancerous tumor at the expense of the rest of the country, the more dangerous it will become to the entire world. This parasite, which has been (ever since 1945) trying to devour the world, could end up eating even itself. When supremacism has become such an addiction, what can possibly stop it? It cannot stop itself. If it initiates WW III, it will end everything. If it won’t do that, then how can this empire end? The United States Government prohibits public discussion of this question. That prohibition needs to stop — right now.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) knew that both World Wars resulted from contending imperialisms, and so he spent his final years, from August 1941 till his death on 12 April 1945, planning a U.N. that his immediate successor Truman (and his successors except JFK) hijacked and neutered; but, if FDR’s plan had been followed, it would have prevented any empire at all from following after WW II. FDR’s planned U.N. would have prevented it. I believe that the only constructive way forward, to end America’s neoconservatism peacefully, is his plan, which also is the hope of the Governments of both China and Russia. Their statements about it aren’t as detailed as FDR’s plan was, but are entirely supportive of that. Starting with this foundation, it might be possible — to undo what Truman did.

The U.N. that FDR intended would be favored by all nations except the U.S., UK, France, and their colonies; but, really, only the U.S. regime would outright reject it, because neither of the other two would be any sort of empire (not even the residual types that they now are) if America were no longer continuing its imperialism. So: if, say, the newly created democratic World Federal Republic (WFR) were to be established, designed in accordance with the FDR plan for the U.N., and the United States were to refuse to join it (so as to retain Truman’s U.N.), then the sheer weight of almost every other nation, which would join the new organization and would subscribe to the WFR’s being the exclusive source of international law (so as to have protection against America and other imperialistic regimes), and which would sign a commitment to adhering to the WFR’s international criminal courts, and to its international civil courts, and a commitment never to violate those laws between nations (and the WFR — UNLIKE Truman’s U.N. — would have no laws that apply within any nation — intranational laws would remain the exclusive prerogative of each individual nation), then the U.S. and any of its colonies that refuse to join the WFR would be left pretty much out in the cold; and so the U.S. empire would soon wither and terminate. Ultimately, even the U.S. would need to join the WFR — and Truman’s U.N. (which ALLOWS imperialism) would thus wither and terminate.

The only thing that would be needed in addition to — added to — FDR’s plan, since he didn’t live long enough to consider much the Westphalian principle (which principle is essential but which Truman and his U.N. therefore left out), which principle when applied during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis allowed the United States to consider unacceptable Cuba’s allowing the Soviet Union to place its missiles in Cuba only 1,331 miles away from America’s central command in Washington DC, would be the adding of that the Westphalian principle as being part of the WFR’s Constitution or “Charter”; and, in accord with that principle, also, Russia likewise wasn’t committing “aggression” by invading Ukraine after the U.S. started setting itself up to potentially locate in Ukraine its missiles less than 350 miles away from Russia’s central command in The Kremlin. Not only was the U.S. behaving in accord with that principle regarding Cuba and the USSR in 1962, but so too (and even more so) Russia was, regarding Ukraine and America’s NATO in 2022. Though Truman’s U.N. ignores this principle (the prohibition against military forces being placed in a nation adjoining or near to another nation that’s on hostile terms with the nation that is placing those forces there), the WFR would need to include it as being basic to carrying out the Westphalian principle in today’s world. (The same principle would outlaw America’s placing its weapons in Taiwan in order to endanger China. That too ought to be clearly violative of international law.)

The Marist College November 15th poll displays the Trumanite (or “neoconservative”) mentality of, apparently, the majority of today’s Americans.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.