US 'should mind own business' (Pew Poll - 42% agree)

[sabra]

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1836292,00.html

US 'should mind own business'

Washington - Concern about the US campaign in Iraq has led a growing number of Americans to believe that the United States should not meddle overseas, according to an opinion poll published on Thursday.

"The percentage of Americans who agree that the 'US should mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own' has risen from 30% in 2002 to 42% currently," the poll, conducted by the Pew Research Centre in Washington, showed.

"This is on par with the percentage expressing that view during the mid-1970s, following the Vietnam War, and in the 1990s after the Cold War ended," it added.

The poll, based on interviews with some 2 500 average Americans and opinion leaders, showed that while the majority (52%) of those questioned believe US President George W Bush is doing a good job of handling terrorist threats, about half disapprove of his foreign policy and 57% disapprove of his handling of Iraq.

[aquart]

1. What an idiotic phrasing. "Meddle overseas."

I was completely in favor of meddling in Bosnia. It had been attacked by genocidal murderers.

But attacking a sovereign nation AT PEACE? Fascists do that. Are we fascists?

That anyone in Congress found Bush's argument for attacking Iraq believable or even marginally reasonable still appalls me.

[Judi Lynn]

2. Poll suggests US world view shift

Last Updated: Thursday, 17 November 2005, 19:10 GMT

Poll suggests US world view shift
By Jonathan Beale
BBC State Department correspondent in Washington

An increasing proportion of Americans believe the US "should mind its own business" internationally, a poll on America's place in the world shows.

The survey by the Pew Research Centre (PRC) found 42% of respondents said the US should "let other countries get along the best they can on their own".

It pointed to the Iraq war as a reason for a revived isolationist sentiment.

The results are on a par with the proportion who expressed that view following the Vietnam war in the 1970s.
(snip/...)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4447128.stm

[bemildred]

3. This is all so VietNam. nt

[meganmonkey]

4. As a 31 year old, I have often wondered

what it would have been like to live through that era. Never thought that era would actually repeat itself like this :banghead:

(I know there are a lot of differences, but it seems the similarities are rather remarkable)

[bemildred]

6. Jimmy Carter:

The time for American intervention in all the problems of the world is over. But we cannot retreat into isolationism. Ties of friendship and cooperation with our friends and neighbors must be strengthened. Our common interests must be understood and pursued. The integrity of Israel must be preserved. Highly personalized and narrowly focused diplomatic efforts, although sometimes successful, should be balanced with a more wide-ranging implementation of foreign policy by competent foreign service officers.

His announcement address, it repays careful reading with an understanding of how little was really changed by Watergate.

http://www.4president.org/speeches/carter1976announcement.htm

[VaYallaDawg]

8. It's a lot like that era

I was in the Navy then and like lots of service people worried constantly about whether I/we were doing the right thing.

[stop the bleeding]

9. ditto -n/t

[Javaman]

10. Believe me, it hasn't changed all that much. this is from someone

who lived through that era.

the more things change the more the stay the same. :(

[calimary]

11. As a 52 year old, I'm feeling a LOT of deja vu.

Granted, I was in high school, pretty sheltered, and not fully awake during the height of the Vietnam era.

But yeah, there are definitely harmonics going on. This is your version. When fibby libby got indicted, I picked up my daughter from school and told her that her generation was now getting its own Watergate.

[yorkiemommie1]

15. as a 58 yr old

i can't tell you how dreadfully awful it is to have to live through this again. but THIS time is much, much worse because of the complicity of the press, the cowardice of many of the Dems, and the insidious religious right.

i feel as if all the powers of evil have been funneled into this administration.


never give up.

[corporatemedia]

17. 56 - It feels like shit - Deja Poop........................eom

[karynnj]

20. As a 55 yr old, I can say that it's quite different

- The colleges were at least 90% against the war (IU actually had a vote on it).
- Everyone at least knew people who went
- Oddly at the same time, there was an incredible feeling that we were on the right side of history and the war would be ended and things would become better
- There were enormous under-lying changes in society. Between when I graduated high school and when I graduated college, professions that had been very difficult for women to enter were actively seeking women, and the civil rights act had greatly increased oppurtunity for minorities.
- In spite of the horror of war, it was a period of great optimism and fun. Oh, we also had the best music (I know every generation thinks this, but we really did) and it was a generation uniting factor.

[saigon68]

21. ITS IRAQ-NAM

The same as the last one, but no jungle (only sand)

[jayfish]

5. Why Do We Always Tend To Lurch To Extremes?

I'm anti Gulf War II and I'm surely no isolationist. This poll tells me that the public still doesn't get it. What happens when a real threat comes along? Something on the scale of... Oh, I dunno, Nazi Germany?

Jay

[Javaman]

12. The public is full of knee jerk reactionaries...

I like to think that the pole reflects not so much isolationism, but perhaps a want to do things different. Like using diplomacy more?

Just my hope...

[Uncle Joe]

19. "For every action, there is a reaction"

At least that's what Isaac Newton thought. The reaction is extreme because the action was extreme.

[Romigi]

7. It's the strong isolationist backlash

It happened after the first world war as well. We're starting to see a strong isolationist movement growing. Even many conservatives such as Buchanan and Reese are hopping on the bandwagon. Minding our own business has always been to our benefit as during these times we have always prospered the most.

[DavidDvorkin]

13. Britain, 1905

Public sentiment swung suddenly and massively against the idea of empire. It might have been a reaction to the Boer War and the public's growing awareness of how Britain had conducted that war, or it might have been a more general social change. In any case, in retrospect it looks like the real death knell for the British Empire, even though the empire took many more decades to fade away.

I've long thought that America is following the same trajectory as Britain did 100 years earlier, and this falls into that pattern.

[bemildred]

14. Or USSR, 1989.

I do find the comparison with the British Empire a good one.

[loveandlight]

18. Yeah, I agree, American empire on the decline

I just wrote this in response to a thread yesterday, the American empire is definitely going down, it is just a matter of time. Bush and his pals are fighting it with everything they've got, trying to squeeze out as much benefit for themselves as they can before it happens, throwing our military might around like it matters. But in the end, we will fall.

Unfortunately, by fighting it militarily, the current administration is making it worse and it will be more harmful for all of us in the end. Isolationism, as public sentiment grows in that direction, isn't going to make things better either, as if at this point in time we could separate ourselves from the rest of the world, on which we depend so heavily for resources. Resources which we have abused for so long and can't imagine living without.

But we do need a new imagination. What we really need are people with insight and inspiration to take us to a new level in our world view, to get us to recognize that cooperation and moderation are the keys to a better society for us all. Because without that we will destroy more than just our own society, we put the whole planet in jeopardy. Our culture of more more more has got to go, and running away to hide and isolate ourselves from the world while still wanting more more more just isn't going to work either. Politicians aren't brave enough to stand up to this fact. We need a new popular leader, a populist movement that is about cooperation and moderation. But how do we get there from here? We are going to have to sacrifice at some point, to learn to live with less, for the good of our children and the planet. I hope we can do that.

[twaddler01]

16. These numbers should

reflect less and less approval than 50%........

[cal04]

22. Poll: More Americans Want Domestic Focus

The public's belief that the United States should mind its own business internationally has reached levels not seen since after the Cold War ended more than a decade ago, a poll found. Opinion leaders from various parts of society also are less likely to feel the U.S. should be the most assertive of the leading nations, according to the poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. The poll, sponsored this year by Pew and the Council on Foreign Relations, has been conducted by Pew every four years since 1993.

Anxiety about the war in Iraq is likely a big reason for the shift in attitudes. "What's striking is the common thread, both the opinion leaders favoring a less assertive role for the United States and the public's isolationist views," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center. "This particular period of time marks a transition from the post-9/11 era." After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the public's attention to international affairs spiked upward and their worries tilted sharply toward national security and defending against terrorists.

The new Pew poll found that 42 percent of the public said the United States should "mind its own business internationally" - up from 30 percent who felt that way in 2002 and comparable to the mid-1970s, after Vietnam, and the early 1990s, after the Cold War ended.
Among the poll's other findings:
-The influential Americans were inclined to think spreading democracy around the Middle East is a good idea, but doubt it will work.
-Both opinion leaders and the public were inclined to view China as a potential problem, but not as an adversary of the United States. In fact many opinion leaders see China as a potential ally in the future.
-The public was more likely to say the United States should remain the only superpower, but leaders in the fields of religion, academics and science were inclined to say it is OK if another country becomes as powerful as the United States.
The poll of 2,006 adults was conducted from Oct. 12-24 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points. The poll of 520 men and women who are leaders from the news media, foreign affairs, academics, security, the military, religion, science and state and local government was done both by telephone and online from Sept. 5-Oct. 31.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LOOKING_HOMEWARD?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=US

[Owlet]

23. I wonder what percentage of people in the rest of the world...

..thynk that the U.S. should mind its own business internationally?

[Robb]

24. Hell, at this point I'd settle for just "focus." nt

[0007]

25. P U