Because You Never Asked

     (This is the companion essay to “Polls”, and should be read after it.)

     My job, which shall go unnamed due to its general inconsequence, has one feature worth mentioning --- it brings me into daily contact with a complete cross section of humanity. No caste, race, social class, occupation, personality, origin, sexual preference, age, religion, nor physical ability or disability is excluded. As a routine part of my daily existence, I deal with the complete scope of the vaudeville known as life. From perfumed, well heeled elegance, to the rancid smell of poverty, from crack whores and transvestites, on cross the board to your Disney tourist families, I see it all. Even an occasional celebrity passes through my lens on life.

     Such vantage point provides one with a good sense as to a society’s pulse, as to how things are going and what’s on people’s minds.

     An event such as the Gulf War triggers a good deal of reaction. It’s hard to ignore, no matter how uninvolved a person might be, the threat of and consummation of WAR.

     During the whole period leading up to the war and on through its execution, I am hard pressed to remember any sincere exuberance for it. Oh sure, an occasional “God, guns and guts” Harley type gleefully reveled in the ass kicking aspects of it, but, generally speaking, even those supporting the military action did so with an acid indigestion which could hardly be called true zeal. Downright negative opinions seemed as plentiful as favorable ones, and yet, media coverage suggested an almost euphoric acceptance of government policy. This discrepancy had me rather perplexed. I could only assume that those responsible for the “truth” were working very hard indeed.

     The polls presented by the various mainstream means of communication could lead the suspicious mind (guilty) into suspicion, things rotten in Denmark, so forth and so on. When it comes to “Creationism”, Big Media can be very adept at playing God. As the “crisis” developed, they seemed to lead us through each time frame with just the right amount of … what? Suggestion?

     Leading up to the war, during the preparatory stage, a slight but solid enough majority supposedly approved. Once the death and destruction had begun, this slight majority turned into an almost unanimous, even blood thirsty, vampirian support for the military action. But the most peculiar was yet to come: once having ousted the Iraqi troops from Kuwait --- by now we had been worked into a dervish-like fit of epileptic patriotism --- this lusty, lascivious support for the carnage turned into a slight majority concurring in not continuing on to Baghdad. Saddam “Darth Vader” Hussein, who’s popularity amongst the American citizenry now fell somewhere between gingivitis and dysentery, was to despotically continue terrorizing his country (as if the American government ever gave a hoot about that), just like before the war … and the unruly mob of public opinion, waiting hopefully before the guillotine, supposedly concurred in the policy!

     Doesn’t this all seem a bit too contrived, a bit too consistent with whatever the government wanted from this war?

     Obviously, I’m not a scientific pollster who has gathered information which can repudiate the images and atmosphere these media polls suggest. I’m more like the grizzled old tracker at the head of the wagon train, looking off into the hills and saying, “I don’t like it, it’s too quiet here.” Such gut feeling could be in err, but it wouldn’t be surprising if such suspicions were closer to reality than the Gulf War scenario put forth in USA TODAY and other such instruments of diffusion. The ultimate proof of this is the almost negligible effect the Gulf War “success” had on George Bush’s re-election attempt.

     I don’t like all these polls. Put in the wrong hands (are they already there?) I can’t think of a more demagogic instrument of control.

Relevant Material:

     In October of 1990, during the preparatory stage of the Gulf War, the Cincinnati Reds hosted the first game of the World Series. During the opening ceremonies, Marge Schott, the doddering old lady who owns the Reds, waddled up to the microphone and began blubbering away about our boys in the “Far East”. Blissfully immune to her geographic ignorance, she eventually called for a moment of silence in their honor. This was met more with embarrassed unrest than patriotic fervor. The “powers to be”, sensing this unrest, barely allowed for a moment and decided to get on with it. Unfortunately, nothing could be done about good ol’ Marge, locked away in her own senility out there at home plate. It took her awhile to realize that the “moment of silence” had long since given way to the normally noisy scene at a ball game. When she had finally assimilated this fact, she began explaining how this World Series was being dedicated to our boys in the desert (give her credit, she knew it was a desert), on and on, yak, yak … would she ever shut up? Quite remarkably, by now the crowd was losing patience with it. Although their reaction could not be called downright mutinous, the scene was played out to an undeniable chorus of boos.

     The varied means of communication, including the announcers at the site, chose not to notice this significant happening … but it seems the White House did. George Bush, the most famous first baseman in Yale history, was scheduled to throw out the first ball the next night. In a brazen display of wimpyness, he sent Barbara instead.

     If anyone reading this essay is skeptical as to its veracity, I’m sure this is all visually documented. As baseball people like to say, “you can look it up.”