From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (misc.activism.progressive co-moderator)
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive,alt.activism
Subject: CHOMSKY: Excerpts from "The 3rd World At Home" (I)
Date: 18 Nov 92 01:55:18 GMT
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    "The Harris polling organization has been measuring alienation
    from institutions for 25 years.  Its latest survey, for 1991,
    found the numbers at an all-time high of 66%"


[From Z magazine, Nov. 1992; see bottom]

		       =======================
		       The Third World at Home
		       =======================
			   By Noam Chomsky

[...]

Studies of public opinion bring out other strands.  A June 1992 
Gallup poll found that 75% of the population do not expect life 
to improve for the next generation of Americans--not too 
surprising, given that real wages have been dropping for 20 
years, with an accelerated decline under Reaganite 
"conservatism," which also managed to extend the cloud 
over the college-educated.  Public attitudes are illuminated 
further by the current popularity of ex-presidents: Carter is 
well in the lead (74%) followed by the virtually unknown Ford 
(68%), with Reagan at 58%, barely above Nixon (54%).  Dislike of 
Reagan is particularly high among working people and "Reagan 
Democrats," who gave him "the highest unfavorable rating 
[63%] of a wide range of public officials," one study found.  
Reagan's popularity was always largely a media concoction; the 
"great communicator" was quickly dismissed when the farce 
would no longer play. 
  
The Harris polling organization has been measuring alienation 
from institutions for 25 years.  Its latest survey, for 1991, 
found the numbers at an all-time high of 66%.  83% of the 
population feel that "the rich are getting richer and the poor 
are getting poorer," saying that "the economic system is 
inherently unfair," Harris president Humphrey Taylor comments.  
The concerns of the overwhelming majority, however, cannot be 
addressed within the political system; even the words can barely 
be spoken or heard.

The journalist who reports these facts sees only people who are
angry at "their well-paid politicians" and want "more power to
the people," not "more power to the government." We are not
allowed to think that government might be of and by the people,
or that they might seek to change an economic system that 83%
regard as "inherently unfair."
  
Another poll revealed that "faith in God is the most important 
part of Americans' lives." Forty percent "said they valued their 
relationship with God above all else"; 29% chose "good health" 
and 21% a "happy marriage." Satisfying work was chosen by 5%, 
respect of people in the community by 2%.  That this world might 
                                                ####
offer basic features of a human existence is hardly to be 
contemplated.  These are the kinds of results one might find in a 
shattered peasant society.  Chiliastic visions are reported to be 
particularly prevalent among blacks; again, not surprising, when 
we learn from the _New England Journal of Medicine_ that "black 
men in Harlem were less likely to reach the age of 65 than men in 
Bangladesh." 
  
Also driven from the mind is any sense of solidarity and 
community.  Educational reform is designed for those whose 
parents can pay, or at least are motivated to "get 
ahead." The idea that there might be some general concern for 
children--not to speak of others--must be suppressed.  We 
must make "the true costs of bearing a child out of wedlock 
clear" by letting "them be felt when they are 
incurred--namely at the child's birth"; the teenage 
high-school dropout must realize that her child will get no help 
from us (Michael Kaus).  In the rising "culture of 
cruelty," Ruth Conniff writes, "the middle-class 
taxpayer, the politician, and the wealthy upper class are all 
victims" of the undeserving poor, who must be disciplined and 
punished for their depravity, down to future generations.   

[...]


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