Why do people not care about the war?

[hotfoot982]

Why is it that it seems people are just happy about the war...almost as if its not effecting them. which it may not be but for some people it is.
so what is wrong with everybody?
i wanna start something new. i know that a lot of people know the truth and are out there protesting. but it feels like there should be so much more.
i dont know if im right but why when Vietnam was going on people actually seemed to care?

id feel stupid almost if i would try to teach people in my school (high school) that this stuff is all messed up and they should be worried.

So whats up with people today?
Any suggestions for getting the word around?

Thanks,
- hotfoot982

[DerDrache]

Originally Posted by hotfoot982

...almost as if its not effecting them.

It isn't.

That said, I don't know anyone who's happy about it aside from McCain...

[ChickenOfDoom]

1. No draft
2. Relatively few American deaths
3. Censorship of the news media; journalists who want to cover the upsetting aspects of the war are denied access, supposedly neutral experts who report on the situation to the main networks are largely handpicked by the administration.

Add all this to the fact that people really don't have much of an emotional reaction to statistics and the Iraq war ends up having just about as little impact on your average person as some deadly natural disaster in Africa. People don't like the war because its pointless and expensive and hurts people in a theoretical sense, but it doesn't really hit home; it doesn't affect people emotionally enough for them to care enough to try to do something.

Honestly though, I have doubts about the actual impact of protest. I went to a protest near the beginning (mostly because my parents dragged me along), but if everyone already knows about how incredibly unpopular the war is and the reasons for it, there's really no point anymore. If you want to actually change peoples minds, I guess you could always spread links to the various articles regarding how sucky the situation there is. In the end, what it comes down to, the only thing that could actually make a difference, is the presidential election, so you might want to just focus on influencing that for the moment. For that, it doesn't matter if people care, it's only necessary that they feel sufficient peer pressure to take an hour out of their day to vote and hold a theoretical support of the candidate opposed to the war. Experiments with anonymous voting have shown that fostering the impression that you're concerned with politics is the only reason most people actually bother to vote in the first place. Which side they support is mostly arbitrary and usually depends on the opinions they hear expressed most often and how they choose to categorize themselves culturally. Arguments either way are usually strongly worded and emotional, serving to make people who already agree with them feel a sense of moral superiority and outrage and those who already disagree to feel indignation and anger.

Basically, everything is stuck in an artificial and shallow balance and people don't care unless its convenient for them to do so. Fortunately for you, opposing the war everyone hates while doing something to be able to say you voted is fairly convenient.

[dal7timgar]

i dont know if im right but why when Vietnam was going on people actually seemed to care?

It took almost 10 years to stop and was even dumber than this one.

This one is about oil. What was Vietnam about?

I have talked to Vietnam veterans who said they still don't know what it was about. I was in the draft lottery for that nonsense. I lost. No all expenses payed vacation for me. So now our wonderful capitalist economists can't tell us what we have lost on depreciation of automobiles since that war ended. Ain't Capitalism grand?

What are we supposed to do about this one? I voted against nitwit Bush twice. I attack economists on the internet. It seems like pissing in the wind no matter what you do.

DT

[danzig]

Originally Posted by dal7timgar

It took almost 10 years to stop and was even dumber than this one.

This one is about oil. What was Vietnam about?

I have talked to Vietnam veterans who said they still don't know what it was about. I was in the draft lottery for that nonsense. I lost. No all expenses payed vacation for me. So now our wonderful capitalist economists can't tell us what we have lost on depreciation of automobiles since that war ended. Ain't Capitalism grand?

What are we supposed to do about this one? I voted against nitwit Bush twice. I attack economists on the internet. It seems like pissing in the wind no matter what you do.

DT

i like capitalism.

[firekitty751]

Because people don't think it's directly affecting them.

It's easy to ignore when they replace the words "human" or "people" with "civilian" or "casualty." In the back of our minds we know that they mean human lives are being taken, on both sides, but when it's phrased in a different way our minds are able to look at it as an objective thing.

Also, who wants to hear about the war when Amy Winehouse is in rehab again??

[Q]

Originally Posted by DerDrache

It isn't.

That said, I don't know anyone who's happy about it aside from McCain...

I think it's fantastic, but what this planet really needs is a third world war.

[Star Wars Fan]

Originally Posted by dal7timgar

This one is about oil. What was Vietnam about?

I have talked to Vietnam veterans who said they still don't know what it was about.

the justification was the "domino effect' that if one nation went towards the Soviet side, others would, and so on....

though they ignore the popular will of the nation wanting to become communist....

What are we supposed to do about this one? I voted against nitwit Bush twice. I attack economists on the internet. It seems like pissing in the wind no matter what you do.

join a black bloc/etc group.

[Star Wars Fan]

Originally Posted by Q

I think it's fantastic, but what this planet really needs is a third world war.

vote for McCain then, he has the highest chance of that...

..oh wait, you live in the UK

[DerDrache]

Originally Posted by Q

I think it's fantastic, but what this planet really needs is a third world war.

Yeah, but you're also an emo moron.