mjk@tty3b.UUCP (Mike Kelly) (02/02/84)
In his article "Opinion Polls == Propaganda", Scott Plunkett accuses me of using "mysterious numbers ... to unimpeachably confirm one liberal position or another." He goes on to say that it doesn't matter whether or not the numbers are mysterious, since numbers are inherently flawed anyhow. Perhaps. But first to the call for substantiation, also raised by rabbit!jj who asked "which liar are you quoting?" My source is a Gallup poll done in May, 1983, which asked something to the effect of "do you favor a verifiable freeze on production and deployment of nuclear weapons by the U.S. and the U.S.S.R." If you want the exact phrasing, look it up yourself -- May 1983 "Gallup Report". 70% of those polled said they did favor the freeze. (That compares with 71% who answered yes in November, 1982). Sorry about the 80% figure I originally gave. As to whether these people naively trust the Soviet Union, 81% said they think the Soviets are not doing all they can to keep the peace. On other things, I said that between 60% and 80% have consistenly opposed the intervention in El Salvador. Again, an April, 1983, Gallup poll found 68% opposed to more military aid, and 59% opposed to more advisors. Of course, public opinion polls are not entirely accurate. For one thing, they tend to miss "marginal" people like immigrants, and the very poor who don't have phones. And of course, phrasing can vary the responses. In this case, I think the question was straightforward enough. If you don't, you're entitled to your opinion. But if you use that to claim that a majority of Americans are not supportive of the Freeze, you're isolated. Three-quarters of a million people don't just show up in New York City one Saturday (June 12, 1982) for a demonstration unless there's an awful lot of support. The Freeze has also passed on over half of the ballots on which it appeared in November, 1982. You can call it a fringe if it makes you feel better, but that doesn't change the reality of the movement. But these rather technical disputes over figures miss the larger issue: what is real security? The basis of the Reagan strategy is this: security comes from a large build-up in arms, then negotiations "from strength". The catch to this is simple, and obvious: the Soviets will not ever let the U.S. gain such a negotiating advantage. This, after all, has been the dynamic of the arms race for forty years. Those who advocate the "negotiate from strength" approach to arms control either ignore this problem, or darkly talk of "breaking" the Soviet economy. The simple truth is that the Reagan approach offers more of the same -- a spiraling arms race for the indefinite future, what there is of it. Where does it end? They have no answer, but most people have an intuitive sense of how it will end. This has led to a search for concrete measures to reverse the arms race. The first step is obviously to stop the tit-for-tat escalation which has been our history for the last forty years. In other words, to freeze. The Administration has launched a number of attacks on the Freeze: It's supporters were actually Soviet dupes (the FBI investigated and disagreed); it would undercut negotiations then going on in Geneva (the Reagan strategy there has been, to put it mildly, less than effective); you can't negotiate with the Soviets anyway, they break all their treaties (this after the Geneva negotiations had already broken down, and the Administration felt free to show its true colors -- they play arms control as a charade which must be carried on to get weapons programs passed by Congress and keep the NATO allies from getting too independent.) As I said before, those who hold the fall of the Soviet Union as the solution to the arms race (and THEY call US naive!) are living in a dream world. Come on, cold warriors, what's your solution? How's it going to end? Mike Kelly ..!ihnp4!tty3b!mjk