Quote:
Originally Posted by Rufusboi
Actually, I think a lot of us would welcome that. I think that you are assuming a lot of Americans would not bother. I think a lot would bother.
I think you are underestimaing the American population. I think more Americans are tuned in, aware, and concerned than you could imagine. Google Earth is a famous and well used tool. The CIA factbook is no secret. It is well used website and research tool.
Rufus
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I don't think that I am, Rufus. Just to give you a couple of incidents which are, admittedly anecdotal but still agree with the evidence from pretty much every single study on the subject:
Gulf War I. I am about a year out of the military when this war jumps off. People at the office I worked at made statements like "we have to get Saddam before he can get over here". Now, there has been no 9/11 attack so no one is thinking about flying planes into buildings. They're thinking along the lines of the United States being invaded by Iraq. So I go my bud Bubba's house and get out his atlas and some tracing paper. I trace the relevant region leaving out the names of the countries. Not a *single* person could find Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Israel or the PERSIAN GULF on the map. I then showed them a map of the globe, pointed out where Iraq was, pointed out where the Persian Gulf was, pointed out what it would take to get ships or airplanes from Iraq to the Eastern United States and then asked how they could reasonably think he was any kind of threat to the US.
9/11. I'm teaching at a business school. Three of us try to give our students some context as to why people in, say, Palestine and Iran were jubilant over the attacks. My boss calls us all on the carpet. In the course of the conversation, we tell her what we said and she did not know that the US government overthrew the *rightfully elected government of Iran in the late 50's, installed a brutal dictator who ruled Iran for another quarter century before being over thrown in the Iranian revolution in 1979. None. This was something she was *alive* for! When I reminded her about the hostages who were held for 444 days, she remembered that! Oh yes, she certainly remembered that. But did not realize that the two events were correlated and was, in fact part of one another!
As far as Google Earth and the CWF, I'm not saying that people don't know about these tools. I'm saying that people wouldn't use them and would look down the nose of those who would think it important to do so to have the context of a presidential speech.