Washington Post Poll: Should The U.S. Seek To Improve Relations With Iran

Should the U.S. seek to improve relations with Iran?

Yes: 85%

No: 15%

22941 people have taken this poll.

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Alan: The results of this lopsided survey beg the question: Who are the 15%? 

My lifelong observation is that 25% and 30% of any population is "black hole benighted." 

Back in the day of Papa Doc Duvalier, it dawned on me that the most vicious dictators can dispense such an abundance of favors that legions of amoral pragmatists -- people with settled, "respectable" lives --routinely support political monstrosity and the thugs who perpetuate it. 

At bottom, "the good burghers" know which side their bread is buttered on. 

Taking into account xenophobia, wishful thinking, dimwittedness, treacherous profiteering and innate attachment to the status quo, I sometimes wonder if my estimate is low.

Although Mencken crosses into hyperbole, he is not far from the mark: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." H. L. Mencken

Nazi Reichsmarschall Hermann Wilhelm Göring cuts to the bone of realpolitik: 

Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.

Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.

Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." http://www.snopes.com/quotes/goering.asp