A phone surrvey of 1,002 people in the United States has found that 30 per cent didn't know what year the terrorist attacks occurred on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The poll was published in the Washington Post.
The attacks, which occurred in 2001, killed 3,000 people when terrorists rammed planes into the aforementioned buildings. Of those who couldn't remember the year the attacks occurred, 48% were aged between 55 and 64.
Of the 30% who got the answer of the year wrong, 16% said they had no idea, 6% gave a year previous to 2001 and 8% gave a later year.
1/3 of us also believe the word is only several thousand years old.
but i do agree with erasedgod that a poll of 1,000 is hardly credible. plus, almost half of those who couldn't remember the date were old people with memory problems.
The reason most of the people they survey where older because, the younger people are smart enough to have their number on the no call list. They didnt call me, I can tell you where I was when it happened and what I was doing. I was at my desk,(manging a call center) woundering why there was no calls comming in, checked cnn and saw the breaking story.Called my friend at the post office and he was heading back to work to return all mail after his boss told them they where shutting down for now.
I had a day off work, and was sitting at home downloading a movie while sitting on an irc channel, i text all my friends at once and was the first person i knew to find out :o
I also remember the 2 minutes silence in london, one kid said "f**king americans deserve it" and he was then kicked down a large escalator by someone and was left at the bottom crying in a heap
As long as you take a completely random sample with no biases, 1000 is plenty. In this case, as mentioned, there is a bias towards older people which you would have no matter the sample size because the sampling methods are no longer as reliable. These folks have a whole lifetime of significant dates and events in their heads, to say nothing of memory problems corrupting these memories. I would not be terribly surprised if the title WERE true of all Americans, but age and not ignorance seems to be the key variable in the findings.
"Okay- who knows off the top of their head the date of the first attack on the WTC?"
the year was 1993.
@maccheese "and its those 1/3 who believe wtc was demolishioned by the gov"
doubtful, i would imagine these people like myself how will look into details that hinders most all possibility (short of a freak accident) of 9/11 happening the why it was said to, whereas most americans ignorantly (or stupidly, take your pick) don't even pay attention to anything that would implicate their own government in terrorism... as if they are actually above it, which is laughable at best even just considering their foreign policy and whom they support in the middle-east and what they are supporting in doing so; terrorism.
"@Hugo Chavez the stupidity here isnt much different then it is in other modern countries"
no, but america is a land were ignorance is actually considered bliss... just look at how many american this the war is legal... look at how many american support israeli terror (one could argue even their own governments terrorism)...
look at how many americans did nothing when the last two federal elections went out the window?, proving how little democracy really means to america.
look at how many americans allow their president to pass unconstitutional laws, like the patriot act, which is leading way to america being a police state; and edging ever closer.
look at how many american's allow their president to break international laws, and continue his warmongerign ways...
That's not a fair sample of people. That and people may not like thinking about what happend on that date, and they may have repressed memories of the events in hopes to move on with their life. -np-
"Well.. That's not a fair sample of people. That and people may not like thinking about what happend on that date, and they may have repressed memories of the events in hopes to move on with their life. -np-"
sadly though, in the rest of the world its called ignorance...
9/11 should be something everyone in their teen years forward should know about... hell how big is the rock you must live under to not know the date and year of 9/11 it happen less that five years ago...
our SN resident Hugo has it pegged when he says: "That’s why when it comes to world politics the rest of the world refer to the USA as the United States of Amnesia."
american as a whole (geralisation of american; not the individuals themselves) have a pretty poor sense of history (and why its relevant to the issues of today) and many are completely oblivious to the reasons america has become one of the most widely hated nations on earth. though with very little government accountability at all this should come as no surprise.
for instance i'f known maybe 1 or 2 americans that have actually known that the US is the ONLY country to have EVER been charged with international terrorism...
i was even surprised that hugo chavez (here on SN) was aware of that as it seems to have become completely forgotten about save for maybe one in a million it seems.
That last paragraph is mathmatically incorrect. It says that "OF the 30%..." and then gives percentages that total 30. That means that the remaing 70% OF that original 30% is unaccounted for.
It should either read "Of all those surveyed, 16%..." or "Of the 30% who got the answer wrong, 53% had no idea, 20% guessed early, and 27% guessed late."
kudos, your the first person that caught that i think... even beat me to it, missed it somehow everything i read it... but its not nutty's fault though... yahoo (the source) has it as shown on their site.
The source areticle is PROBABLY wrong. At best it's ambiguous but I agree it's definitly misleading. It uses the phrase "Of that group". Although it is really close to a sentence that mentions the 30%, the numbers only make sense when the "group" referred to is the overall group that was surveyed.
the results might not be that far off base, i say do another poll, atleast in every state. have groups of 13-25 26-55 and 55+. 25-100 per group per state done by random public sampling would suffice for better more accurate results.
" @HAVOC666 The source areticle is PROBABLY wrong. At best it's ambiguous but I agree it's definitly misleading. It uses the phrase "Of that group". Although it is really close to a sentence that mentions the 30%, the numbers only make sense when the "group" referred to is the overall group that was surveyed."
im pretty sure what was ment was
of that 30% that got it wrong 53.33% had no idea, 20% thought earlier than 2001, and 26.67% thought later.
As an American, I believe that the majority of our problems do not lie within our government. I believe our problems lie within the people of America themselves. Our government, although seemingly corrupt, only can survive with the permission of the people. The so-called "left" won't ever hesitate to point out the many flaws of our government, yet are content to sit on forums and flame the opposing side instead of attempting to make a real change. The right, on the other hand, are just as bad, too stubborn to see that the other side may have even a fragment of truth. As for anyone stuck in between, there's too much bullshit on both sides to even really know what might be true. Either way, we all have complaints, but we're stuck in the same bullshit routine, content with our problems, avoiding work at all costs. Not that I am any better, I'm doing the same thing.
So, in response to your comment, "AMERICA: a land without a moral backbone", I suggest,
"@HAVOC666 As an American, I believe that the majority of our problems do not lie within our government. I believe our problems lie within the people of America themselves. Our government, although seemingly corrupt, only can survive with the permission of the people. The so-called "left" won't ever hesitate to point out the many flaws of our government, yet are content to sit on forums and flame the opposing side instead of attempting to make a real change. The right, on the other hand, are just as bad, too stubborn to see that the other side may have even a fragment of truth. As for anyone stuck in between, there's too much bullshit on both sides to even really know what might be true. Either way, we all have complaints, but we're stuck in the same bullshit routine, content with our problems, avoiding work at all costs. Not that I am any better, I'm doing the same thing."
thats the major flaw in any democracy, not that the US is a beacon of democracy, as some would so proudly boast. american democracy is 1 guy holding up two puppets and lets the americans fight over which puppet they agree with more... not realizing that the same person's got his hand up the ass of both puppets.
if people would just agree on a common good and common goal, there would be no need for left and right, starting to sound like a communist (a true communism, one not run by a corrupt government, but rather one were all people are equal and all resources are shared amongst the people, if only this concept were to be applied globally; but alas no that would screw with the economy, and we all know the economy is everything politician, live are however expendable), but its true... left and right only exist to divide the people... if you divide the people you effectively conquer the people, as you have them fighting each other rather than you.
theres a quote about democracy that is similar to "democracy simply consists of electing your dictator"
"So, in response to your comment, "AMERICA: a land without a moral backbone", I suggest,
"AMERICA: a land with unused potential"."
no i stick by my comment the US cupport Israel; a terrorist nation, by using an objective definition alone its almost impossible no to class the US as a terrorist state and/or terrorist supporter, albeit, as long as the terrorists are on their side and as long as they are permitted to and continuing doing such. wars like iraq, the first gulf war and vietnam, and the bombing of hiroshima and nagaski all make it incredibly hard for me to even entertian the idea of supporting the US. in my eye they are no better than those they call terrorists, yet often worse via scale.
I agree whole heartedly with mostly everything you said... but... you know the problems why not start working on the solution... Granted, you're a Canadian, not American, but assuredly there's something you can do... My point is there are too many people that point out the problem and not enough who work on a solution... or not enough that know a solution. Much like you said, I think it's time we as a people set aside bullshit politics and start working toward something good... Any ideas?
You can come up with great ideas for reform all day. You still have to get MTV to broadcast it so these dolts will pay attention to what's going on around them.
