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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
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Another important dispatch from The Greanville Post. Be sure to share it widely.
This article is part of an ongoing series of dispatches by historian Eric Zuesse
One of NATO's posh conference rooms. A mindbogling taste of money on a fetid purpose.
NATO and its supporters and member-nations are hiding the fact that the predominant belief in many of these nations is that they’re dictatorships that merely pontificate ‘democracy’ to other nations.
NATO, which is America’s propagandistically ‘pro-democracy’ military alliance against Russia and against China, polled the people in 53 countries — some of which are in NATO and some of which aren’t — and asked them whether they believe “My country is democratic,” and found that NATO’s own core country, U.S., was, itself, #38 down from the top, and China was #5, and Russia (NATO’s main target or ‘enemy’ nation) was #48, and that two of the most anti-Russian countries on the list were near the very bottom: the rabidly anti-Russian NATO member Poland was #49, and the NATO-aspiring Ukraine was #47. Anyway, since NATO hid their results, instead of publicizing them, the complete list, with the indicated rankings, are finally being published here (wherever that will be effectively allowed), for the very first time anywhere.
The rankings have been figured out only by a careful analysis of the visuals that the NATO-affiliated polling organization did publish. The NATO-affiliated organization that paid for the polls of those 53 countries was the billionaires-founded group that calls itself the “Alliance For Democracy,” and they issued a report on the poll’s findings, but excluded from their report the rankings, and made very difficult for a reader to figure out what the rankings were. No one till now went to the trouble of finding out what the rankings were. The NATO-affiliated international-corporate advisory organization, the Rasmussen Group, had selected the German corporate PR firm Dalia Research to do the polling, and the data were presented by them as being “based on nationally representative interviews with 124,000 respondents from 53 countries conducted between April 20th and June 3rd 2020.” So: this was a major research-endeavor for NATO-affiliates (agencies of U.S.-and-allied billionaires); and, since the scores and rankings were hidden by them, instead of having been published by them, the information that is being published here may reasonably be considered to be American samizdat, or prohibited to publish in the United States and in its NATO vassal nations. In other words, publication of this information is effectively blocked in all NATO countries, though the information comes basically from NATO. Publication of this information is effectively banned throughout the U.S. empire, but perhaps this information will become published in whatever news-media are not controlled by the billionaires who control the U.S. Government. Presumably, media such as CNN, New York Times, Fox News, and The Atlantic, will reject this article, which is being simultaneously submitted to virtually all English-language news media throughout the U.S. and its allied countries.
Here are the findings, and the rankings:
% saying yes to ‘My country is democratic’
(ranks shown are out of the 53 countries that were surveyed):
78% Taiwan #1
77% Denmark #2
75% Switzerland #3
75% S. Korea #4
73% China #5
73% Austria #6
71% Vietnam #7
71% India #8
71% Norway #9
69% Argentina #10
69% Sweden #11
67% Germany #12
66% Netherlands #13
65% Philippines #14
65% Portugal #15
64% Canada #16
63% Singapore #17
61% Malaysia #18
61% Greece #19
60% Ireland #20
59% Israel #21
57% Indonesia #22
56% Spain #23
56% Australia #24
56% UK #25
56% Turkey #26
55% Belgium #27
55% Peru #28
54% South Africa #29
54% Romania #30
54% Italy #31
53% Saudi Arabia #32
53% Pakistan #33
52% France #34
52% Mexico #35
51% Brazil #36
49% Kenya #37
48% U.S. #38
46% Japan #39
46% Colombia #40
45% Thailand #41
45% Algeria #42
43% Nigeria #43
42% Chile #44
41% Egypt #45
40% Morocco #46
40% Ukraine #47
39% Russia #48
38% Poland #49
37% Hong Kong #50
36% Hungary #51
28% Iran #52
24% Venezuela #53
Here is the background, after which will be presented more information from this poll, and from polls on related issues:
On June 15th, the NATO-allied (that’s to say anti-Russian and anti-Chinese) “Alliance of Democracies”, and the neoconservative or Rhodesist (pro-imperialist UK-U.S. “Special Relationship”) German corporate PR firm Dalia Research, released their annual “Democracy Perceptions Index” surveys that were taken in 53 countries, regarding the extent to which each country’s population considers its Government to be a democracy. The secretive “Alliance of Democracies” was founded with international megacorporate donations in 2014 (not in 2017 as Wikipedia alleges), by the ideologically libertarian (or anti-socialist, pro-megacorporate) former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who had been Denmark’s Prime Minister, who had tried, during his time leading Denmark, to weaken his own country’s socialism, and to strengthen the control of Denmark by U.S.-and-allied international corporations (especially Lockheed Martin and the other U.S. Government contractors that sell only to the U.S. Government and to its vassal governments).
Rasmussen Global (which likewise was founded in 2014 by Anders Fogh Rasmussen) “advise[s] clients on transatlantic issues, international affairs and public policy management” and funded these surveys (which are part of “public policy management” or, as they say, “cutting through the noise” — by boosting only such “noise” as they want their publics to hear). Among the 53 surveyed countries are U.S., UK, Canada & Australia, but not New Zealand (which Rhodesists consider to be part of the core of the empire, but apparently it isn’t a big enough nation to be included in these surveys). Here can be seen the official published summary of the latest year’s survey findings:
The surveys poll these 53 countries on “My country is democratic,” and on “My government serves only a minority.” (Also covered are some other issues, which will be covered subsequently here.) The United States ranks slightly below the good side and toward the bad side — and below 50% good — on both. China ranks near the top on both: 73% of Chinese answer “My country is democratic,” and only 13% say “My country serves only a minority.” However, since the “Alliance of Democracies” is Rhodesist and therefore intends ultimately to conquer China (it’s a target of NATO, instead of a member of NATO), this “Alliance” nonetheless categorizes China as being “Not Free,” and categorizes U.S., UK, Canada & Australia as “Free” (even though the poll found that a vastly higher percentage of Chinese think they live in a democracy than of people in U.S., UK, Canada, or Australia, do). The “Not Free” category includes only the following few countries among the 53 surveyed: China, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia (for once, their opinion is correct on Saudi Arabia, but 53% of Saudis have a different view and say “My country is democratic”), Algeria, Egypt, Russia, Turkey, Iran, and Venezuela. (All of those are countries that Rhodesists especially want to conquer, or — in the case of Saudi Arabia — have already conquered but which is too blatantly dictatorial not to include in the “Not Free” category. On 15 July 2016, NATO unsuccessfully attempted — or else merely assisted — a coup against NATO-member nation Turkey, aiming to restore Turkey to its prior control by the U.S. Government, such as Turkey had been when it was admitted into NATO in 1952.)
Venezuela is an outlier like Saudi Arabia, in that both countries’ populations have an unrealistic view of their Government. For example: by an overwhelming net margin of +42%, the residents of Venezuela (which the U.S. regime keeps trying to conquer) say that the U.S. helps democracy around the world. (Most countries’ populations predominantly say that the U.S. regime hurts democracy around the world, and this belief includes the publics not only in China, Russia and Iran, but in Canada, UK, and Australia. So, U.S. imperialism is widely feared, but not in Venezuela.) Only 24% of Venezuelans say “My country is democratic.” 74% of Venezuelans say “My Government serves only a minority.” So, Venezuelans overwhelmingly want the U.S. regime’s coup-efforts to overthrow their Government to succeed. Apparently, the U.S. regime’s propaganda saying that the economic depression in Venezuela was caused by Venezuela’s Government instead of by America’s economic blockade against Venezuela has overwhelmingly succeeded. Venezuelans trust the U.S. Government more than they trust their own.
39% of Russians say “My country is democratic,” and 59% say “My government serves only a minority.” And 40% of Ukrainians say “My country is democratic,” while 70% of Ukrainians say “My government serves only a minority.” (Only one of the 53 surveyed countries had a higher percentage — it was 71% — who said their Government “serves only a minority”: Brazil.) Therefore, clearly, around 10% of Ukrainians are confused about what “democracy” even means. (If a country’s Government “serves only a minority,” then how can it be “democratic”?) As regards Russia, surveys of Russians have shown that most Russians distrust the Government but trust its President, Vladimir Putin. Surveys in the U.S. show that most Americans distrust the President, Donald Trump, but distrust Congress even more than that. 52% of Americans in this survey by Dalia Research said that their Government “serves only a minority.” 49% said “My country is democratic.” So, only around 3% of Americans were confused about what “democracy” means. (Scientifically minded political scientists aren’t at all confused about that: the measure that they use in order to determine whether or not a nation is a democracy is the extent to which its Government serves the majority of its residents. What they have found regarding the United States is that it definitely isn’t a democracy.)
As I summarized all of the data from other sources as-of 2018, on 6 May 2018, “Although one can reasonably debate the degree to which any nation is a democracy, the United States certainly stands rather low on that factor, and stands well below China, and is perhaps lower than Russia, but none of these countries is among the world’s worst — except, perhaps, the U.S., for its having the world’s highest percentage of its people in prison.” All of that is still true today.
In any case: not even America’s allies are fooled any longer about the U.S. Government’s posturings that it is a democracy. And there is extensive history also documenting that Americans are less and less fooled about this. But, because America is not a democracy, this article probably won’t be published in any major media inside America, though it is being submitted to all of them. So, if you’re not seeing it in U.S. media, that’s the reason why.
Also, recently, the “2020 Edelman Trust Barometer” results were published. The methodology in that was “Randomly selected 1,150 respondents in each of 28 countries around the world, surveyed by Edelman Worldwide, between 19 October and 18 November, in 2019.” It showed how much the people in each of the 28 countries trust their Government, and also how much they trust the news-media in their country. What it found was that trust in the country’s Government was the highest, 90%. in China, and was only 39% in U.S., 33% in Russia, and 20% in South Africa. Also: trust, by the people, in the given country’s media, was the highest, 80%, in China, and was 48% in U.S., and the lowest, 28%, in Russia, but South Africa wasn’t shown on that particular question.
Furthermore, the polling by Dalia Research found that these nations were rated by their residents the highest, and the lowest, in regard to the coronavirus challenge:
1. China
2. Vietnam
3. Greece
4. Malaysia
5. Ireland
6. Taiwan
7. Australia
8. Denmark
9. S. Korea
10: Austria
…
44. Hong Kong
45. Mexico
46. Russia
47. Italy
48. U.S.
49. Japan
50. Spain
51. France
52. Chile
53. Brazil
Moreover, though the residents in U.S., and also in Japan, low-rated the coronavirus-performance of their own Government, those people were profoundly deceived by their newsmedia regarding how well China’s Government had handled this challenge. This polling report stated:
“Nearly all countries say that China’s response to the COVID-19 is better than the US’s”; but that:
In other words: the ‘news’-media in Japan and in the United States are (and this is proven in the latest data concerning all nations) grossly misrepresenting the reality (which is that China’s response has been enormously more effective than America’s has, in controlling the spread of this infection), and the news-media are far less deceptive in all of the other nations surveyed — far higher percentages of the people in all of those other nations recognize that the performance of China’s Government regarding the coronavirus challenge has been vastly more effective at controlling this plague than America’s Government is.
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.[premium_newsticker id=”211406″]
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