''I get all the news I need from the weather report''

Sometime back, Kent Southard published a letter on Bush Watch from a reader who regularly met with a group of 40-something, affluent, white males who were "very pleased with Mr. Bush and the way he was running the country."

I've long puzzled over segments of the ill-informed American electorate and now believe that I may have a partial explanation for their behavior. This group probably reads and is regularly influenced by the Opinion Journal published in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Between the 40-something white males who receive their information from the WSJ, and half of the rest of the population who get their information from Fox News, we have a big problem in the United States. It is known as the great mass of misinformed and ill-informed citizens.

Our problem in the United States is not just the 50 percent who don't vote, but the 50 percent who do vote with only the shakiest idea of what they are voting for, or what a Republican, Democratic or Green vote means in 2002. If you doubt these words, just check the reader response to Michael Ledeen's article in the WSJ Online Opinion.

As part of my penance for the Bush administration, I now regularly beam into the WSJ and, at least, check the headlines and brief summaries. The September 4th edition ran Michael Ledeen's article "The War Won't End in Baghdad." It clearly combines the genius of both George Orwell and Joseph Goebbels.

Ledeen is proposing that we "also topple terror states in Tehran and Damascus and reform the one in Riyadh." Ledeen wants the United States to cleanse "Iran, Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia" of their terrorist Al Qaeda connections. This is quite an undertaking, even for an administration dedicated to never wanting to be weaned from its oil teat.

When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, Bush the First said, "This will not stand," and began amassing troops for Desert Storm. The United States had the support of the rest of the world, even Arab countries. Who will stand with Bush the Second in 2002 in his grab for control of the Middle East's oil supply?

My guess is that it will be the 40-something, affluent white American males. But will they mount their camels and ride off into the desert to do their patriotic duty? Not in this life. They will be glued to their TV sets watching "smart bombs" destroy a civilization. Then they will congratulate themselves that they don't know anyone who has to place his or her body in harm's way. They will wave their flags, spout their rhetoric, drive their fuel-hungry vehicles, and be appalled by protesters who march in the streets.

If another act of terror replicating September 11 occurs, they will wrap themselves even tighter in the American flag and beat their war drums even louder, shouting "bomb them back into the stone age." They will glue themselves to their television sets, but never question whether they or the Bushes are a major part of the world's problem with terrorism.

Perhaps those who say "American Democracy is dead" are correct. Perhaps my voice and protests are meaningless in the present environment. Perhaps there is no hope for America. But like that small group of German protesters who fought Hitler in the 1930s, we have to stand and be counted while we still are able to stand and have a voice. If the Bush administration continues on its present course of replicating Hitler's path to corporate totalitarianism, we don't have much time to turn the tide. --Sept. 15, 2002

Sara DeHart, a freelance writer and democracy activist, lives in the Seattle, Washington.

Also posted at http://www.YellowTimes.org.