Cynthia McKinneyʼs .1% of the vote came from some places that, for me at least, were
unexpected. I would not have expected proportionately more Louisianans to vote for her
than people in any other state, for example, and though California doesnʼt surprise me I
would not have thought Maine, Arkansas and West Virginia would come out ahead of New
York and Massachusetts.

This may be worth some cogitation. I voted for her mainly, but not only, because she was
the only 9/11 truth candidate, i.e. the only person on the ballot (mine anyway, in Florida)
who has had the guts to call for a real investigation of the major event that has been the
excuse for the last 8 years of horror perpetrated by the Bush-Cheney gang. Was this also
her attraction for the voters in Louisiana, Arkansas, and West Virginia? We can be pretty
sure it was not the “black vote,” in this case, since Obama took that. What else was it,
then, if not 9/11?

These states are generally considered “conservative,” are they not? Well, maybe weʼve
got them all wrong. Just think about it. Percentage-wise, more than twice as many people
in Louisiana voted for a woman who questions the official story of 9/11 than in New York or
Massachusetts, those supposed hotbeds of dissent and intellectual acuity. There are
(proportionately) more people in Arkansas and West Virginia who dare to think outside the
box, on a par with California, than in almost every other state.

Now, I know I shouldnʼt speculate. Itʼs not the “scholarly” thing to do. Someone who knows
more about statistics (which could be almost anyone) or about the Greensʼ campaign
(could also be almost anyone) or about these states (again, almost anyone) will come
along and rap my knuckles for their sassy tapping, but Iʼm going to do it anyway. Iʼm
already an irredeemable bad boy, having back-talked two major icons that are on (I hope)
my side of the barricades (Chomsky and Peter Scott), but in this case my speculation is
supported by some other statistics from a Zogby poll in 2006 (http://www.mdmorrissey.info/zogby).

This poll proved, in my opinion, that Chomsky may be dead wrong on the JFK assassination
and 9/11, but he is dead right on many other things, in this case about the falsity of the assumption
that education and media awareness (“keeping up with the news”) makes people more
susceptible to the truth. It does not. In certain (crucial) cases, of which JFK and 9/11 are
only two of many examples, these characteristics (accidents of birth and upbringing,
usually) make them more susceptible to lies.

Which leads me to wonder if it is not precisely the relative lack of these qualities in the
“backwoods” of Louisiana, Arkansas and West Virginia that makes them more susceptible
to truth, or more hungry for it (two inseparable propositions, I feel). I donʼt mean to
offend anyone. I happen to be an incurable romantic who believes that “intelligence” is a
quality that has yet to be defined but most certainly does not equate with what we call
“education,” “sophistication,” “media awareness,” “success,” or IQ. I know there are plenty
of these types of people in Louisiana and Arkansas and West Virginia, too, but thatʼs not
the point. The point is that maybe there are people out there whose minds are less
burdened and confused (brainwashed) by what passes for “intelligent” commentary in the
media so that they are able to think for themselves. That, for example, would be what I would
call intelligence.

I get in trouble on this subject, especially with fellow teachers, whose existence is based
on judging what they all too easily call their studentsʼ “intelligence.” Since these judgments
are inevitably (though politically incorrectly) accompanied by generalizations about sex
and ethnicity, my retort to this is that if there has to be any measure of intelligence at all,
then letʼs take the War Test. Given everything in your brain (part of which is in your chest),
and all the information you can get, which box do you check when it comes to war? Yes or
no? What more important question could there be to test intelligence? Everything that is
you tells you either to go to war and send other people to war, or not to. That to me is the
supreme test of intelligence, and you will notice that I am using no quotation marks around
the word this time.

So where does this leave the so-called smart ones in the colleges and think tanks and
corporate boardrooms and the Pentagon and the CIA and wherever else they hold sway,
as opposed to, say, the dirt farmer with a hoe or the woman who cleans your house or the
woman who picks up your garbage? And--this is my retort to the racists and chauvinists--
where does that leave the white male, as opposed to the black male (and female), and to
women in general? You donʼt have to speculate on this one. There are polls. I remember
one taken at the time of Gulf War 1, when the predominantly white male Congress voted
with a slight majority (nevertheless an improvement over a similar vote in 1964 for the Gulf
of Tonkin Resolution) to abandon the Constitution and let King George decide whether to
wage war or not. A large majority of women, and an even larger majority of blacks,
according to this poll, were against going to war. This is, I think, consistently the case.

Does this make black people more intelligent than whites, and women more intelligent
than men? Oh no, I canʼt say that, even as a white male, but damn it, isnʼt it true? Isnʼt it
just as true, at least, as any other test result that presumes to judge intelligence, and
categorize people along ethnic and sexual lines (and there are plenty that have done that).
Ok, I say, you want race and gender, Iʼll give you race and gender, and Iʼll also give you an
intelligence test that is much more scientific and accurate and revealing than anything you
have. The results are in.

Ok, Iʼm being bad again, but Iʼm not sorry. Here is my tabulation (from C-Span) of
McKinney votes, and I wonʼt call it a “state intelligence test,” but I do think the numbers are
worth some thought:

Louisiana .5 %
Maine .4
Arkansas .3
California .3
West Virginia .3
Hawaii .2
Illinois .2
Maryland .2
Massachusetts .2
Michigan .2
Minnesota .2
New Mexico .2
New York .2
Oregon .2
Rhode Island .2
South Carolina .2
D.C. .2
Arizona .1
Colorado .1
Delaware .1
Iowa .1
Mississippi .1
Nebraska .1
Nevada .1
New Jersey .1
Ohio .1
Tennessee .1
Utah .1
Virginia .1
Washington .1
Wisconsin .1
Alabama 0
Florida 0
Alaska -
Connecticut -
Georgia -
Idaho -
Indiana -
Kansas -
Kentucky -
Missouri -
Montana -
New Hampshire -
North Carolina -
North Dakota -
Oklahoma -
Pennsylvania -
South Dakota -
Texas -
Vermont -
Wyoming -