Sounds close to what's called 'push-polling' - a technique used to
encourage a positive response, rather than gather information.
At this point I would like to express my appreciation to Macdonalds
for establishing the feedlot system in Australia....
Andrew Fildes
afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
On 19/11/2008, at 5:38 AM, Ken Norton wrote:
> Offtopic - you have been warned....
>
> Last night we got a call at the house from somebody doing a
> survey. Ok, no
> problem, I didn't have anything else to do while preparing
> supper... The
> survey was being conducted for some organization that is promoting the
> expansion of high-density beef/hog/poultry operations here in Iowa.
> Hmm.... Over the past few years there has been a marked change in my
> outlook towards farming practices, even though I was less than
> pleased to
> have my suppertime interrupted, I thought about the opportunity to
> let my
> voice be heard.
>
> I answered all the questions based on the following criteria: 1.
> Runoff
> pollution is the #1 problem, and 2. High-density operations are
> ripe for
> rampant disease. It irritated me to no end that the questions
> being asked
> were 'biased' and attempted to encourage answers supportive of the
> industry's dangerous practices. (if you don't believe runoff
> pollution is
> an issue, just ask Joel Wilcox what his house was like after the
> flood).
> After the third biased question, my mind was made up as to how I
> was going
> to answer all the rest of the questions. (I did take advantage of
> the fact
> that a few of the questions allowed free-form answers).
>
> 18 minutes into the survey (my wife was getting rather
> entertained), the
> question about political affiliation came up. "Are you a Democrat or
> Republican?" Neither--I'm a registered Green. "Independant?" No,
> Green.
> (pause) "Ok, found it." At that point I knew my survey was going
> to get
> tossed out, but I knew what the next question was going to be.
> "Zipcode
> where you live?" I gave my zipcode. (pause) "That's wierd, we
> weren't
> supposed to call that zipcode."
>
> I live in Grinnell, home of Grinnell College, one of the most liberal
> locations in the country. A survey FOR the livestock industry
> isn't going
> to get encouraging numbers from my zipcode.
>
> Shortly after that the survey ended and I proceeded to eat my steak
> which I
> was grilling while taking the survey.
>
> AG
> --
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