The United States Is Awash in Public Stupidity, and Critical Thought Is Under Assault

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/investigations/united-states-awash-public-stupidity-and-views-critical-thought-both-liability-and

America has become amnesiac - a country in which forms of historical, political, and moral forgetting are not only willfully practiced but celebrated. The United States has degenerated into a social order that is awash in public stupidity and views critical thought as both a liability and a threat. Not only is this obvious in the presence of a celebrity culture that embraces the banal and idiotic, but also in the prevailing discourses and policies of a range of politicians and anti-public intellectuals who believe that the legacy of the Enlightenment needs to be reversed. Politicians such as Michelle Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich along with talking heads such as Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck and Anne Coulter are not the problem, they are symptomatic of a much more disturbing assault on critical thought, if not rational thinking itself. Under a neoliberal regime, the language of authority, power and command is divorced from ethics, social responsibility, critical analysis and social costs.

These anti-public intellectuals are part of a disimagination machine that solidifies the power of the rich and the structures of the military-industrial-surveillance-academic complex by presenting the ideologies, institutions and relations of the powerful as commonsense. [1] For instance, the historical legacies of resistance to racism, militarism, privatization and panoptical surveillance have long been forgotten and made invisible in the current assumption that Americans now live in a democratic, post-racial society. The cheerleaders for neoliberalism work hard to normalize dominant institutions and relations of power through a vocabulary and public pedagogy that create market-driven subjects, modes of consciousness, and ways of understanding the world that promote accommodation, quietism and passivity. Social solidarities are torn apart, furthering the retreat into orbits of the private that undermine those spaces that nurture non-commodified knowledge, values, critical exchange and civic literacy. The pedagogy of authoritarianism is alive and well in the United States, and its repression of public memory takes place not only through the screen culture and institutional apparatuses of conformity, but is also reproduced through a culture of fear and a carceral state that imprisons more people than any other country in the world. [2] What many commentators have missed in the ongoing attack on Edward Snowden is not that he uncovered information that made clear how corrupt and intrusive the American government has become - how willing it is to engage in vast crimes against the American public. His real "crime" is that he demonstrated how knowledge can be used to empower people, to get them to think as critically engaged citizens rather than assume that knowledge and education are merely about the learning of skills - a reductive concept that substitutes training for education and reinforces the flight from reason and the goose-stepping reflexes of an authoritarian mindset. [3]

[G_j]

1. sad

but too true

[warrant46]

25. a celebrity culture that embraces the banal and idiotic

Such as the "Birther Culture"

[nil desperandum]

35. Celebrity indeed

When more people can name all the Kardashians than can name the top 5 people in line to succeed the president, I'm not sure its one of the signs of the apocalypse, but it might be close....

[12AngryBorneoWildmen]

39. Good one.

Welcome.

[warrant46]

48. Welcome !!

[nil desperandum]

53. Thank you! Nice to be here

[Wednesdays]

55. Heh, name 5 in line fore the presidency?

Here's a challenge for Mr./Ms. Ordinary American:

Can you name...

5 world religions not related to Judaism/Christianity/Islam?
5 famous paintings?
5 non-European languages?
5 novels written more than 50 years ago?
5 African countries?
5 composers?
5 historical events that happened outside the United States or Palestine/Israel region?

I'd say SOME would be able to answer these, but most would be stumped...a few would struggle just to name one from each list.

[BB1]

59. Okay, I'll bite :)

1. Buddhishm, Shintoism, Hinduism, FSM, Jedi-ism

2. Mona Lisa, Nightwatch, Sunflowers, The Scream, The Girl with the Pearl Earring

3. Swahili, Hindi, Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese

4. Catcher in the Rye, Atlas Shrugged (sorry 'bout that), Moby Dick, Great Expectations, War and Peace

5. Zimbabwe, Botswana, Tunesia, South Africa, Zambia (visited all of those)

6. Bach, Beethoven, Wagner, Rachmaninov, Tschaikovski,

7. Gulf of Tonkin, Breaking the Wall in Berlin, Opening of King Tut's burial place, Release of Nelson Mandela, Russian Revolution of 1917.

Just of the top of my head. I'm Dutch, does it still count then?

[AlbertCat]

67. Mona Lisa, Nightwatch, Sunflowers, The Scream, The Girl with the Pearl Earring

"I'm Dutch"

No kidding....

Well, I guess Munch is Norwegian.
And the Mona Lisa was the 1st painting that came to my mind too.

[BB1]

107. Well, Rembrandt, Van Gogh and Vermeer made some nice paintings.

They're famous. Most people know (of) them. That was the criterium, wasn't it

[westerebus]

71. Only if you're Dutch.

[Eddie Haskell]

2. Conspiracy theory

[Bernardo de La Paz]

7. Another take on conspiracy theories: a tool to distract the non-sheeple sheeple:

There are many people who pride themselves as being non-sheeple, and then sheepishly follow kooky conspiracy theories.

The powers that be are actually glad to have otherwise smart people spin their wheels chasing down non-existent conspiracies so that they do not get to the real heart of matters.

They say "Ignore the man behind the curtain" so that the theorists jump on it and ignore the puppeteers above the curtain.

[Eddie Haskell]

10. The public views critical thinking as both a liability and a threat

because people like you discourage critical thinking. We're being lied to by our government and you label those who seek to learn the truth as kooks.

[Junkdrawer]

42. +1000

[Bernardo de La Paz]

83. You have it exactly backwards.

I encourage critical thinking. Wholeheartedly. 100%. When it is applied, most conspiracy theories collapse immediately. The greatest failing is they require a ridiculously huge number of moving parts (conspirators).

[Eddie Haskell]

100. If I apply critical thinking skills to our government's official explanations

they often collapse as well. For example, I saw the original video of the missile fired off the coast of California last year. The government's explanation of an airliner crossing the horizon was a joke. I've since had the missile launch confirmed by someone inside our national security apparatus. When our government lies, the media backs it up. That doesn't mean the media is involved in a conspiracy ... They just parrot official sources.

Until our government demonstrates its honesty, I'll believe my lying eyes.

btw, I watched Flight 800 the other night. There were hundreds of independent eyewitness reports, but our government chose not to hear any eyewitness testimony. The FBI said eyewitnesses were unreliable. Yet the witnesses all reported seeing nearly the same thing ...

[AlbertCat]

105. The FBI said eyewitnesses were unreliable.

Alas....they are! The worst evidence.

Why....well, because when one remembers something....one is actually remembering the last remembrance. This is why memories fade and become more unreliable as time goes on.

But mainly it has to do with how we see things.

They did an experiment: A bunch of subjects were shown a film of people in a circle, with numbers on their shirts, throwing a ball to each other. Viewers were asked to remember things like "How many times did #3 catch the ball?" or "How many times did #5 throw to #7?" Then, after viewing, they were given a pop quiz...with questions like above. The last question was "Did you see the gorilla?". Apparently no one did. Then they were shown the film again, and in the middle of it, a guy in a gorilla suit walks out, stands in the middle of the circle and waved at the camera.

So eyewitnesses are not so great.

[Eddie Haskell]

108. So when everyone describes the same thing, it's mass hysteria?

Must be an airborne illness cause these witnesses didn't even know one another. BTW, the NTSB, the agency which normally controls airline crash investigations, routinely uses eyewitness testimony in their investigations.

[zeemike]

24. How do you hide a conspiracy?

Really simple...step one, create some wild theorys....like the lizard people are doing it...and create as many as you can, as wild as you can.

Step two...call anyone who questions your conspiracy a conspiracy theory nut because of the first step.

Disinformation works...and has for years.

[Junkdrawer]

43. And fund people like Alex Jones that promote BOTH wild and reasonable theories....

to further conflate the two.

[zeemike]

44. Yep...he works for them

And they pay well for it I am sure.
Actually I have never seen much of him before I saw someone post him in meltdown on Pierce Morgan, and my impression was that it was all contrived...he was trying to be as crazy as he could be...to bolster his brand.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

84. I think the powers that be view Alex Jones as a useful idiot. nt

[rhett o rick]

89. It's easy. Most people dont want to know the truth. The truth may require them to take sides, make

decisions, justify not taking action, etc. So much easier to believe dipship Oswald acted alone. Why look farther, because whatever you find will be terrible. Oswald killed JFK, Oswald is dead, everyone go back to watching Dancing with the SortofStars.

When it comes to the "intelligence" agencies, with unlimited budgets and zero oversight, I would believe just about anything. They are going to "push the legal envelope as much as they can, because they can. History will show that they have always done such. Giving the intelligence agencies unlimited budget, and zero oversight, and telling them to keep us safe is a license for disaster.

[randr]

30. It is the curtain that is a problem

[rhett o rick]

60. I hope you are not saying that conspiracies dont exist. Politics is all about conspiracies.

Think tanks should be called "conspiracy tanks". KKKarl Rove does nothing but conspire and gets paid a lot for it.

Unless you think the 11 hijackers on Sept 11, just coincidentally decided to fly planes into the WTC at the same time, then you must recognize their conspiracy.

Those that try to convince us that conspiracies dont exist are our first fight in trying to throw off our oppressors. They, either willfully or by ignorance, carry water for the oligarch 1%. I blame, in part, religion for teaching some that they should have FAITH. Faith is blind trust. Those that believe blindly are the easiest to lead astray. And IMHO those that are the most ignorant are the ones most likely to blindly trust.

IMHO those that blindly trust their "leader" are authoritarians by definition. Dog save us from the authoritarians.

[AlbertCat]

70. Those that try to convince us that conspiracies dont exist

Well, there are conspiracies....and then there are dumb-ass conspiracies. To know the difference one must think things through...and know something.

I mean believing Global Warming is a hoax is not the same as believing, say, Art Pope has bought the state of North Carolina.

Believing Obama is a secret nefarious socialist is not the same as believing the GOP Congress is deliberately trying to make things worse...or at least not get any better.


One must know that for global warming to be a hoax, thousands and thousands of scientists from all over the world are in it for...what I don't know. And you must know what socialism means and is before you can accuse someone of it.

On the other hand, it's easy to find real evidence for the Art Pope and GOP Congress stuff.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

86. +1

One must know that for global warming to be a hoax, thousands and thousands of scientists from all over the world are in it for...what I don't know.

The conspiracy theorists say "It's obvious they want government grants" or "It's obvious they've been bought by the government which wants to make billions on carbon taxes."

[Bernardo de La Paz]

85. Conspiracies do exist. Watergate and Iran-Contra certainly existed. nt

[Eddie Haskell]

101. Well said

[rhett o rick]

106. Thank you Mr. Haskell. nm

[canoeist52]

3. "promote accommodation, quietism and passivity"

And they use religion to do this. I see this meme on Facebook, the lovely pastoral scenes promoting acceptance of our lot in life and learning to be content with the little that we have. When I do the click backs, it usually takes me to a right-wing religious site.

[LisaLynne]

8. Which has been a trick of certain religions since their inception.

Don't worry that you are painfully poor and have nothing and no hope. You'll get your reward after you die! That's a great scheme for those in power.

[HardTimes99]

16. The Socialists used to mock such thinking with the refrain:

"There'll be pie in the sky
When we die, bye and bye."

[deutsey]

4. As Howard Beale prophetically said in "Network":

What is finished is the idea that this great country is dedicated to the freedom and flourishing of every individual in it. It's the individual that's finished. It's the single, solitary human being that's finished. It's every single one of you out there that's finished, because this is no longer a nation of independent individuals. It's a nation of some 200-odd million transistorized, deodorized, whiter-that-white, steel-belted bodies, totally unnecessary as human beings, and as replaceable as piston rods...

Well, the time has come to say, is dehumanization such a bad word. Because good or bad, that's what is so. The whole world is becoming humanoid - creatures that look human but aren't. The whole world not just us. We're just the most advanced country, so we're getting there first. The whole world's people are becoming mass-produced, programmed, numbered, insensate things...

[reformist2]

5. A lot of rich people have hired a lot of spin doctors to keep the public distracted and divided.

They don't want the public to realize they've been screwed, and that the rich are sitting on mountains of money that ought to be more fairly distributed.

That's how you need to talk about this, if you want to move the discussion from the ivory tower to main street.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

6. Apropos toons from Monday:

[Vattel]

9. Wow, and I thought I could be pedantic. A lot of truth to this though.

What strikes me the most is how much belief and certainty are detached from evidence, and everyone seems to think that is just fine. Given inconclusive evidence one should be uncertain. Given insufficient evidence, one should suspend belief. So it's okay to admit that one can't be sure whether Martin or Zimmerman threw the first punch, or whether racism motivated Zimmerman's behavior on the night he shot Martin, or whether Zimmerman committed a crime.

[HiPointDem]

12. the 'that's your opinion' thing, as if there are only opinions, no real facts. actively promoted

in various ways, even by liberals.

[Vattel]

29. Good point.

If it is all just a matter of opinion, why worry about evidence?

[HiPointDem]

50. right. and if it's all about opinions and you can get people to change theirs, then you have

truth on your side!

[defacto7]

92. By god you're right....

It makes me wonder if in politics a two party system as actually promoted the ever larger division between opinions, ergo truths become something to vote in or out. By mixing the field of knowledge enough through multiple positions I think we come closer to reality; it reduces the power of seduction toward one opinion. The problem is, we have by whatever means, created a chasm between ideologies which pulls us further from grasping de facto truth. That chasm itself has become a tool used to decide truth and build armies to defend it from facts.

[Eddie Haskell]

102. Why worry about evidence or the laws of physics?

[brush]

11. Some good stuff here

Last edited Wed Jul 24, 2013, 09:50 AM - Edit history (1)

Couldn't agree with this more. Makes me think of the zimmerman jury:

"The United States has degenerated into a social order that is awash in public stupidity and views critical thought as both a liability and a threat."

[The Wizard]

13. By and large

we are a lazy, stupid culture by design. Lazy stupid people are easier to hoodwink, and the GOP has made it an art form by appealing to the worst fears and lowest instincts.
We are reverting to a feudal state because thinking is hard work.
In the GOP utopia the wealthy elites hold all the cards and the working class all work for minimum wage and no benefits.
Egypt is an example of how to remove an oppressive regime bent on tyrannical rule steeped in religion.

[matthews]

47. Exactly. Developing an intellect has become a 'job' for so many

people. Learning involves work. A person actually has to put effort into acquiring knowledge.

Once upon a time people actually fought for the right to become educated, to understand the world we live in. Now we're going for the fake quick fixes like NCLB and whatever you want to call this Duncan/Rhee mess that this administration is pushing. We're letting corporate America take over the schools which gives corporate America the perfect opportunity to dumb everybody down and to indoctrinate us into their program. It also allows them to eliminate areas of study that they feel is unnecessary. What is considered unnecessary to the Duncan/Rhees of the planet are the areas of study that elevate the intellect, refine it, make us more than assembly line workers.

The Arts and Humanities are viewed as a waste of time and money for the plebs. Our betters think we need just enough information to make us good little minimum wage workers and cannon fodder. Current opinion on the teaching of the A&H is that they should be reserved for our betters while the plebs should be satisfied with the basic education necessary to enable us to flip burgers or bust concrete. Courses in sociology, or the histories of different peoples, or of mythology, or art or drama are increasingly being seen as a waste of time and money, not as a refinement of the mind and the soul. We are letting them take that away from us. We are too damn lazy to fight back. You can't get lazy ass American's to make the effort to work to learn what makes us human, what sets us apart from our ancestor's shortly after they dropped out of the trees. Many people in this country seem to want lo wallow in their ignorance and I think that it is frightening.

Seven Deadly Sins

Wealth without work
Pleasure without conscience
Science without humanity
Knowledge without character
Politics without principle
Commerce without morality
Worship without sacrifice.
― Mahatma Gandhi

[XemaSab]

72. Which is staggering, because the internet has such potential to equalize people

I spend about an hour a day reading the news online. I spend another hour or so a day engaging with people on DU and FB about current events. If I get curious about something, *BAM* Google is right there.

The internet has allowed me to make friends, make "enemies" , learn about obscure topics such as arctic sea ice, know what's going on in the farthest corners of the world....

I'm old enough to remember the day when if you wanted to know what percent of San Francisco was Asian, or what the different names of the kings of England and Britain were, or what the Bahais believe, or how shade tolerant ornamental oregano is, you had to get yourself down to the library and look that action up, and it would take hours. *IF* the library had a book about what you wanted to know.

I get the sense, though, that most people use the internet for pron, shopping, celebrity gossip, and pirating "Jackass III."

Maybe people were dumbasses before the internet, but we were all shielded from how stupid so many people are.

[cantbeserious]

14. Kick And Recommend

eom

[datasuspect]

15. "I like money"

- Frito Pendejo

[MrMickeysMom]

18. !!!

Damn!

[MrMickeysMom]

17. I get it....

"We're finally getting MAD AS HELL", and we're not going to take it anymore...

AND... then we'll be shot ON TV, for a 50 share!

Thanks...
This is a must read, a long read.... a good account of where we've been headed. In the middle of it... WE are the solution we've been bitching about and surely must direct to end this madness.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

19. Gay Marriage! Royal Baby!

I'm sorry....were you saying something?

[mnhtnbb]

20. Recently read "Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free"

by Charles P. Pierce.

I would recommend it.

An excerpt:

The rise of Idiot America, though, is essentially a war on expertise. It's not so much antimodernism or the distrust of the intellectual elites that Richard Hofstadter teased out of the national DNA, although both of those things are part of it. The rise of Idiot America today reflects—for profit, mainly, but also, and more cynically, for political advantage and in the pursuit of power—the breakdown of the consensus that the pursuit of knowledge is a good. It also represents the ascendancy of the notion that the people we should trust the least are the people who know best what they're talking about. In the new media age, everybody is a historian, or a scientist, or a preacher, or a sage. And if everyone is an expert, then nobody is, and the worst thing you can be in a society where everybody is an expert is, well, an actual expert.

This is how Idiot America engages itself. It decides, en masse, with a million keystrokes and clicks of the remote control, that because there are two sides to every question, they both must be right, or at least not wrong. And the words of an obscure biologist carry no more weight on the subject of biology than do the thunderations of some turkeyneck preacher out of the Church of Christ's Own Parking Structure in DeLand, Florida. Less weight, in fact, because our scientist is an "expert" and, therefore, an "elitist." Nobody buys his books. Nobody puts him on cable. He's brilliant, surely, but no different from all the rest of us, poor fool.

How does it work? This is how it works. On August 21, 2005, a newspaper account of the intelligent design movement contained this remarkable sentence:

"They have mounted a politically savvy challenge to evolution as the bedrock of modern biology, propelling a fringe academic movement onto the front pages and putting Darwin's defenders firmly on the defensive."

"A politically savvy challenge to evolution" makes as much sense as conducting a Gallup poll on gravity or running someone for president on the Alchemy party ticket. It doesn't matter what percentage of people believe that they ought to be able to flap their arms and fly: none of them can. It doesn't matter how many votes your candidate got: he's not going to be able to turn lead into gold. The sentence is so errantly foolish that the only real news in it is where it appeared.

On the front page.

Of the New York Times.


http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/13281-idiot-america-how-stupidity-became-a-virtue-in-the-land-of-the-free

[Coyotl]

21. The film "Stupidity" is a must see for everyone, especially the stupid sheeple.

"Being stupid is an attractive quality" ... "half the people out there are fucking retarded ...."

http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/stupidity

[Lifelong Protester]

54. replying to your post so I can easily find it

and watch the film at home.

thanks for posting.

[hue]

22. I'd really like to know why Snowden never released any info on the 1%s effort to control our country

It seems the NSA documents regarding US surveillance of the "little guys" would pale in comparison to the surveillance of big corporations & the 1%. Where are those documents?? Don't tell me it isn't happening.
Who cares if the US listens to or screens conversations of our little world?? What about conversations and info obtained from the 1% and their plans and activities. THAT's what we should be focused on....

[zeemike]

27. The 1% have people to do things for them

And those people now are the government and law inforcement...they don't need to talk about it.

It is like what a person with ties to the mob said when asked by the interviewer how much it would cost to have someone whacked...
He said that is not how it works...you whack someone knowing that you will be rewarded for it because you removed a problem for the boss.
The boss only needs to express his problem to the workers and it is taken care of with no orders given or received.

[hue]

31. If R-money's conversation at Marc Leder's fundraiser can be taped by a waiter

our government can tape/tap the 1%'s homes, cars, Skype's, etc. Why doesn't Snowden release some of that??

[Jackpine Radical]

33. Because they'd get into BIG TROUBLE

If they used their technologies on their bosses?

[zeemike]

38. Because they don't

The government works for them...but not for the pittance that a waiter gets, and you don't shoot the goose that lays your golden egg.

[Jackpine Radical]

32. "Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?"

Been going on a long time.

[zeemike]

36. Yep

And they never discard things that work.

[hobbit709]

23. Idiocracy is a documentary.

[Populist_Prole]

66. Pretty much the way I see it too

I blanch horror much much more than I laugh when I watch it.

[ladjf]

26. I agree with this post. My question is why is this trend happening? If we can determine that,

there might be a way to counter it.

[RVN VET]

28. WE OPPOSE THE TEACHING OF . . .CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS!!! (Texas Republican Party Platform)

Critical thinking is subversive and threatens the very core of Texas freedom!
Yeah, I'm bein' sarcastic. But the Texas GOP wasn't when it put this in its party platform:

Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.

I swear to Yahweh, Allah, God, Apollo, and Blaze Star that the above is an exact quotation from the 201`2 Platform of ther Party of Gohmert, Perry, and hundreds of thousands of other shave-brained leaders (whom all of Texas would be sooo much better eschewing in favor of reading parking meters) of the still potentially great Lone Star State.

[SheilaT]

34. This has been going on at least as long as I can remember

and I'm 64 years old.

Adlai Stevenson could not be elected President (ran in 1952 and 1956 essentially because he was very smart and that was seen as making him unfit to be President.

In high school it is football players that are glorified, not the kids who do Science Bowl.

As for the whole amnesia thing, that's also been around more or less forever. Newspapers, even very good ones, absolutely foster this. Almost every single day the stories in the paper give little or no background, and often there is little or no follow-up of any stories at all. Other than in the tabloids where the exact doings of various reality "stars" are breathelessly followed and recapped in endless detail.

History is badly taught in high school, often by the football coach, and too few students take any history classes in college. We live in a culture that says: The only thing that matters is what happens today. Forget yesterday, and don't even begin to think about tomorrow. That last part has extreme consequences because it leads people to think they never need to plan for the future.

[Wednesdays]

56. Quote attributed to Stevenson:

A supporter told him that he was sure to "get the vote of every thinking man" in America, to which Stevenson is said to have replied, "Thank you, but I need a majority to win."

[Safetykitten]

37. And who to blame? Why it's us. The Democrats. Yup. It's us.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

40. DU Rec

[kentauros]

41. And thanks go to that big guy from California, Ronnie Raygun!

Thank you for defunding the public education system!

(By the way, I have an incredibly difficult time reading monolithic "paragraphs" of text, so I've only skimmed what was posted.)

[John2]

45. Don't worry,

I can assure you it was critical thinking.

[kentauros]

46. Well, criticial thinking works best

when you don't have to spend a good portion of your time recovering from eye-strain

[live love laugh]

58. It's like Raygun's Alzheimer's was contagious--the whole country has it. nt

[southerncrone]

77. Yep. The Dumbing Down of America is

one of the Repukes biggest coups. It, coupled w/lassoing the Religious Right, delivered big for them the last 30 yrs, while making our country increasingly a slave state.
.
Then there is the media promoting the "school's not cool" meme and the promotion of drug culture to teens. All of these served their agenda.

"Mission Accomplished".

[Doctor_J]

49. We are Fox Nation

that "news" network and the 1500 radio stations that blanket the country with lies, propaganda, and fascism are to blame.

[railsback]

51. Ok, this has been going on since Reagan burst onto the scene

Question is: What are you going to do about it? You can't purge the Rightwing out of existence, nor can you control the negative opinions of SnowdenWald. Griping about how things aren't the way you want them to be is the least effective.

Demographics are changing. The old white bread shitheads are dying off. The GOP has to jerry-rig voting districts to try to keep some power. Overseas production costs in slave labor countries are rising. Obamacare is well on the way to establishing healthcare as a RIGHT, a single payer system that will bring more manufacturing back here. Evolution takes time, but that could be set back 100 years if people keep harping on a shithead like Snowden and the Obama STASI coming to throw you in the Gulag, giving 2014-16 to the GOP, who will, undoubtably, do their best to rape and pillage what's left in their swan song.

[Lifelong Protester]

52. A well -written piece and I thank you for posting it.

When many of us say "WAKE UP, AMERICA" this, I believe, is what we are talking about.

[live love laugh]

57. People don't think.

With all the uproar about Trayvon Martin there were a many who called for a boycott of FL and Disney last week--especially by those I know who are African American like me.

But, lo' and behold on Sunday what do I see on a friend's Facebook page but an ad for people to "like" Disney's Facebook page to win "free tickets" there. Nobody connected the dots. I just did not respond because if they could not see through the fact that Disney could given away a few trips and all would be forgiven, then nothing I could say would make a bit of difference.

[AikidoSoul]

61. xchrom has just stated the obvious.... but thanks for the details, and reminding us

how fucking hopeless it is. People LIKE being stupid. They don't think of their brains as exquisite tools.

And almost nowhere are critical thinking skills taught. Edward DeBono's lateral thinking skills should be taught to every three year old.

[BornLooser]

62. Impulse!.....gadgets, gimmicks and 2 out of 3 doctors agree!

There's a reason preparation-h is stored in 50 gal. barrels, or is that .50 cal?

[zeos3]

63. For more on this topic...

check out:

http://www.charlespierce.net/29/itemPage

Idiot America: How Stupidity Became A Virtue In The Land Of The Free
Book Description from Amazon:
The three Great Premises of Idiot America:
· Any theory is valid if it sells books, soaks up ratings, or otherwise moves units
· Anything can be true if someone says it loudly enough
· Fact is that which enough people believe. Truth is determined by how fervently they believe it

With his trademark wit and insight, veteran journalist Charles Pierce delivers a gut-wrenching, side-splitting lament about the glorification of ignorance in the United States.

Pierce asks how a country founded on intellectual curiosity has somehow deteriorated into a nation of simpletons more apt to vote for an American Idol contestant than a presidential candidate. But his thunderous denunciation is also a secret call to action, as he hopes that somehow, being intelligent will stop being a stigma, and that pinheads will once again be pitied, not celebrated. Erudite and razor-sharp, Idiot America is at once an invigorating history lesson, a cutting cultural critique, and a bullish appeal to our smarter selves.



http://www.susanjacoby.com/reviews.html

The Age Of American Unreason
Book Description From Amazon:
A cultural history of the last forty years, The Age of American Unreason focuses on the convergence of social forces-usually treated as separate entities-that has created a perfect storm of anti-rationalism. These include the upsurge of religious fundamentalism, with more political power today than ever before; the failure of public education to create an informed citizenry; and the triumph of video over print culture. Sparing neither the right nor the left, Jacoby asserts that Americans today have embraced a universe of “junk thought” that makes almost no effort to separate fact from opinion.



I also like the following book because it deals with the types of people who believe they don't need insurance because they will never be sick, they don't need Social Security because they will retire wealthy, and they don't believe the law of averages applies to them.


http://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/brightsided.htm

Bright-sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermining America
Book Description From Amazon:
Americans are a "positive" people -- cheerful, optimistic, and upbeat: This is our reputation as well as our self-image. But more than a temperament, being positive is the key to getting success and prosperity. Or so we are told.

In this utterly original debunking, Barbara Ehrenreich confronts the false promises of positive thinking and shows its reach into every corner of American life, from Evangelical megachurches to the medical establishment, and, worst of all, to the business community, where the refusal to consider negative outcomes--like mortgage defaults--contributed directly to the current economic disaster. With the myth-busting powers for which she is acclaimed, Ehrenreich exposes the downside of positive thinking: personal self-blame and national denial. This is Ehrenreich at her provocative best--poking holes in conventional wisdom and faux science and ending with a call for existential clarity and courage.

[WillyT]

64. HUGE K & R !!!

[niyad]

65. k and r and bookmarking to read later

[Pretzel_Warrior]

68. this could have been written in 1800's by Mark Twain

we have a long history of stupidity masquerading as intelligence especially in the frontiers and rural parts of the country.

And every few years for the past 150, someone has written about how far down things have gone.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

76. Don't be so quick to bad mouth the rural areas

of the country.
click on the video.

http://www.oceanresourceteam.org/

very progressive town of 1200 persons, that is taking over on many local levels.

[Apophis]

82. The people in the small, rural town I live in are dumber than Dubya.

[Shankapotomus]

69. I'm doing the best I can but

what can one person do against all this ignorance?

[certainot]

73. it won't get better until the left stops ignoring the main problem- the RW talk radio monopoly

1200 think tank-coordinated radio stations blasting 50 mil people a week and it's ignored- there is no organized opposition to it outside the specifically targeted stoprush boycotts.

the left doesn't even know what's being repeated when and how often because there's no written record to read (now, there's a job for the NSA) and it hurts liberals heads to listen to it.

good luck getting any kind of real reform while we give those corporate think tanks a free speech free ride to that many earholes. or even having a fact based discussion on a national scale.

considering the time lost on global warming, ignoring RW radio has been the biggest blunder in history.

[XemaSab]

74. And the response by the left is to focus on standardized testing

If I can wander off topic for a mo, a couple months ago I went and saw the "Dutch Masters" exhibit in San Francisco.

It was so interesting looking at beautiful paintings from Dutch history, and almost every painting made me want to know more about the social and historical context that it was painted in. The museum sold a book to go along with the exhibit, and I got the book and read the whole thing. I learned a LOT about what life was like 350 years ago in the Netherlands.

We need to redouble our efforts on teaching literature, the arts, history, world religions, ethnic studies, government, philosophy, geography, and all the other treasures of human civilization. But instead we're backing away from that.

Why bother teaching a kid to read and then handing the kid the literary equivalent of the DMV handbook?

It's absolute madness.

[hopemountain]

75. americans are a commodity and income machine

for the industrial/corporate complex machine. dehumanization, usurping free will, poverty, divisiveness, mind control, fear mongering propaganda, disease, bigotry/classism, dumbing down, etc., are all tools to usurp individual power and to control the masses.

[Amonester]

81. and make lots of money to stash away from the taxman

as much as they can

[chervilant]

78. I'll be back... n/t

.

[99th_Monkey]

79. yeppers! K&R. eom

[NRaleighLiberal]

80. this is incredibly important. It is most easily noticed when the TV is finally turned off...

if one watches little to no TV - then decide to turn it on, even just for a few minutes, the ludicrous nature of most of it, the incessant ads - it is brainwashing - and we are all vulnerable to it - it is a weakness of human beings that exposure to a particular message helps to embed it as something useful, truthful, or necessary.

When I lost my job in big pharma in 2008, the first thing we did was simplify - only basic cable (meaning hardly anything at all - so we don't even turn it on) and only weekend newspaper (which is garbage as well and we only skim it).

We are anesthetized as a country.

[Egalitarian Thug]

112. The tool which made all this possible. n/t

[Zorra]

87. DU is a good example of a microcosm of this dichotomy, nt

[Bonobo]

88. But...penis photos! nt

[MrModerate]

90. I have a rule about reading rants . . .

Last edited Wed Jul 24, 2013, 06:50 PM - Edit history (1)

Even serious ones by noted serious thinkers.

And that rule is, the instant I run into a bullshit phrase like "military-industrial-surveillance-academic complex," I immediately identify the ranter as one who is really only listening to themselves and doesn't need me to close his or her onanistic loop.

And I dump 'em.

And I don't think I'm unique.

So ranters, if you want to make headway with the rest of humanity, keep the trainwreck neologisms to a minimum and control your lust for esoteric synonyms for terms that are perfectly clear in their original form.

Also, louder and funnier.

[defacto7]

93. Or maybe we really talk that way.

I love language and all its esoteric synonyms. The words are what they are and they express the thoughts of that humanity you think we need to make headway with. I for one don't need you to close my loops anyway.

So dump away!

[MrModerate]

95. Well, I'm a communicator by trade . . .

And people who talk like the author of this piece does do themselves a disservice by communicating so opaquely.

It's not just diction and syntax. The construct that I criticized — "military-industrial-surveillance-academic complex" — is not only difficult to parse, it's actually contrafactual. It conjures up images of an entity that does not exist. (In fact, the phrase "military-industrial-surveillance-academic-everything-else complex" would be equally apt — which is to say, meaningless.)

And sloppy writing = sloppy thinking = sloppy joes for supper. And you've lost your audience.

I've read the entire article, and on the whole, I agree with the author. However, for the vast majority of readers, the author's language is so over-the-top as to lack credibility; for the minority of people who are either political junkies or happen to be drawn to this particular issue, the near-hysteria that bubbles under the piece may make them wonder whether they want to associate themselves with it.

I realize mine is a post about technique rather than content, but if the people the author is trying to influence won't or can't read what's been written — or think the author's a little bit nuts because of the undisciplined way he expresses himself — he ends up doing more harm than good.

[defacto7]

96. Well personally,

I think you are speaking of yourself.

If you are bothered by communication that does not conform to your personal high standards, there is an icon to the right of every username, it's the forth counting from the left and has a red x in the bottom right corner. That is the ignore function. This will make all the word noise that a particular user impales you with disappear! It may be your friend as I know it's mine and I am very close to using it now. Would you like to join me?

I'm not sure what your trade is but in this case your communication has failed in that your standards have basically alienated this listener and I don't think I am alone in that experience. If you are a communicator by trade you certainly don't seem to know your audience enough to communicate at all; you simply criticize off topic which in my work could be grounds for dismissal. You have also somewhat derailed or maybe harmed the thread so at this point I no longer plan to participate in this strange chapter.

Be well.

[MrModerate]

98. Your choice of course . . .

Myself, I've never used the ignore button and never will (I reserve the right to reverse myself with regard to some of the folks who post in the Gungeon, but so far, nada). I like to know what's being said around here (and the other sites I visit), even if I drop a post after the headline.

And my standards are hardly personal. They're, well, standards, in other words common or best practice in a given area.

And if I evaluate a poster as a street-corner screamer, that means (in my book) that they've failed. They've squandered whatever credibility their ideas may have earned them by indulging in faux-hifalutin rantspeak. And because I've been doing this for quite a little while, I think I can tell when a post is likely to turn off more people than it turns on. The article posted by the OP seems firmly in that category.

And by the way, this is a completely legitimate subthread. 'Derailed?' 'Harmed?' Please.

Also, I have to ask — what sort of job can you be dismissed from for 'criticizing off topic?'

[Eddie Haskell]

104. Communicators lacking critical thinking skills ... Are a dime a dozen.

They're called Congressmen.

[MrModerate]

113. Agreed. Except that the cost to the rest of us . . .

Is much, much higher.

[Eddie Haskell]

116. You got that right.

[chervilant]

111. Just because you seem primed to appreciate:

... from what sort of job can you be dismissed for 'criticizing off topic?'

(still laughing over here...)

[chervilant]

109. Bwahahahahahahahaha!!!!

Onanistic loop...



Neologisms...



snort, giggle, gasp!

(such a kidder...)

[Deuce]

115. I smiled at those also, then dictionary search to confirm my understanding of their meaning...

[VPStoltz]

91. Let's face it - the Right has won.

When then constant drip, drip, drip of misinformation, not so subtle racism, the propaganda of minority opportunism, the successful demonization of the educational system and all public servants, and the willful shut down of the government because we have a Black President has turned the already doubtful into zealots - the path upward and outward looks mighty grim to me.

[defacto7]

94. Fantastic rant xchrom!

[Enthusiast]

97. The United States is now like waking up in the middle of a Carl Hiaasen novel.

Seriously.

[woo me with science]

99. Yup.

You only need to look at what passes for "persuasive" propaganda now in the eyes of the one percent.

"Ron Paul opposes (insert corporate atrocity). Therefore, we should support it!"

[randome]

110. "...made clear how corrupt and intrusive the American government has become..."

There's your lack of critical thinking skills right there. Snowden made nothing clear. He "saw things". He thought 'direct access' meant real-time monitoring of the world.

The irony of that sentence is impressive!
[hr][font color="blue"][center]I'm always right. When I'm wrong I admit it.
So then I'm right about being wrong.[/center][/font][hr]

[chervilant]

114. So much to say; so little time...

I am taking Giroux's article home to read in its entirety. As a teacher and an advocate for survivors of relationship violence, I am most intrigued by the disintegration of our system of public education, and the primacy of visual media, particularly the ubiquitous television.

Thank you for this post, and I will be returning to comment further.