How these gibbering numbskulls came to dominate Washington (Guardian)

[struggle4progress]

George Monbiot
The Guardian
Tuesday October 28 2008

... There have been exceptions over the past century - Franklin Roosevelt, JF Kennedy and Bill Clinton tempered their intellectualism with the common touch and survived - but Adlai Stevenson, Al Gore and John Kerry were successfully tarred by their opponents as members of a cerebral elite (as if this were not a qualification for the presidency). Perhaps the defining moment in the collapse of intelligent politics was Ronald Reagan's response to Jimmy Carter during the 1980 presidential debate. Carter - stumbling a little, using long words - carefully enumerated the benefits of national health insurance. Reagan smiled and said: "There you go again." His own health programme would have appalled most Americans, had he explained it as carefully as Carter had done, but he had found a formula for avoiding tough political issues and making his opponents look like wonks ...

The Southern Baptist Convention, now the biggest denomination in the US, was to slavery and segregation what the Dutch Reformed Church was to apartheid in South Africa. It has done more than any other force to keep the south stupid. In the 1960s it tried to stave off desegregation by establishing a system of private Christian schools and universities. A student can now progress from kindergarten to a higher degree without any exposure to secular teaching. Southern Baptist beliefs pass intact through the public school system as well. A survey by researchers at the University of Texas in 1998 found that one in four of the state's state school biology teachers believed humans and dinosaurs lived on earth at the same time ...

The spectre of pointy-headed alien subversives was crucial to the election of Reagan and Bush. A genuine intellectual elite - like the neocons (some of them former communists) surrounding Bush - has managed to pitch the political conflict as a battle between ordinary Americans and an over-educated pinko establishment. Any attempt to challenge the ideas of the rightwing elite has been successfully branded as elitism.

Obama has a lot to offer the US, but none of this will stop if he wins. Until the great failures of the US education system are reversed or religious fundamentalism withers, there will be political opportunities for people, like Bush and Palin, who flaunt their ignorance.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/28/us-education-election-obama-bush-mccain

[NRaleighLiberal]

1. This is SPOT ON and not only very relevant, but worrying for the future.

Key parts for me -

"The spectre of pointy-headed alien subversives was crucial to the election of Reagan and Bush. A genuine intellectual elite - like the neocons (some of them former communists) surrounding Bush - has managed to pitch the political conflict as a battle between ordinary Americans and an over-educated pinko establishment. Any attempt to challenge the ideas of the rightwing elite has been successfully branded as elitism.

Obama has a lot to offer the US, but none of this will stop if he wins. Until the great failures of the US education system are reversed or religious fundamentalism withers, there will be political opportunities for people, like Bush and Palin, who flaunt their ignorance."

Until this country treats education and intellect and curiosity with the respect that it deserves (and most of the rest of the world understands), Obama and Biden and the Dems will be swimming upstream...but better that we are swimming than not, of course!

[Betsy Ross]

2. K&R! n/t

[democracy1st]

3. K & R

[rubberducky]

4. This is a MUST read. The comments are really good. K&R

[Enthusiast]

5. Excellent. Now, if only we could

correct the deficiencies in our educational system. I mean, one side has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

[lyonn]

6. Story time:

Here in Okla. we are inundated with the religious radicals. Naturally most of the people we come in close contact with are quite or very religious. A friend of our oldest son, mid 40's, likes hanging out on our farm and kicking back since we don't have restrictive rules for those that wander by. Anyway, one day last year this guy asks my son if he would help him move into his new house. Son helps friend and friend relates that, days later, at his church he made a fairly obvious statement to the elders of the church that when the church friends had excuses when he asked them to help him move that he had to rely on his atheist friend to help him he pretty much got booted out of the church.!? This guy felt that he had contributed much to this church and was pretty hurt by this event.

The following comment doesn't seem to apply to Okla, my kids and grandkids don't believe this, don't know if it because of parentage or school? Inhofe does of course.

"A survey by researchers at the University of Texas in 1998 found that one in four of the state's state school biology teachers believed humans and dinosaurs lived on earth at the same time ..."

[Uncle Joe]

7. I believe it's a one, two punch, and while the fundamentalists may be dumbing down

the education system, ironically, I believe because of a lack of faith.

The corporatists are the second punch dumbing down our so called free press with ongoing non-stop propaganda sometimes posing as news, other times just embedded in their programming with the obvious result of brainwashing the people, promoting style over substance, glorifying the inane, eroding the sense of self by eliminating any right to privacy, paparazzi anyone?

The following paragraph is telling, if I remember correctly Rupert Murdock comes from Australia. Maybe he is a Christian fundamentalist, but I've always thought of him as motivated more by mercenary means.

"Like most people on my side of the Atlantic, I have for many years been mystified by American politics. The US has the world's best universities and attracts the world's finest minds. It dominates discoveries in science and medicine. Its wealth and power depend on the application of knowledge. Yet, uniquely among the developed nations (with the possible exception of Australia), learning is a grave political disadvantage."

[yurbud]

8. it's too bad the people who need to read this most will never see it...

cuz they're afeard a furners.

[ACTION BASTARD]

9. The dumbing down of America continues...

A unsophisticated population is more easily manipulated & controlled. People are proud to be dumb or so it seems.