Listen. I am a shamed at the woeful ignorance displayed by most americans

[MSgt213]

when it pertains to world events. Most of us americans just don't have a fucking clue. I was listening to the Walton & Johnson show this morning. They give their little political opinions that I usually dismiss as comedy simply because they so uniformed and ignorant of facts that they can't be taken seriously.

But when they take calls, it is fucking amazing that people don't understand the difference between terrorist and the Iraqi people. Most of their calls think that making Iraq a parking lot would solve all of our problems. Some of them don't even know that the people who killed Nick Berg were not fucking Iraqis. Walton & Johnson don't do any thing to clear up this and others misconceptions and if any thing they contribute to them.

Making statements like "all of the news media is against Bush" What fucking news media are they fucking watching. Further statements like "we need to fight them over their or we will be fighting them in our streets" shows that they have no clue that terrorist want to kill americans and it makes no difference to them if they do it here on it Iraq. Anybody that calls this show with a clue is cut off quickly and their points totally dismissed.

While this might not seem like a big deal to most on this forum. I would bet if you ask average americans what is going on in Iraq or around the world while you stood in line at the store. Most would suprise with their inability to comprehend what the fuck is going on.

[mopaul]

1. a nation of idiots, run by assholes

we are surrounded by people who are walking around stupid. all muslims are terrorists, or all are iraqis. iraq attacked us on 9-11, that guy saddama did it. my mother sees the whole of islam as roaches that god will soon fumigate. she loves jesus, but it wouldnt' bother her to see the whole arab world nuked.

stupidity is in vogue now, and bush is the king of the stupid people.
this period in history will be america's most shameful and damaging.
it will take decades to repair the carnage done by weapons of mass stupidity. the average american, if there is such a thing, is a dumbass.

[fudge stripe cookays]

2. Yep.

I was listening to NPR last evening driving home, with morans in big trucks on either side of me, and the tears just started rolling down my face.

I can't understand how America went from the good guys to greedy, government-overthrowing, imperialistic bastards. I know it's been going on for a long time-- even before I was born.

But thanks to the American educational system, most of the twits in this country don't even know how many governments we've had a hand in overthrowing, don't know how much crap the CIA has been involved in, and still think of us with the ra-ra flag-waving bullshit.

I still love my country, but it's getting harder and harder every day.

If I were John Kerry, one of the first things I would do is make sure our school textbooks reflect our TRUE history of getting involved where we have absolutely no business being, so the younger generation will understand WHY these people hate us, and why it's important to change those perceptions by making this country a decent place to live again.

FSC

[PATRICK]

4. Truth and Reconciliation

Every institutional pol fears and dreads "bringing the house down" to get at the problem. We have to start with criminal investigations and accountability but somewhere we need to get at much much more than long drawn out trials of select individuals for select charges while the nation is bogged down and worked on by the whining RW outrage and "move on" specialists.

We need to get more of the truth out if we are ever to restore true confidence in our damaged system, even if that means some of the stooges get away from prison sentences(which in any event are unlikely and short).

If South Africa can accomplish so much, perhaps we can too and this qualifies as a national emergency especially once one of the big ones drops. Right now the Buss/Cheney team is using the CIA bums rush of blitz, infestation, implication and embedding so that you cannot pull out the weeds without pulling out the wheat. The main scenario for stopping them involves their defeat in some safe area or for one issue so that business can get back to "normal". That never was good enough and the last four years proves it.

[MSgt213]

11. There absolutely should be consequence of our actions in history books

not spin, but what did this particular act our government did cause.

[lapislzi]

13. You're not alone, FSC

The car is my place to cry also. It's a safe place reasonably away from other people. Then I compose myself before picking up my daughter and regurgitating a pre-digested version of events so that her 10-year-old mind won't do what my 40-year-old mind, with all its experience, is doing.

[fudge stripe cookays]

15. Be strong, lapis

I'm fortunate that I don't have children to have to put up a strong front before, but I bet it's really difficult.

I think back to when I was 10, and I could have had no conception that our government could put us in so much danger.

FSC

[EdGy]

3. so many americans are filled with fear and hatred

This is not just ignorance, it is a seething hatred and fear oozing out of the United States.

Think about what these people are saying.

The question is, why this fear and hatred and insecurity, in the country with the hugest military in history?

Part of it is the fanning of the flames by hate radio, Fox, and other right wing propaganda outlets.

Part of it though is deep within the American psyche, a psyche we must remember was formed in the genocide against Native Americans, the enslavement of Africans and African Americans, the expansion to take over first the American continent then the world, to destroy anything that did not and does not fit in with the narrow American understanding of the world, atrocities perpetrated around the globe in the name of the US.

The chickens are indeed coming home to roost.

[OKNancy]

5. Here is my pissed off list

1. don't know the difference between Iraq and Afghanistan
2. the difference between the Taliban and AL Queda
3. That Saddam had a secular government
4. that we are fighting the same Islamic nutballs that Saddam was
5. the position of women in Iraqi society

-----

Here is my topper. Last night we had a family dinner with my husband's mother, his brother and the brother's wife. Grandma is a right-winger, but even she was shocked at the prisoner abuse. My sister-in-law is a lawyer, and voted Bush, but now is against him. The kicker, she hadn't heard about Nick Berg and even stranger hadn't heard anything about the prisoner abuse. I had to fill her in. It's weird because my brother-in-law (banker) knew about it. I just can't imagine that they would talk about things like this to each other. When my husband gets home from his construction job, he says, "what happened in the world today?" I just can't imagine someone so out of touch like my sister-in-law.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

6. Add the difference between Bush and Kerry to that

We have our ignoramuses too.

[MSgt213]

14. I think there are more americans like your sister-in-law then there are

people who try to pay attention to stuff that really effects their lives.

[Tansy_Gold]

7. If you really want to understand how and why this happened ---

I recommend a couple of books. They are probably all out of print but might be available through a used bookstore or college library.

The Far Right, by Donald Janson & Bernard Eismann (C) 1963
Written long before the rise of Falwell and Robertson, before the Kennedy assassination, before the major build-up in Vietnam. Gives an amazing look into the techniques as well as the beliefs of what became the VRWC.

Knelman, F. H. Reagan, God, and the Bomb: From Myth to Policy in the Nuclear Arms Race. (c) 1985.

Lifton, Robert Jay, and Eric Markusen. The Genocidal Mentality: Nazi Holocaust and Nuclear Threat. (c) 1990.
Lifton is not a household name, but he is the one who developed the theory of post traumatic stress disorder.

Jorstad, Erling. The Politics of Doomsday: Fundamentalists of the Far Right. (c) 1970.

The Janson and Jorstad books are extremely illuminating, since they were written before the publicized rise of fundamentalism's involvement in U.S. politics.

Also, just about any of George Mosse's books on the rise of Hitler and the Nazi culture.

There aren't any sound bytes to explain this. For those who are accustomed to instant information and "just the facts," it may take a while to rehabituate yourselves to making the effort to read and comprehend and process large amounts of information. And I don't mean that as an insult: as the original poster said, he's appalled at the ignorance of so many people. Like *, too many Americans (and probably others, too) have become intellectually lazy.

Sadly, the leaders on the far right have not been lazy; they have been working for about the past 50 years with a clearly articulated plan. While the fundamentalists may be seeking the Rapture and the end of the world as we know it and really wouldn't mind a nuclear holocaust because it would bring on the End Days, many of the right wing politicians are more concerned with temporal power and are easily using the fundies to achieve very different goals.

Tansy Gold

[Hunter_1253]

8. The Ministry of Truth says...

Ignorance is Strength.

[ProfessorGAC]

9. Worse Yet: Replace "Woeful" With "Willful"

That's what galls me. People are ignorant and want to be! Being uneducated is sometimes based upon circumstances and upbringing. But, being educated and willfully ignorant is just plain wrong.
The Professor

[loftycity]

10. Celebrate their stupidity and show if off where ever they go.

It's corporate/fascism. Make lots of noise--they seem to do that really well. I'am so sick and tired of big trucks,turned around baseball caps, Nascar and "hey, I'm stupid and I'm in the club!" White trash nation. Media is a reflection of the people.

[blueknight]

12. it is really sad.....

america is looked at by the rest of the world as the harborer of the most indecent,aarogant,ignorant people in the world. people hate our guts.and its no ones fault but our own. we invade iraq,and kill thousands of innocent people, and then wonder why we are not well recieved.(even though 15 of the 911 terrorist were from saudi).this is just begining in iraq, it will continue for years to come unless we pull out.everyone in the arab world hates us(bacause of course,israel)and all this just made everything worse. i remember all the fuss and investigations and all the millions of taxpayer dollars wasted over a blowjob in the whitehouse,we only wish our problems were so miniscule now.

[loftycity]

17. True Blueknight so true. bring back the little problems.

[msmcghee]

16. I hear what you are saying - but respectfully disagree.

America is no more ignorant than most other western nations. Well, maybe a little.

But the problem is not our ignorance. It's always been difficult for large numbers of people to make rational decisions together - as in a democracy like ours. People in groups are far more ready to follow instinct and feed off of each others emotions. It takes some very responsible leadership to encourage citizens to take the path that might not feel as good but is probably the smarter approach to solve our problems. The first JFK and Bill Clinton were both good examples of this enlightened leadership. JFK didn't get the chance but Clinton showed dramatically what happens when reason, compassion and fairness are consciously inserted in to the governing process.

But these last few years have convinced me that a major weakness of our form of democracy is that good government requires that both parties retain a basic respect for the process. They can disagree all they want about policy - but they must both avoid the nuclear option, abandoning reason and appealing to the baser instincts in the electorate, the emotions that are always primed for exploitation. Instead, they have to seek the smarter choices, and try to convince the electorate that their analysis is the right one. When they do that, democracy works.

Unfortunately, the Republican party, after Nixon's humiliation, consciously begin moving over to the dark side of the process. Their credibility in shambles, it was the only path to power available to them.

Their transformation is now complete. They now know instinctively, that during times of stress and fear, as in after 9/11, the electorate is like a caged animal, waiting for any hint from leaders that it's OK to get crazy. For them, instead of a chance to learn and correct course, it was simply an opportunity to consolidate power.

Needless to say, Dubya, with his rants about evil-doers and his obstinate irrationality in the face of much better advice from career professionals in the military and intelligence community, has provided a lot more than a hint. He's thrown gasoline on the flames that 9/11 burned into our hearts. And he's done that for the worst reasons - because Karl Rove and Karen Hughes believe that's the sure path to power and a second term.

And we're here today in the rubble and destruction of our lost respect as a nation, with a huge new debt to be passed to our children instead of the large surplus that existed three years ago, watching our environment and our institutions of public support crumble. And all for one reason - because these simple concepts of human nature and governance are well beyond Dubya's ability or desire to understand the damage he has done and continues to do.

Or even worse, if he does have some glimmer of understanding about these things, it's because he believes his own pleasure, or perhaps his God's pleasure at having him play president for four more years, is worth it.