Australian TV via Cannonfire blog: Saddest. Video. Ever. About stupidity of Americans

[HamdenRice]

Sorry I can't post this in the video forum, because it is not hosted at YouTube and I am a video technical idiot. So I am citing to the Cannonfire blog and the video host.

Basically an Australian television show asked Americans -- seemingly most in Texas -- a series of questions about the world. Cannonfire summarizes a few answers:

http://www.cannonfire.blogspot.com/

<quote>

There is no hope

GO HERE NOW. Watch the video. Try not to turn away.

How many sides does a triangle have? "Four."

What is the religion of Israel? "Catholic."

Can you name a country that begins with the letter U? "Yugoslavia."

In the war on terror, what's the next country to invade? "Italy."

There is no hope. There is no hope. Never for one second think there is even the remotest possibility of hope. There is NO hope.

<end quote>

In addition, Americans were unable to say what state KFC chicken is named after -- even after being reminded that KFC stands for "Kentucky Fried Chicken."

They were not able to say what religion "Bhuddist Monks" practice.

They support the invasion of Italy as the next country in the war on terror.

They did not know who won the Vietnam War, nor whether the US was involved in that war.

They did not know what the "United Kingdom" is or what currency is used there.

They did not know what was the main religion of Israel.

They thought Tony Blair was an actor, or Linda Blair's brother.

They thought that the Axis of Evil consisted of New York, California, Florida, Mississippi and Jerusalem.

They thought that Hiroshima and Nagasaki are famous mostly for sumo wrestling.

They did not know what al Quaeda is.

They did not know what a "mosque" is.

They pointed to Australia on a map when asked to point out Iran and North Korea.

They did not know what city the "Berlin Wall" was in.

We DUers think that the public has examined the issues and decided rationally how to vote or what policies to support. That is not how it works.

To understand why 30 something percent of Americans still support George W. Bush, you really need to see this video.

http://www.shoutfile.com/v/gSfSsCpR/Why_People_Believe_Americans_Are_Stupid?rp=2

[seabeyond]

1. i had boys watch it. had quite a discussion on it. remember though, any correct answers

where not put on the video. they were only looking for the people that could not answer. al the ones that knew the answers were ignored.

perspective

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. That's the result of

1. Nearly fifty years of pop culture telling Americans that it's not cool to read or be interested in anything except what's being promoted right now in the MSM.

2. School systems that are concerned only with sports and test scores.

I do know what you're talking about. When I taught Japanese, the first order of business on the first day of class was to make sure that everyone knew where Japan is. A goodly percentage of the students couldn't find it on a world map.

[HamdenRice]

4. You are right about pop culture -- that's why I understand Xstian fundamentalism

It is so powerful and pervasive and stupid. I honestly understand the impulse, if not the prescription, of Christian fundamentalists, to somehow shut out this omnipotent force of dumbing down.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. The fundamentalists use pop culture very cleverly

They sing music that is indistinguishable from the worst of commercial pop except for the words, use big video screens for sing-alongs and PowerPoint presentations, and have preachers who act like corporate trainers.

They're perfect for suburbia.

[KoKo]

16. Great description, Lydia.

:thumbsup:

[seabeyond]

5. only with sports and test scores..... i am going to argue this.

it may be parents that dont take kids education seriously, therefore instilling in their child the responsibility to take advantage of the education offered to them. but to suggest schools are not interested in teaching child is wrong. it is a movement we are trying to blame on the schools, but having kids in the system for years, and different types of schools, i put the blame squarely and solely on the parents shoulders.

let me count the ways on the number of things my kids know at a very young age that i had no idea when i was their age. and kids are busting butts in schools, as are the teachers.... from our perspective. and.... my kids are doing well.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

8. Well, the program is interviews of people in Texas,

and the Texas schools are notorious for practices such as flunking promising athletes in eighth grade so that they'll be older and bigger when they start playing high school football.

[seabeyond]

10. my kids are in texas schools as we speak. i have spent the last

couple days in email communication with sons third grade teacher. son is learning summaries and writing paragraphs and using dictionaries.

even in texas.... it isnt the teachers, it is the parents.

i cannot brag on both boys schools enough. nor each and every one of their teachers. and again i say, they are learning more now than i did more than three decades ago in ariz and calif. the opportnity is there. some responsiblity has got to be placed on the student and parent

[NewJeffCT]

22. I agree with you on that

My cousin's husband is an elementary school teacher and (according to him) the students are learning things that are far more advanced & complex than when he was in elementary school 30+ years ago.

I do think a lot of it is the responsibility of the parent. But, these days, both parents often have to work a lot of hours just to make ends meet so there is often not enough time to help the children as much as they should help.

[seabeyond]

25. there are totally valid reasons.... reasons are just that.. not justification

not excuses. reasons parents are having a tough time.

schools are recognizing too. i see a couple things. not as much homework coming home because the parent has too hard a time doing it with the kid after getting home, dinner, laundry, homework, showers, tuck in.... and all the other stuff. i ask my sons teachers to send stuff. if it isnt par, send it home for redo... it is a positive experience for kids and i and doing it at home having different stuff given to them helps them more.... more flexible

also... tutoring in our school. it is available in language and math. my son is A but has a tough time getting it. he has been in math tutoring all year. i dont want him out. it is an ect.... i take and say thank you. some parents refuse and get pissed if kid is sent to tutoring. i appreciate and value

[NewJeffCT]

28. One of the differences...

My cousin's husband says that one of the differences he sees in elementary schools is that they almost always give homework now. Back when he was in school (and me as well), homework was almost unheard of in elementary schools (he's 43, and I'm 40) - even when I was in junior high/middle school, there was not much actual "homework" other than the occasional book report and some math problems.

[seabeyond]

30. again i agree. i think back too, and i cannot remember that much

elementary son always has spelling, multiplication cards and accelerated reading. we dont get the extra stuff. he has a fine motor skill deficit. bad. so we need the extra because he needs the extra practice bad. he had a rewrite paper on summary. it allowed me to get out the dictionary and explain the use and i already have a passion for it. i always pull it out when boys want a definition. i dont count on my interpretation. by the time i got done working with him one on one with this paper and another on cause and effect (3rd grade) with a martin luther king book he read,... he felt so proud with the neatness of the paper and as if he had accomplished something worthwhile. not to mention one on one time with me.

my oldest son and i had a lot more of that in private school. i realize last night my youngest and i haven't since i had put them in public school

for clarification

i took kids out of school for a couple reasons, but one of the biggest was academically i felt the public schools were better than private. and i have been proved correct, in our area anyway.

[Egnever]

15. Couldn't agree more.

I lay the blame squarely on the parents. My wife teaches 8th grade and the hoops she has to go through just to get the parents to take an active role in Their kids education is appalling. Of course the whole needing both parents incomes to survive does not help the situation whatsoever. I Bet if you were to look back at the decline of Education in this country and compared it to the percentage of families where both parents worked outside the home you would find an amazingly similar correlation.

Of course it doesn't help that teachers salaries most places are woefully inadequate. Why would someone want to go through all the trouble to get a masters degree only to earn 38k a year with it is beyond me. I can easily do as well bar tending and I could do that with little to no education.

[seabeyond]

24. there are al kinds of reasons. my posts arent to blame. blame does nothing

a parents own experiences in life, single parent, two working income family, parents ability to connect with child, parents own education, age of parent, how many kids, there are all kinds of reasons. little joe just may be average, god forbid even below average.

and i agree with teacher pay. i have simply had teachers that pull for my kids. and they love and appreciate me actually being on their side. that alones allows my kids to get more, fair or not... it is there, i see it. i had one teacher in oldest second grade NOT a good teacher. half way thru i realized it and quit blaming son. i took over the teaching after school so he would still continue to get what he needs. i dont know if it was the teacher, but could merely be her style that was so hard on son, may have been fine for the others.

[no_hypocrisy]

6. It's more than education per se with learning facts. Where

the schools have dropped the ball is using lessons to teach kids how to think critically and comprehend the implications behind their lessons.

And yes, the lack of reading is startling. I sub-taught 7th graders, using my usual variety of "vocabulary words" which I always thought were common usuage. One girl told me that the class couldn't understand me because I was using "smart words" and they weren't smart. And this was in an affluent (yes, white) public school.

[seabeyond]

9. my nieces and nephews say they dont understand me because i use

too big of words. disgusts me. my 9 yr old kicks ass on his vocabulary and my 11 year old is adult reading level. the kids that dont understand the words i use are also from a family that shuns books. and are proud of it. you know the colbert attitude of shunning books.

again, as i say in the post above.... it is the parents. and their job.

those parents that dont know this stuff, how helpful are they to their kids? not the teachers.

[Kindigger]

20. I've a friend who

used to have me help him with his community college English Comp papers. I refused to help any more after I wanted to put the name Abraham Lincoln as an example of something. He wouldn't do it, because "if he used the name he'd have to put in an explanation of who Abe Lincoln was and what he did, so the other students would understand the reference." (teacher's rules)

[HamdenRice]

33. Interesting -- but sometimes I think the exact opposite

My experience with the public schools in New York City is that they are too focused on "thinking" skills and not enough on knowledge -- kind of an over-reaction to the rote learning that my generation suffered through.

For example, 3rd and 4th graders start learning the fundamentals of algebra and critical thinking about math. But they haven't mastered the addition, subtraction, multiplication and division tables. In other words, there is a kind of "numbers sense" that you have to master through rote before you can learn a higher mathematical sense.

I also find that in social studies, they learn broad concepts but don't learn the actual countries, their geographies and so forth that give those concepts meaning. Or they learn big historical concepts, but not dates.

Kids can tell you about, for example, the broad concept of civil rights, but have no conception of the passage of time, based on dates in history, that enable them to judge when, say, the Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow and the Civil Rights movement actually took place.

[hobbit709]

3. Recently 40% of high school seniors polled

couldn't place the United States correctly on an outline map of the continents.

[Robbien]

11. That video has reached the far corners of the planet

I read a blog from Somalia where the people were discussing the video. They believed it represented the majority of Americans.

From some of the answers Jay Leno gets when he goes out to question the man on the street, it does seem the video is representative of a certain portion of our population.

[HamdenRice]

34. Any links?

I would love to see how people in other countries reacted to this. If you have any links, I would really appreciate it.

[Robbien]

37. Sure, I'll pm you with it

I don't want to lead any lurking freepers to the blog. They have a bad enough impression of us without sending freepers over there.

[KansDem]

12. "They pointed to Australia on a map when asked to point out Iran and North Korea."

I saw the video: didn't the interviewer "incorrectly" mark Australia as "North Korea" and "Iran?" I think he wanted to see if the Americans interviewed would see the mistake. After all, Australia is a continent that we all should know about. The fact that it was mislabeled and these individuals didn't see that shows their ignorance.

[HamdenRice]

32. It was only marginally unfair

Yes, they mislabeled Australia to make a point to their Australian audience.

But an intelligent person would have said, "um, you've mislabeled Australia as North Korea."

[crispini]

Oh yes, it's awful

But bear in mind that anybody who gave an intelligent answer to the question did not get on that tape.

[treestar]

13. If they are so dumb they don't know what Al Qaeda is, I wonder

who they think the war on terra is against?

[IWantAChange]

14. I'm surprised Dubyha's #'s aren't higher to be honest with you.

As our education system slips further and further behind the rest of the world I'm wondering how we will compete.

[BlooInBloo]

17. Ex stupid, stupid fit.

[NewJeffCT]

18. I bet if I asked enough Australians similar questions

I could get some pretty dumb answers, too. The people that answered correctly get cut from the video.

The same with any country in the world.

I'm not saying America is perfect, but if you ask enough people, you're bound to get dumb answers. (I still remember Howard Stern asking Tori "My dad is a billionaire" Spelling what the capitol of New York was, and her answer was, "New Jersey")

[spoony]

35. Precisely

They aren't trying to find correct answers; they're trying to find funny ones. It's certainly not enough to condemn the intelligence of average Americans, after all things have been changing for the better, albeit slowly.

[HamdenRice]

36. From my foreign travels, I would doubt it's the same level

I lived in Africa for a while and I was amazed that your typical poor township kid in Soweto could ask really detailed, knowledgeable, penetrating questions about American politics.

On the other hand, South African college students I met who had done exchange programs in the US told me that the number one question they were asked in America, especially if they went to a southern college, was, "did you have to change out of your 'animal skins' and buy 'regular clothes' at the airport?" I kid you not. That was the single most common question African students were asked in American colleges.

Obviously this is an edited selection of especially stupid people, but America has a far bigger percentage of utterly clueless people than most countries, including countries that are much poorer than ours.

I would guess that the stupidity in this video represents about 30% of the American public -- and probably the same 30% that still support George W. Bush.

[NewJeffCT]

38. One thing that is a problem here -

is that the news media - TV, radio & print - is very USA-focused. Unless a major event happens elsewhere in the world (the tsunami, the Russian schoolchildren getting killed, plane crash, etc) it rarely gets any sort of coverage outside the NY Times. Some larger newspapers might have a column of blurbs on world events, but not much more than that.

While every country's news media rightly focuses on their own country first, I'm guessing that in most other places, they give you a rundown of world events every day, and not just the latest plane crash or natural disaster.

[Egnever]

19. Not that there aren't a lot of Ignorant americans out there

Shows like Street smarts should be all the horrifying evidence that you need of that. But these guys seemed to have to go to the same wells over and over. Theres like 4 people replying with the majority of those answers.

Theres no doubt that the american people are woefully misinformed for the most part. I don't think this video however is so great at pointing that out. ask enough people the same question and you are bound to get wrong answers eventually. This video appears to have found a few stupid people and asked them as many questions as they could to point out their stupidity.

[Kindigger]

21. Countries that begin with U

The first one that popped in my head was Uzbekistan. What does that say about me? :crazy:

[NewJeffCT]

23. you must be

one of them pointy-headed liberal elitist inta-lexuals who lives in an ivory tower...

[seabeyond]

26. uganda was mine, lol. n/t

[Arkansas Granny]

27. My first thought was Uruguay.

[EstimatedProphet]

29. It says that you watched Borat

Cuz I thought of that too!

[HamdenRice]

31. LOL! That was an unfair question!

I kept thinking Uruguay and Uganda. It wasn't till the interviewer pointed it out that I thought about the United States of America.

I think that's a culturally biased question because Americans tend to think of their country as "America" first, not as the "United States."

But at least I could think of a country that really did begin with U.

[Ganja Ninja]

39. Exactly. They film all day or all week and then take the dumbest

examples and put them all together. We don't have any idea how many people he had to ask to find all those dummies. That's not to say they aren't plentiful but it's not a "fair & balanced" representation of Americans.

[HamdenRice]

40. It's a fair and balanced cross section of ...

American who watch Fox news from the ones I've met.

[Downtown Hound]

41. This video was painful to watch

But as others have pointed out, this is the worst of the worst that they're showing here. They never show anyone answering the questions correctly and they often show the same people over and over again. There are morons all over the world, not just here, and not just in Texas. However the level of ignorance among Americans is appallingly high.

[MrSlayer]

42. Christ, even the Aussies are robbing Howard Stern.

Stern invented this whole format. And you know they never put the people who got the answers right on there, only the idiots. It's kind of a cheap shot really.

[EstimatedProphet]

43. Big problem with this

The commentary said that the video showed most Americans don't know a thing about the world.

Is that really true? Did they interview most Americans?

How many people were edited out?

I don't have any problem with constructive criticism. A lot of the people shown on the video were stupid, clearly. America needs to be more knowledgeable about the rest of the world. However, this was just an excuse to beat up on Americans.