Happy Anniversary, America! How Lethally Stupid Can One Country Be?
Watching George W. Bush in operation these last couple of weeks is like having an out-of-body experience. On acid. During a nightmare. In a different galaxy.
As he presides over the latest disaster of his administration, (No, it’s not a terrorist attack - that was 2001! No, it’s not a catastrophic war - that was 2003! No, it’s not a drowning city - that was 2005! This one is an economic meltdown, ladies and gentlemen!) bringing to it the same blithe disengagement with which he’s attended the previous ones, you cannot but stop and gaze in stark, comedic awe, realizing that the most powerful polity that ever existed on the planet twice picked this imbecilic buffoon as its leader, from among 300 million other choices. Seeing him clown with the Washington press corps yet once again - and seeing them fawn over him, laugh in all the right places, and give him a standing ovation, also yet once again - is the equivalent of having all your logic circuits blown simultaneously. Truly, the universe has a twisted and deeply ironic sense of humor. Monty Python is about as funny - and as stiff - as Dick Nixon, by comparison.
It’s simply incomprehensible. It’s not so astonishing, of course, that a country could have a bad leader whose aims are nefarious on the occasions when they are competent enough to rise to that level of intentionality. Plenty of countries have managed that feat, especially when - as was the case with Bush - every sort of scam is employed to steal power, and then pure corruption and intimidation used to keep it. History is quite littered indeed with bimbos and petty criminals of this caliber. What is harder to explain is how a country of such remarkable achievements in other domains, and with the capacity to choose, and in the twenty-first century no less, allows this to happen. And then stands by silently watching for eight years as the tragedy unfolds before their eyes, all 600 million of them, hardly any of them even blinking.
And so, remarkably, as we mark now the fifth anniversary of the very most tragic of these debacles, the most destructive and the most shameful - because it was the most avoidable - the sad question of the hour is less what is to be done about it than will anyone even notice? Not likely. And not for very long if they do. And, most of all, definitely not enough so as to take meaningful action to bring it to an end, even at this absurdly late date.
But let’s give credit where credit is due. This is precisely by design. This is exactly the outcome intended by the greatest propaganda-promulgating regime since Hermann Göring set fire to the Reichstag. It was Göring himself who famously reminded us that, “Naturally the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. …Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
Sure worked in Germany. And it worked even better here, because these guys were so absolutely careful to avoid exposing the costs of their war to those who could demand its end. For example, by some counts, there are more mercenaries fighting in Iraq, at extremely high cost, than there are US military personnel. There’s only one reason for that. If the administration implemented the draft that is actually necessary to supply this war with adequate personnel, the public would end both the war and the careers of its sponsors, post haste. For the same reason, this is the first American war ever which has not only not been accompanied by a tax increase, but has in fact witnessed a tax cut. Likewise - to ‘preserve the dignity’ of the dead, of course - you are no longer permitted to see photographs of flag-draped caskets returning to Dover Air Force Base. And the press are embedded with forces who are also responsible for their safety, which is just a fancy way of saying that they’re so censored they make Pravda look good. It is, in short, quite easy for average Americans to get through their day, every day, without the war impacting their lives in any visible respect, and that is precisely what hundreds of millions of us are doing, week in and week out. All of this is courtesy of an administration that couldn’t run a governmental program to save its own life - but, boy, they sure as hell know how to market stuff.
So perhaps there is no excuse, after all, for my naïveté, for my credulousness in wanting to believe that twenty-first century America might be different enough not to follow the smallest of men - a personal failure and a 40-year drunkard who, unlike Herr Göring’s führer, couldn’t even claim charismatic eloquence as the sole virtue accounting for his power - to follow such a petulant child off the deep end of a completely unjustified war. Perhaps Americans and American democracy are no wiser or better than any other people or political system, even today, even after the worst century of warfare in human history, even after the mirror-image experience of Vietnam. Maybe the experience of Iraq hasn’t even changed them, and they’ll once again follow like lemmings when led to war by pathetic creatures such as George W. Bush, fifty years from now. Or five years from now. Or even five months from now, as the creature d.b.a Dick Cheney tees up a confrontation with Iran in order keep Democrats out of the White House, and himself out of jail.
Sure, presidents and prime ministers, no less than kings and führers, will lie their countries into war. Sure, they’re very good at it, and getting better all the time. Definitely a frightened people are more prone to stupidity than those lucky enough to contemplate in the luxury of quiet safety. Without question, it helps an awful lot - if you’re just Joe Sixpack, out there trying to figure out international politics in-between a long day’s work, helping the kids with their algebra homework, and the Yankee game - to have a checking-and-balancing Congress, a responsible opposition party, and/or a critical media helping you to understand the issues accurately, rather than gleefully capitulating to executive power at every opportunity. But that by no means excuses a public who were fundamentally far more lazy than they were ignorant or confused. And lazy is one thing when you’re talking about a highway bill or even national healthcare. But when it comes to war, lazy is murder.
I don’t think it took a giant leap of logic to understand that this war was bogus from the beginning, even based on what was known at the time. The war was sold on three basic arguments, each of which could have been easily dismantled even then with a little thoughtful consideration.
The first was WMD, of course. So, okay, perhaps your average American didn’t know that the United States government (including many in the current administration) had actually once supplied Saddam Hussein the material to make these evil weapons, and had covered for him at the UN and elsewhere when he used them. Although this historical myopia is very much part of the problem, of course. Americans are so ready to denounce supposed enemies without doing the slightest bit of historical homework to become acquainted with the slightest bit of history to make sense of the situation. If you don’t know that the US actually canceled elections and helped assassinate a ‘democratic’ president in Vietnam, of course you’re going to support war there. If you don’t know that the US toppled a democratically elected Iranian government to steal the country’s oil and then installed a brutal dictatorship in its place, of course you’re going to be angry at US diplomats being held hostage. And if you don’t bother to learn the true history of Iraq, perhaps you’ll find the WMD argument quite persuasive.
But, in fact, even without the historical background information, it never made a damn bit of sense. Iraq had been pulverized by war and sanctions for over twenty years prior to 2003. Two-thirds of its airspace was controlled by foreign militaries. Its northern region was effectively autonomous, a separate country in all but name. It was in no position to attack anyone. Moreover, it hadn’t attacked anyone - not the United States or anyone else. Indeed, it hadn’t even threatened to attack anyone. Shouldn’t that be part of the calculation in determining whether to go to war? Do we really want to give carte blanche to any dry (we hope) drunkard in the White House who today wants to bomb Norway (”They’re stealing our fish!”), or tomorrow wants to invade Burkina Faso (”They dress funny!”)?
Too often, of course, the historical answer to that question has unfortunately been yes, we apparently do want to do that. But let’s consider the massive warning signs in this case, even apart from what could be known about the administration’s lies at the time. Shouldn’t it have been enormously problematic that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11? Even the administration never had the gall to make that claim. Wasn’t it transparent to anyone that America had plenty on its plate already in dealing with the enemy we were told we had, rather than adding a new adventure to the pile? And why wasn’t this thing selling throughout the world, or even amongst the traitorous half of the Democratic Party in Congress? Remember how everyone at home and abroad - yes, including the French - supported the US and its military actions in Afghanistan only twelve months before? Shouldn’t it have been a warning sign of epic proportions that these same folks wouldn’t countenance a war in Iraq just a year later? That the administration had to yank its Security Council resolution off the table, even after breaking both the arms of every member-state around the horseshoe table, because it could still only get Britain and two other patsies to lie down for this outrage, out of a total of fifteen, and nine needed to pass?
And how about the logic of that whole WMD thing, after all? Did anyone ever stop to think that several dozen other countries have WMD, including some that are pretty hostile to the United States? Did anyone not remember that the Soviets once had nearly 25,000 strategic nuclear warheads pointed in our direction? What ever happened to the logic of deterrence? To mutually assured destruction? And what about the mad rush to go to war, preempting the UN weapons inspectors from doing their job? Are we really okay with the notion that instead of ‘risking’ whatever would have been at risk by giving the inspectors another six or eight weeks to finish up, we’ve instead bought this devastating war down on our own heads for no reason at all? If you stop to think about it, it makes you shudder. Which I guess explains why not too many people stop to think about it.
The second rationale for war was the bogus linkage between Iraq and al Qaeda. The extent and ramifications of this lie are so significant that the White House, it was just recently revealed, squelched a Pentagon report showing no connections between the two. Is this sort of censorship what the Bush administration means by democracy, the remedy it’s always preaching for the rest of the world but never practicing at home? Anyhow, remember how definitive Cheney and the rest were of this supposed al Qaeda linkage, based pretty much entirely on a meeting between two operatives in Prague which likely didn’t even take place? Now we find out that the Department of Defense has spent the last five years combing through a mere 600,000 documents, and found zero evidence of such a link. Not some evidence. Not mixed evidence. Zero evidence.
But you could tell even then that they had almost nothing to go on. Christ, the United States government itself has had far more interactions with al Qaeda - including helping to build the beast from its inception - than one disputed meeting between two spooks in Prague. Doesn’t it seem that a decision to go to war should hang on more than a single thread like that, let alone a narrow and tattered one? And how many of us are down for attacking any country right now that might have had a single meeting between a low-level functionary and an al Qaeda representative?
Then, once again, there’s the matter of that whole pesky logic thing. Pay attention now, class. What do we know about al Qaeda? They are devoted to religious war - jihad - in the name of replacing governments across the Middle East with theocracies, or better yet recreating the old Islamic caliphate stretching across the region, right? Right. Now if this vision could have more thoroughly contradicted Saddam’s agenda for a secular dictatorship seeking regional domination on his own Stalinist terms, it is hard to imagine how. You don’t need a PhD in international politics to see that these two actors were about as antithetical to each other as the Republican Party is to integrity. Then again, even having one doesn’t necessarily mean you have the foggiest clue about what’s going on in the world, as Condoleezza Rice clearly demonstrated by brilliantly failing to anticipate that Hamas would win elections she had pushed the Palestinians to hold. For someone serving as secretary of state, this idiocy is the rough equivalent of anyone else being shocked when a dropped bowling ball hurtles to the ground, because they’re not yet fully acquainted with the concept of gravity. Evidently, in Texas this is what they call ‘credentials’.
Lastly, Bush’s little adventure in Mesopotamia was supposed to bring democracy to the region, remember? Never mind, of course, that there has long already been a fairly thriving Islamic democracy, right next door. Oops! It’s called Turkey. And let’s not forget Mr. Bush’s long-standing devotion to democracy, as he amply demonstrated in the American election of 2000. Or as he has continually manifested by bravely and publicly pushing the Chinese to democratize. Just as he has with his pals in Egypt and especially the family friends running Saudi Arabia, the recipient of more American foreign aid than nearly any other country in all the world. And let’s not forget the several hundred thousand perished souls from Darfur, whom this great champion of human rights has fought valiantly to keep alive by… by… well, I’m sure he’s done a lot behind the scenes. Sure is gonna be hard for them to exercise their precious right to vote from the next world, eh?
What is clear is that the reasons given to the American public for the war in Iraq were entirely bogus. This much is already on the public record, from the Downing Street Memos and beyond. Even if we can only speculate on why they actually invaded - oil, glory, personal insecurity, Israel, clobbering Democrats, Middle Eastern dominance - what we know for sure is that the rationale fed to the public was a knowingly fabricated pack of scummy lies. It wasn’t about WMD, it wasn’t about links to al Qaeda, and it sure wasn’t about democracy.
But even if we can’t identify the true motivations within the administration for invading, we can surely begin to see the costs. Probably a million Iraqi civilians are dead. Over four million are displaced and now living as refugees. Together, these equal a staggering one-fifth of the population of the entire country. Meanwhile, the remaining four-fifths are living in squalor, fear and a psychological damage so extensive that it is hard to grasp. America has lost 4,000 soldiers, with perhaps another 30,000 gravely wounded. Hundreds of thousands more will be scarred for life from their experiences in the hell of Mr. Bush’s war. Our military is broken and incapable of responding to a real emergency, at home or abroad. Our economy will sustain a blow of perhaps three trillion dollars before it is all said and done. Our reputation in the world is in the toilet. We have turned the Iranian theocracy into a regional hegemon. And we have massively proliferated our own enemies within the Islamic community. That would be one hell of an expensive war, even if the reasons given for it were legitimate. It is nearly incomprehensible considering that they were not.
This week, a man died in France, the last surviving veteran of World War I, a devastating conflict that - even a century later - nobody can still really explain to this day. Meanwhile, Dick Cheney, John McCain and Joe “Make-me-SecDef-Mac-oh-please-pick-me-Mac” Lieberman parachuted into Iraq for photo-ops to sustain the war they don’t have the integrity or the guts to abandon. Never mind that their visits had to be by surprise, and that they stroll around the Green Zone wearing armored vests - surely the most powerful measures of the war’s success imaginable. Of course, to be fair, we’ve only been at it for five years now. Perhaps after the remaining ninety-five on McCain’s agenda go by, Americans will finally be safe enough in Iraq to announce their visits in advance.
So, Happy Anniversary, America! You put these people in charge, and then - after seeing in explicit in detail what they were capable of - you actually did it again in 2004! You stood by in silence watching the devastation wrought upon an innocent people, produced in your name and financed by your tax dollars. And you continue to do just that again, now in Year Six.
Brilliant! Put on your party hat, America. You won the prize.
You’ve successfully answered the musical question, “How lethally stupid can one country be?”
David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York. He is delighted to receive readers’ reactions to his articles (dmg@regressiveantidote.net), but regrets that time constraints do not always allow him to respond. More of his work can be found at his website, www.regressiveantidote.net.
it was this country’s passive acceptance of the outcome of the 2000 election that set the table for everything that followed. seeing that, why should cheney and the neocons have felt the least hesitation at anything their fevered imaginations could conjure?
This guy has a bad attitude. He’s going to get in trouble.
Again, I doubt that 10% of Americans have the patience, the interest or the reading skills to make it through five paragraphs of this article. Maybe that’s why they don’t know anything.
Should ignorance be tolerated? At Nuremberg, the excuse of following orders was rejected as an alibi for war crimes. I would like to see ignorance so rejected as an acceptable excuse for criminality. I am not in favor of literacy tests for voters, but I think that, somehow, ignorance should be a crime that is prosecuted and that the offender should be forcibly rehabilitated.
How did Americans become so ignorant? Television and public education are the problems. All the propaganda of the forty-year raging drug war can be adapted to explain to you how Americans became so ignorant. Just replace “drugs” with “television.” Yes, it is television that rips at the fabric of our nation and has such a devastating effect on our communities; television enslaves the mind and destroys the soul.
The invasion of america started before 911. That was just the day of total victory and take over of the american Gov. From BS elections to the three stooges that are running for prez since. Wake up people, I think it is to late the life boats are almost full.
It took them years to get the right people in the right place and then knock over some office buildings. The USA invasion was over before the first brick hit the ground. Total complete victory over america and only 3000 people got killed, that has to be a record.
The picture is indeed apocalyptic, but there you have it. 600 million lemmings jumping into the sea. Why do we do it? Why do whales beach themselves? Economic suicide. Death by imaginary money. Except for the pain of it, it is good news. Like Mongol hordes who run out of grassland, Americans will run out of capital. History has put a pistol on the table, and to her credit America has picked it up and done the right thing. It is the merciful and happy side of Darwinism that freaks and misfits do not last long. Sunday they will celebrate the Resurrection down at the Pascua Yaqui village. Has anyone else noticed that native Americans are looking more cheerful than usual lately?
Bush’s legacy will include setting up the USA for another round of economic shock therapy. He couldn’t get his privatization of social security through, but his successors will do it out of necessity. There will be no new medical insurance program, despite what Obama and Clinton say now. Bush has hollowed out the US government, and that doesn’t give his successors much to work with. In sum, his legacy is assured.
(rubbing temples) Okay…I just got done reading the Dean column and then again had to read how stupid the U.S. electorate is. Why are we an audience to this? We can choose to ignore what happened in Florida of 2000 and Ohio of 2004 at our own expense and continue hating each other for how dumb we all are. We can choose to ignore this country’s astonishing, unprecedented level of imprisonment and the fact that a considerable portion of convicted felons are disenfranchised from voting, therefore to continue hating each other for how dumb we are. We can ignore the fact that a two-party system has financially isolated any third party candidate from a realistic chance of having an equal representative opportunity to share their views, so we can continue hating each other for how dumb we are. And do I even need to go into the flaws of the electoral college or electronic voting machines?
Why I have to mention these basic details on Common Dreams is beyond my comprehension. My views have been influenced from checking this site daily and I don’t see why we nod along when a columnist adopts viewpoints that chastise the populace for their idiocy. We have to have some degree of individual and collective dignity to see the better world we want to live in.
Goring’s quote above is useful but doesn’t have to serve as a historical absolute. We can become the leaders we want to see and if enough people strive for higher personal and societal standards, we can achieve these possibilities. History is full of people shifting reality into their dreams.
Some quotes to end on. Interpret them as you may.
“Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.” Jean-Paul Satre
“Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.”
Mark Twain
“The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them.”
Albert Einstein
“The future will only contain what we put into it now.”
May 1968 graffiti in France.
zoya-I believe social security as we know it is here to stay. The public soundly rejected Bush’s ideas. Too many ‘boomers’ like myself will not let it happen. Of course some kind of trimming of SS expenditures will occur. With our incredible national debt, severe changes must happen with medicare, military and taxes.
Don’t forget the Republican all-out embrace of the Jesus industry. The sheep always obey the shepherd.
I really don’t think the public is dumb. Very uninformed, yes!!!! This is what happens when the corporate sponsors of a fascist state have total control of the MSM. Starting in the 70’s as the MSM got bought up by Black and other moguls who paid our Congress to let the ownership rules favor concentration of media, the knowledge available to average citizens declined proportionately.
Many people are not really stupid, they are ignorant. They are capable of learning but they simply
don’t want to learn. They are happy to let Limbaugh and Fox news tell them what to think. If it’s
on Fox news, it must be true.
“The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them.”
Albert Einstein
If that’s the case, we’re in trouble. And let’s be honest, democracy, even when practiced properly, does not always result in good governance. Elections brought Hitler to power in 1932, returned Bush to power in 2004 and have benefited small-minded, sectarian parties in the Middle East and elsewhere. Democracy is the best form of government because ultimately the people cannot squirm out from under the responsibility for the government they put in place. A lousy king can be blamed on genetics, or a military dictator on the army that brought him into power, but mismanagement in a democratic society can be traced back to the ballot box, and ultimately the culture of those who pulled the lever. “When you elect a madman, you should expect madness” as the old saying goes, but a more honest statement would be “A culture of madness will produce madmen.”
‘and then stands by silently watching for 8 years as the tragedy unfolds before their eyes, all 600 million of them, hardly any of them even blinking’. they only blink when the commercials come on…………
If corporations put the energy they spend for selling soap into educating the public, we would all be geniuses. But then we wouldn’t buy their soap.
We need soap. We don;t need greedy corporations.
Ah yes, the remarkable achievements of the USA. How could such a great country fall to such depths. Ok. What remarkable achievements? Is it remarkable to use superiority of weaponry from europe to kill off a poorly armed native population? Is it a remarkable achievement to use slaves to make money from the stolen land? How remarkable is it to plunder whatever unarmed people one can find as with Hawaii, the Phillipines, and Latin America? Was it a great achievement to build a society on the backs of the poor who emmigrated to this country? Was it an achievement to rob Mexico of one third of its land or to support dictatorships that helped make Americans richer? A mafioso does just as well in remarkably achieveing wealth. When the world’s industrial nations were destroyed by world war II the US was left without competition. This is an achievement? I call it luck.
The US is remarkable only for its music and sport, courtesy of the descendants of slaves who needed to express their sorrow (I’ve been down so long even the air I breathe it feels like its been used.). The rest is just wealth, stolen wealth, that impressed all the poor of the world
I remember how depressed and ashamed I was on the eve of this war.
It’s easy, because I still am.
I like this Einstein quote better:
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the the universe.”
… Albert Einstien
I already knew the stuff in the article. But this is one of the best summaries I have read. Im gonna keep a copy of this.
Davod Micael Green, Thank you for speaking my mind so profoundly.
david michael green, if you aren’t, you should be editor of common dreams. you should also write daily articles. no one else comes close.
it’s not that they’re frightened. they are, quite simply, just plain stupid. sorry to disagree, curmudgeon99 and rudyjo. having spent 7 years in the retail arena, 6 of those during this current asshole’s administration, watching 4,000 - 12,000 people per month on average come thru my front doors, i can assure you, and anyone else here, that the majority of those people were/are so fucking stupid that it hurts. many of those morons couldn’t learn even if they possessed a brain. even in our own midst, just try to read, and comprehend, riverman.
This is what happens when people get “educated” in church instead of schools. Oh, and toss in a controlled media. People have just become so lazy that they don’t want to exercise, read or even think for themselves. When they wake up, it will be too late - they’ll be overweight and undereducated, just the way the gov’t and corporations want us - easy to control.
“Watching George W. Bush in operation these last couple of weeks is like having an out-of-body experience. On acid. During a nightmare. In a different galaxy.”
And, yet, a recent USA/Gallop poll claims 76% of Republicans - 41 million fellow Americans - still support the acid nightmare.
How the hell did they get here from that different galaxy?
This article reminds me of Aldous Huxley’s 1958 book ‘Brave New World Revisited.’ He spent much of his book talking about how Hitler and his henchmen deprived an entire country of intelligent thought. He even quoted the same passage from Goering.
But he was extremely pessimistic about the future, and his only solution was what he called “Educating for freedom,” which was mainly about people taking responsibility for learning the truth themselves, as it is extremely naive to believe that anyone can be trusted to spoon feed us the truth.
Fast forward 50 years since he wrote his book, and in America all his worst fears are being realized. Between obedience-based education, mind-numbing television, pharmaceutical drugs like prozac, and now facing an economic collapse, we are a nation designed for decades and now primed for authoritarianism. America, land of the free and home of the brave? What a joke. Most people can’t even comprehend the value of liberty and are decidedly cowardly unless they are carrying an AR-15.
He observed that Hitler never realized his vision, but thought that technology and other factors would conspire to make a Hilter-type vision of world authoritarianism all but inevitable in the future. Ironically, he said that when fascism comes to the West, it would come in the name of freedom. How prescient.
Far too wordy.
I always get a laugh when people compare themselves to people on Jay Leno’s show “Jay Walking” and Jeff Foxworthy’s gameshow “Are you Smarter Than a Fifth-Grader?” Yes, indeed, excellent benchmarks for measuring one’s intelligence.
Green is right.
The American electorate is simply too lazy, greedy and willfully ignorant to govern themselves.
We are in the mess we find ourselves in because we deserve it.
The world we be a far safer and more decent place when the US and it’s war mongering brand of hyper-consumerist capitalism finally collapses.
As an American and a veteran I can only wish a speedy good riddance to the USA.
I’m afraid that the majority of voting Americans will again elect(?) a president who looks familiar to them and John McCain looks very familiar. We couldn’t believe it when Bush won(?) in 2004, but I will be very surprised if we see a turn around in judgment in 2008. I hope I’m wrong.
The ballot in one hand sure as hell hasn’t worked; the only viable solution left is to use the Armalite in the other.
The trouble is that despite everything 1/3 of Americans still think Bush is doing a swell job, and the other 2/3 are too busy obsessing over who will be publicly humiliated on ‘American Idol’ or ‘Survivor’ next week.
Yeah; “lethally stupid” doesn’t even begin to cover it.
This is a great article, but let’s not put too much of the blame on the American people, who never gave these clowns either an electoral-college or popular majority — not in 2000, as everybody knows, nor in 2004, as a lot of people have known but the mainstream media will never tell you. This doesn’t absolve Americans for the sin of complacency after the fact, but be let’s clear about the nature of the beast: right now we have an American government run by an unelected criminal gang.
The theft of the 2004 popular vote is incontrovertibly documented in, for example, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1583226877/ref=cm_arms_pdp_dp
M-B: Right on!
CULICOMORPHA: Excellent post!
Before I read the comments after Greene’s article, I pondered the rhetorical question(s) he raised. One thing that’s altered the historical landscape in the past 50 years or so is television. For the first time in hundreds of years, a voice outside that of the family was heard–indeed became a virtual PRESENCE–in the home. The power film holds over imagination and maintaining an audience’s rapt attention (who can be sure what brain waves are fed on this medium?), added to the hypnotic power of TV, leads a great many to a habit of passivity. Ours is for the most part a nation that of late has become COMFORTABLE, and when people are comfortable, there is no onus to act.
Clearly the disrupted weather systems, added to exported jobs with increased costs on every day items, will make many alarm bells go off.
It is true that in the ultimate sense the RESPONSIBILITY for learning must come from the self. Still, it does a society no good when its elite forces prefer to keep members stupid, numb, or intellectually comotose through a variety of tactics. Some of these are smoke and mirror type media events, but increasingly, actual chemical mood modifiers, both taken in passively through our compromised water, and directly, through anti-depressants and its cousins are impacting the public in adverise ways.
“Again, I doubt that 10% of Americans have the patience, the interest or the reading skills to make it through five paragraphs of this article. Maybe that’s why they don’t know anything.”
I am just honored to be among this intellectual elite. And if our children lack in reading skills perhaps we should look no further than the mirror.
I would suggest that we acknowledge our own contributions to this mess and if you think its only “them” thats causing the problem, you need to rethink your position.
I am sick of this blame someone mindset. How about what do we do now instead of beating a dead horse.
It’s not called the “White House” for nothing. I hope the U.S. is not too backward to put a man of color, Obama, in the White House. Maybe if we rename it the “President’s House” it might be a positive thing.
I’ll vote for Obama even though I think he’s too far to the right to suit me. I wouldn’t even consider war hawk Hillary. If she gets the nomination, I’ll vote Green. My 1st choice was Kucinich. It’s a shame we only have two parties which are two sides of the same coin.
“Watching George W. Bush in operation these last couple of weeks is like having an out-of-body experience. On acid. During a nightmare. In a different galaxy.”
That’s one “slam dunk” opening sentence Mr. Green and begs the question, does anyone know of an asylum for the sane? I want to check in, soon, please.
Thomas wrote: :I am sick of this blame someone mindset. How about what do we do now instead of beating a dead horse.”
Maybe put a question mark after your sentence.
Truly a wonderful opening line. I can quibble with the statement:”Moreover, it hadn’t attacked anyone - not the United States or anyone else. Indeed, it hadn’t even threatened to attack anyone” as it is a bit misleading (the First Gulf War - which was done with permission of course - or does anyone remember that?). Beyond this i also quibble with “Meanwhile, Dick Cheney, John McCain and Joe “Make-me-SecDef-Mac-oh-please-pick-me-Mac” Lieberman parachuted into Iraq for photo-ops to sustain the war they don’t have the integrity or the guts to abandon”. McCain is rational enough to say you make a mess, you clean it up. He also was of the opinion not to make the mess in the first place. Can someone say the same with the Democrat contenders? When the rhetoric for war came up long ago, I played “Eve of Destruction” over and over again. A truly appropriate song. As to statements regarding the intelligence of the population, I can add this. My brother went to university in the 90’s - taking degrees in history and English. He could not affford the abhorant cost of books, so he used what was at hand. He graduated an honours student (the reward being, work as a security guard). The book he used “All the Boy’s History”. was written for a six year old, circa 1962, So a book on history for a 6 year old in 1962 is good enough for university in 1996.. Doesn’t that make you think? Too bad Mr. Bush and his cronies had not even read that one.
Great article..fun to read.
I don’t believe the American people to are blame…they voted a lot of Repubs out the last Congressional election…the Dems had a deaf ear immediately to what the people wanted.
I am a disenchanted Repub, I won’t vote Republican. I cannt in good conscience vote for a man who supports Bush policies, or one that cannot keep countries straight. I don’t need that confusion entering in on the 3am phone call….bomb ‘em…er…Iraq? Iran? Iowa?
I won’t vote for Hillary. She is a part of the club…left wing of the Repubs.
Obama….we shall see. The Wright issue didn’t phase me and he did make an eloquent speech and gave his views. The question is, how much of the left of the Repub is he?
Nadar is the most honest of the whole bunch, but he can’t make it remotely.
I don’t care for the Green candidate.
Maybe I will write Ron Paul in….
It is still up in the air…
Ghawar
Actually, you are the dangerous one. Who decides what ignorance in and who decides the punishment?
The Repubs think the Dems are ignorant, and vice versa…other opinions are deemed ignorant….
Every heard the term…ignorance is bliss.
I think people are in a panic over the economy, gas prices and food prices, education, etc….it is hard to bridge the corruption gap and understand the deeper implications and follow the paper trail/money trail….the media is no help…all propaganda. Some where between trying to survive and keep up with levels of utterly baffling tyranny and corruption are more than most people can filter.
No…we don’t need someone determining who is ignorant and who is not….and prosecuting it.
You have dangerous thoughts that remove rights and freedoms.
Yesterday I wrote the following to my friend:
“Just got back from a peace demonstration. It was about 2000 people, very spirited, but the numbers are so disappointing. There were more people at the farmers’ market buying onions. I felt like giving up on the passive, spoiled, lazy, consumer minded people in this country. But then again, that’s too easy.
Seeing our peace signs, lots of people said nice things to us on the way home. But do one BUTT MOVING thing. NOOOOO. Wait ’til we have fascism. That’ll larn ‘em.
[…]
I infer from so many clues that there is a group of scheming sociopaths behind the scenes who dream their dreams of unopposed power for their uber-selves. […]
[…]
They have outplayed us in on every side and I wonder when they will come in for the checkmate.”
What choice do we have? We have to play smarter. We have to do many things, but one for sure is to expose our representatives so that they will be assured to LOSE their seats if they do not oppose loss of liberty, stolen votes, war spending.
Everyone should be registering voters, especially young, poor and minority voters and at the same time relating things like school cuts and other shortages of funds to war spending. Disenfranchised voters have to get to the polls and pay attention to local elections. Local community activists have to run and win.
Most aspects of all our major systems- including work, education, banking & economics, mass media, & government tend to encourage us to behave like brainless cattle - to do as we’re told and to trust the bastards who are in charge.
After reading this essay and the comments surrounding it here on CD, I would say that Americans who have witnessed the atrocity that is this war in Irag without howls of protest are terminally ignorant and lazy. As a country, we allowed the election to be stolen by these amoral criminals not once - but TWICE! We are getting what we deserve.
buminfl have to agree, after 911 the whole country turned as another posting called the american public, SHEEP. I watched a country show its true self, a country of followers not leaders. 911 the perfect crime and attack of the USA from within. Sorry to say this but I travel allot and can say the USA is viewed this way by the majority of the rest of the world.
Fat Lady, I called the americans public sheep a few weeks ago. Got no reply,
Agree biminfl and other postings of lemmings etc. I have never seen a country just say take over we won’t do a thing.
One way they get us to behave like “brainless cattle” is by denying us the realization that we sane people are really in the majority. Those of us who realize what’s going on have got to stop thinking of ourselves as some kind of minority intellectual elite, superior to the vast majority of ignorant sheep out there who have allowed this all to happen, but helpless in the face of it all. When we think this way we are simply swallowing the mainstream media’s version of events.
Remember, two Presidential elections have in fact been stolen. Which is to say that twice the majority of the American people were in fact smart enough to reject the Bush mafia. A big part of the problem is that the media have kept us in the dark about this, so we all soldier on thinking we are heroic lone wolves adrift in a vast sea of hopeless ignorance. But the fact is that twice the majority of our fellow Americans have made the correct decision.
Post-stolen-election, the American people may not yet have figured out (with very little help from the media) how to deal with the unprecedented levels of slime and malfeasance exhibited by their self-appointed criminal masters, but let’s not write off the basic intelligence of people. Real democracy (not the kind Bush claims to be spreading) may still have a few tricks up its sleeve.
You better watch out. I heard on NPR that the US government is deporting US citizens to Iraq for execution. They aren’t even holding a hearing first to see if there is validity to the charges. All Cheney has to do is mutter the word terrorist and you can be executed too.
The entire concept of education is to keep the population dumbed down. This has been the standard way to control the populations so they can be manipulated to the will of the ruling class, or is it the crooked class? It is they that control the people for the continuation of their power and wealth.
The rub this time is, it has gone on so long that science has been left in the dust of improbability and crass stupidity in the name of profit. Therefore, global warming! No class is free from this problem and wealth will evaporate in the coming years and so will the human race unless we begin to educate the children of the world to deal with this nightmare.
George Bush gave us “Every child left behind”, each thing this fool has championed has been one more notch in the gun aimed at human survival. Speaking about him raises levels of nausea not felt for anyone since Nixon. I thought than we had reached the apex of American stupidity, we can now see there is always something worse.
In terms of this coming election anything that has anything to do with Bill should be rejected. President imperious, and business as usual must be avoided regardless of the risk. The untried is infinitely better. We can deal with a mistake based on naivete’ we can not any longer except deliberate destruction of the human race based upon previous so-called experience.