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The Right's Stupidity Spreads, Enabled by a Too-Polite Left
Self-deprecating, too liberal for their own good, today's progressives stand back and watch, hands over their mouths, as the social vivisectionists of the right slice up a living society to see if its component parts can survive in isolation. Tied up in knots of reticence and self-doubt, they will not shout stop. Doing so requires an act of interruption, of presumption, for which they no longer possess a vocabulary.
A billboard put up by a ‘birther' campaigner convinced that President Obama was not born in the United States. (Photo: Bob Daemmrich/Alamy)
Perhaps it is in the same spirit of liberal constipation that, with the exception of Charlie Brooker, we have been too polite to mention the Canadian study published last month in the journal Psychological Science, which revealed that people with conservative beliefs are likely to be of low intelligence. Paradoxically it was the Daily Mail that brought it to the attention of British readers last week. It feels crude, illiberal to point out that the other side is, on average, more stupid than our own. But this, the study suggests, is not unfounded generalization but empirical fact.
It is by no means the first such paper. There is plenty of research showing that low general intelligence in childhood predicts greater prejudice towards people of different ethnicity or sexuality in adulthood. Open-mindedness, flexibility, trust in other people: all these require certain cognitive abilities. Understanding and accepting others – particularly "different" others – requires an enhanced capacity for abstract thinking.
But, drawing on a sample size of several thousand, correcting for both education and socioeconomic status, the new study looks embarrassingly robust. Importantly, it shows that prejudice tends not to arise directly from low intelligence but from the conservative ideologies to which people of low intelligence are drawn. Conservative ideology is the "critical pathway" from low intelligence to racism. Those with low cognitive abilities are attracted to "rightwing ideologies that promote coherence and order" and "emphasize the maintenance of the status quo". Even for someone not yet renowned for liberal reticence, this feels hard to write.
This is not to suggest that all conservatives are stupid. There are some very clever people in government, advising politicians, running thinktanks and writing for newspapers, who have acquired power and influence by promoting rightwing ideologies.
But what we now see among their parties – however intelligent their guiding spirits may be – is the abandonment of any pretense of high-minded conservatism. On both sides of the Atlantic, conservative strategists have discovered that there is no pool so shallow that several million people won't drown in it. Whether they are promoting the idea that Barack Obama was not born in the US, that man-made climate change is an eco-fascist-communist-anarchist conspiracy, or that the deficit results from the greed of the poor, they now appeal to the basest, stupidest impulses, and find that it does them no harm in the polls.
Don't take my word for it. Listen to what two former Republican ideologues, David Frum and Mike Lofgren, have been saying. Frum warns that "conservatives have built a whole alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own history, its own laws of economics". The result is a "shift to ever more extreme, ever more fantasy-based ideology" which has "ominous real-world consequences for American society".
Lofgren complains that "the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital center today". The Republican party, with its "prevailing anti-intellectualism and hostility to science" is appealing to what he calls the "low-information voter", or the "misinformation voter". While most office holders probably don't believe the "reactionary and paranoid claptrap" they peddle, "they cynically feed the worst instincts of their fearful and angry low-information political base".
The madness hasn't gone as far in the UK, but the effects of the Conservative appeal to stupidity are making themselves felt. This week the Guardian reported that recipients of disability benefits, scapegoated by the government as scroungers, blamed for the deficit, now find themselves subject to a new level of hostility and threats from other people.
These are the perfect conditions for a billionaires' feeding frenzy. Any party elected by misinformed, suggestible voters becomes a vehicle for undisclosed interests. A tax break for the 1% is dressed up as freedom for the 99%. The regulation that prevents big banks and corporations exploiting us becomes an assault on the working man and woman. Those of us who discuss man-made climate change are cast as elitists by people who happily embrace the claims of Lord Monckton, Lord Lawson or thinktanks funded by ExxonMobil or the Koch brothers: now the authentic voices of the working class.
But when I survey this wreckage I wonder who the real idiots are. Confronted with mass discontent, the once-progressive major parties, as Thomas Frank laments in his latest book Pity the Billionaire, triangulate and accommodate, hesitate and prevaricate, muzzled by what he calls "terminal niceness". They fail to produce a coherent analysis of what has gone wrong and why, or to make an uncluttered case for social justice, redistribution and regulation. The conceptual stupidities of conservatism are matched by the strategic stupidities of liberalism.
Yes, conservatism thrives on low intelligence and poor information. But the liberals in politics on both sides of the Atlantic continue to back off, yielding to the supremacy of the stupid. It's turkeys all the way down.
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195 Comments so far
Show AllYou're quite right about the inversion of language (as presaged by George Orwell in 1984).
But "They can suck us into a borderless black hole!"?????
A black hole, by definition is a phenomenon that is strictly circumscribed by an "event horizon". Once you cross the border, you're ineluctably drawn in, stretched and squeezed into non-existence. We can hope, however, that there is a chance to be spit out on the other side through a "white hole" into an alternative universe where different laws of physics, and hopefully politics, operate.
...So much for using that metaphor. Thanks for the correction.
The posit that what passes for the Left in America are too polite is spot on. That is so because the American Left has abandoned one its' main strengths, rowdy and direct language of confrontation. While there is a place for learned intellectuals on the barricade, their manner does not inspire those whom must brave the blows and bullets of the 1%'s lackeys: ergo, the US working class has been voting against their own interests (with a significant propaganda reinforcement from the likes of Rupert Murdoch), haltingly starting with Nixon in 1968, and beginning full bore with Grandpa Caligula (Reagan) in 1980. At the end of the day, the Left in America must realize they are in a down and dirty street fight with the lackeys and shills of the 1%, and all that matters is who walks away the victor.
Bingo. You get nowhere trying to reason with a schoolyard bully. The only way to stop one is to punch them hard in their stupid fucking mouth. Then they aren't bullies anymore.
Every schoolyard bully is a self-hating little kid desperately seeking acceptance. Punching them only makes you the bigger bully, and makes them lose face and seek vengeance on some other poor kid. Stoking the cycle of self-hatred and violence is hardly the solution to anything.
When I was in jail one time, I was told by a wise and older Corrections Officer who had just broken up a fight between inmates by giving the bigger one a big bear hug, that "what these kids really need is a good hug". That man knew what he was talking about.
I'm sorry, but I find your comments foolish and unrealistic. Considering the feelings of the bully is the best way to make sure he keeps on bullying you. Weakness is sunlight and water to a bully. The only thing that stops them is a taste of their own medicine.
The ideas that you hold dear are the ideas that have lost all the battles. All of your intellect and moral highground have lost the farm to the stupidest people with the most self destructive plans. It's a little too late to try talking them down when they have their boot on your neck. It is far better IMO for the bully to lose face and wallow is self hate than for the rest of us to sit on our thumbs losing face and wallowing in self hate for being cowards.
Love the Grandpa Caligula metaphor.
Though I would love to claim authorship of the term, I can not. I heard it first uttered by Jello Biafra at one of his spoken word appearances way back when.
NateW:
You see the reality! In a campaign speech Franklin Roosevelt admitted
that his rivals in politics hated him, and responded that he "welcomed
their hatred." Persons who have taken a stand in real politics can't always
acquiesce their way out of a fight. If they try that way very often, pretty
soon no one will follow them. They've got to WIN a few. I just don't know
if the Democrats, as a party, still has a will to win. If not (and the reality may
be that they don't still have it), what you call the Left in America must leave
the Democrat party. What you call the Left, I would call "We The Working
People". We can't let ourselves be losers again. I repeat your conclusion:
"All that matters is who walks away the victor." Partisans of the Right will
say: *You're no better than us, and not much different.* They lie! They've
been working against the American workers in earnest for 20 years. It's
time for us to stand up and talk back. "In your face!"
I think one needs to distinguish between true leftists and the hordes of impotent American "liberals" who in reality are politically to the right of center. Too many of them are pro-war, defend the bogus notion of American "exceptionalism" and display the most timid response to the elimination of habeas corpus, extrajudicial assassination, warrentless searches and seizures, military policing of civilians and all the other unconstitutional acts enacted and maintained by their adored mass-murdering war criminal president. Too many of them are content to bitch about the conservatives' treatment of the poor and middle class while sipping a latte at Starbucks and diddling their iPhones.
And we have a winner.
America isn't called the land of latte liberals for nothing, and even the ersatz left is corporatist in action if not in rhetoric.
SAROMAN: Well-done. When I elaborated on the growing distortions of language, I was trying to say what you just did. Thank you! Right on insights!
Neo-libs and conservative lites, not libs.
Please look up "neoliberalism".
neoliberal - having or showing belief in the need for economic growth in addition to traditional liberalistic values. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/neoliberal
Unlike conservatives, real liberals know that endless growth of any kind is not sustainable or a substitute for sharing resources.
Now look up "Green Energy"
True that and thanks for bringing this up. The American left is plagued by one too many classists. Even amongst some who personally claim to be "progressive", their hypocrisy shows the next minute when they think we're not looking although we might by accident. They won't do a thing about Corporate America or the Military Industrial Complex when asked. Confront them about it and they'll drag you into their morality wars.
Hey saroman:
Do you reckon you'll convince anyone that the Republican's
(and your?) adored president-W wasn't as bad or worse of
a "mass-murdering war criminal president"? What about his
lying us into a war in Iraq for which we had no just cause?
What about hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed with little
or no benefit to those still alive? What about his GETTING
to be president at all? The Supreme Court put him into the
office. What about his non-regulation of the financial high
rollers, who nearly wrecked the U.S. economy? Your view
is too one-sided, and you come on too strong to be real.
We who you call "true leftists" are inured to suffering SOME
bad-mouthing of our maybe being on the same side of the
fence as those you call "liberals". [So many undefined
name-tags, and such an issue what's a good tag or a bad!]
But you go far too far. I reckon your partisanship is showing.
Go hire a hall and preach to partisans of like mind. True
leftists will not be moved one inch by your verbal venom.
President Obama -- whether he be excellent, awful, or in
between excellect and awful -- should at least be proud of
who his enemies are, if they're all like you. Presumptuous
in bad-mouthing, how do you know that liberals are pro-war?
You don't. You might have read it somewhere, or someone
told you to get on this forum and "throw it out" to get some
partisan political advantage. I've never seen your moniker
in this forum before. Your bona fide status is in doubt.
It appears your reading skills are deficient and you are oblivious to the degree to which Obama has facilitated the descent of the U.S. into a police state. I never mentioned Bush, so your rant is a bit disconcerting. Furthermore, I don't live in the U.S. and I have no partisan interest in American politics. I do, however, have a strong commitment to freedom and democracy anywhere in the world and the erosion of those values in America is a threat to everyone, everywhere.
From the outside it appears that party affiliation is secondary to a presidential candidate's loyalty to the power elite. Since Reagan, we have seen a succession of American presidents from both major parties each of whom has facilitated the continual descent of the U.S. into fascism. Bush was a monster to be sure, but what you saw was what you got. As repugnant as his policies were, at least you knew where he stood on an issue. Obama is equally monstrous but far more duplicitous. What you see is an illusion. He has taken Bush's neo-fascist agenda to an even higher level and extended the unconstitutional behavior of the president further than anyone could imagine. And as a Democrat, fawned over by so-called "liberals", he actually has been able to put the virtual destruction of America's social safety net "on the table" for serious discussion, something no Republican has ever had the ability to do.
Frankly, as awful as Reagan, Bush and the other recent U.S. presidents have been, Obama may be the worst because he uses false rhetoric to seduce an ignorant and uninformed constituency into believing he represents them while, at every step, acting directly against their interests. He's as evil as Bush or Reagan but more dangerous because his neo-fascist behavior gets a pass from the very people who should be the most critical of his abuse of power. Unfortunately, there is no prospect of things getting better short of revolution. I agree with Morris Berman, author of "Why America Failed: The Roots of Imperial Decline" who, when asked what young Americans should do said "leave".
Saroman: Powerfully stated. I see it the way you do. It's interesting how the word plutocracy corresponds with astrologers' perception of the planet Pluto. (Some say it's not a planet, but it definitely exerts a force that's discernible to those who study my craft). Pluto is about abduction, criminal intent, underworld figures, mass crime, and those events that cause massive breakdown that leads to eventual rebuilding.
The U.S. became an entity on July 4 which puts the sun--the heart of its chart--at 11-12 degrees Cancer. Pluto is currently at 8 degrees of the opposing sign of Capricorn. This type of opposition only comes about once in 248 years and lasts for about 3 years. It's not yet fully underway, and yet we already see inroads into the theft of The Commons, the decimation of public education, the evisceration of an efficient postal system, the looting of the treasury, the silent foreclosure on liberties guaranteed by The Constitition and Bill of Rights, and bad faith, along with endless funds, poured into imperial campaigns of foreign resource allocation.
It's going to get worse, and whoever takes office, they'll win the prize for presiding over the nation during its nadir... ruin must anticipate the rise of the Phoenix. Karmic blowback factors into this painful process substantially.
If we want to use a simple characterization; instead of the inaccurate and over-simplified liberal/conservative:
I like to characterize this simplistically as neo-feudalism. We have the 99.9% of us AKA neo-serfs (debt peons) and the .01% neo aristocracy. They have privilege, we don't. There is no "left or right" only Serfs and Aristocracy.
I find this simple characterization more accurate.
("neo Feudalism" coined by Dr. Michael Hudson)
This is a fair insight, Socialist. But why does it raise your temperature to learn that Conservatives march to a far more rigid drummer, and how knowledge of this inclination can be used by sophisticated political operatives to curry the illusion of consent--from them--for insidious policy decisions, foreign and domestic?
Because I feel that commonly used assumptions and frames used to describe politics are innacurate. That using anachronistic terms to describe the reality of today is not adequate. I admit this is a hot-button issue of mine and I appear as some sort of purist who splits hairs. I do agree with some of the points made, but of course the political situation is much more complex.
I believe that is the same Michael Hudson who writes about Biblical Jubilee Years also. For those who don't understand Biblical legal traditions (which means almost everyone because Rabbinical Judaism deliberately rejected most of the economic teachings of Leviticus and Deuteronomy), in Jubilee Years all land reverted to the original owners and all debts were forgiven.
http://spiritofjubilee.com/history/biblical-debt-cancellation-the-lost-tradition-of-the-law-of-liberty
The Old Testament does not allow charging of interest. But Rabbi Hillel, on of the great intellectuals in rabbinical tradition, created the "prosbul waiver" and with that Ashkenazi Jews became the chief financiers of Europe.
socialist:
Your characterization is much more socially correct than that which is
implied by saroman. As I'd say in reply to saroman, there are so many
name-tags, and so many issues about what is a good tag and what is
a bad tag, that a lot of easy criticism is made against anyone who can
be stuck with a bad tag. Name-tag bias is the new color bias. If you
don't have the correct color of name-tag, you're tagged as bad. It may
be said that "true leftists" are good (or maybe only OK), but "liberals"
are bad. "Conservatives" are called good. Are "neo-conservatives"
to be called better? What about "Rightists"? It all seems an excuse
for discrimination. If we don't like you we'll stick a bad tag on you and
banish you outside the camp. Let us rather speak of realities. There
is a large and increasing portion of society that is poor, getting poor,
or getting poorer. And there is the small portion of society that is rich
and getting richer. From that simple fact derives a truthful grouping
of persons' engaging in politics: Needy, and Not-in-need. Marxists
would call these groups the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, which were
once the class divisions; these may be becoming again the primary
class divisions. (Sorry to say. I didn't make it so. I just say what I see.)
The tags -- leftist, liberal, conservative, rightist, etc. -- appear to me
to name the attitudes that the Needy class is supposed to have with
regard to the Not-in-need class. For example, (perhaps) the Rightists
are supposed to think that everything is all right; the Not-in-need deserve
not to be in need, but we Needy need them to "trickle-down" on us.
The Leftists (perhaps) are to be accused of not thinking that everything
is all right; the Not-in-need deserve to be in some need and should give
some of their goods to us Needy so that we Needy don't depend on them
to "trickle down" on us. And so it goes. Marx was correct in saying that
politics goes along with economics. The attitudinized tags serve mostly
to "choose sides" in the political games. Let the games begin.
My apologies to socialist for making use of his characterization idea.
It stimulated my thinking, and it touches on ideas I feel strongly about.
I went with the flow.
Obamabots and Democratic patrtisan elitists and their cheerleaders aren't much of an improvement in that they are more than willing to triangulate with stupidity and compromise any intelligence and decisiveness--defining it as 'pragmatism'.
Amen to that! I spent a few hours over at the HuffPost yesterday and it was super painful. The level of ignorance of the site users is staggering.
Although filled with language some find vulgar, George Carlin sums up the US political/economic situation a number of years ago.
http://shoqvalue.com/george-carlin-on-the-american-dream-with-transcript
IMO this is much more relevant and accurate than the typical "liberal/conservative" frame that is forced down our throats.
A great many people have FAITH in those who espouse the RIGHT thoughts. Give me that old time religion. No queers. We white folk built this nation. No dang foreigners. We all work for our pay. No welfare for the lazy (unless its me or mine, cause we truly need it, not like most on the government tit). Big government and big taxes mean somebody's stealing my money. For some it's all of the above. For others only partially true. I've also learned that a huge number of people seem to have very little sense of logic. The world is overwhelmed by dreamers. Way too often, and before too long, it's a bad dream.
"On both sides of the Atlantic, conservative strategists have discovered that there is no pool so shallow that several million people won't drown in it." -George Monbiot
Nice imagery. No pool of ignorance too shallow that it cannot be usefully utilized to divert some of the alienated, anxious masses into dramatically disregarding their own self interest.
Trickle down economics.
Humanitarian wars.
Tax cuts for corporations and the rich that create working class jobs.
Torture, omnipresent police surveillance, and targeted assassinations keeping a great nation safe.
Unwed mother welfare queens and illegal immigrants gobbling up money, siphoned straight out of the paychecks of ordinary, hard working, God fearing Americans who play by the rules.
Yep.
No pond too small that you can't entice several of the many millions of lemmings on their way to the sea to take a detour leap of faith.
Bill from Saginaw
"Self-deprecating, too liberal for their own good, today's progressives stand back and watch, hands over their mouths, as the social vivisectionists of the right slice up a living society to see if its component parts can survive in isolation. Tied up in knots of reticence and self-doubt, they will not shout stop. Doing so requires an act of interruption, of presumption, for which they no longer possess a vocabulary."
We can be like Buddhists and just watch as the cons destroy themselves, we can Occupy, we can pass the time on these blogs, we can drop out and form self-sustaining communities, etc.. Since the oligarchy convinced us to remain unarmed and peaceful, what the hell else can we do?
Another scholarly study I've posted before: "Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition" has been buried. Its impartial findings offended too many conservatives it appears, but deserves careful study:
http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/resources_files/ConsevatismAsMotivatedSocialCognition.pdf
Summary here:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Society/Conservatives_Deconstruct.html
And another in the Washington Monthly that reveals "Why Conservatives Can't Govern":
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0607.wolfe.html
I don't believe Americans understand what the term left really means in the world. There are many millions of people who actually think the democratic party represents the left which is ridiculous. The left in America is a very tiny fringe group at best with no influence whatsoever within the right wing democratic party. Both corrupt parties in America basically support the same things especially their right to invade any country at anytime anywhere in the world. They both support a corrupt political system entirely controlled by corporate interests and they both support a failed for-profit health care system and a system of too big to fail banks and the intrusion of religion into government. The only real difference between the two parties is one of cultural preferences.
Within the Dem party there are degrees of support for certain of these atrocities, but generally speaking you are correct.
Thank you, you said things I was working on cooking up, now I can just say, thanks, but ask, cultural preferences??? huh? Poker vs golf. Blues vs Mozart..??
Thank you, you said things I was working on cooking up, now I can just say, thanks, but ask, cultural preferences??? huh? Poker vs golf. Blues vs Mozart..??
Thalidomide, I have to agree with you on the left remark. I can name maybe three real liberals in office right now. That is a small percentage. The Democratic party is full of conservatives that are to "middle" for the conservative party. This shift started in the 80's. I do see the major difference in the party's is one is willing to do and say anything to win and the other seems to recognize the truth when spoken.I just saw Ms. Rice interviewed and she is still spouting that age old line about the aluminum rods from Germany. I have to wonder of she has told this lie for so long she now believes it is the truth.
Frum complaining about the monadization of the right wing is absurd since he was one of the main architects of this 'alternative knowledge system' & has not undertaken the course that Frank Schaeffer has taken, publicly renouncing & warning about the fundamentalist Fifth Column in the U.S.
Conservatives have long since prided themselves on the stupid label, since they have an ideological premise which dismisses all progressive thought as axiomatically evil, not just simply wrong.
the once-progressive major parties .... triangulate and accommodate, hesitate and prevaricate, muzzled by what he calls "terminal niceness".
Yes, haven't we all noticed how "nice" they all are - to their paymasters, the corporate lobbyists, to each other, to Israel's brutal leadership - but We the People get an FU and are told to get drug tested. When will they stop being so nice?
Monbiot is making use of a meme that gained traction in 2000, when Democrats got control of Congress. Progressive Democrats had worked hard to get this majority and then sat stunned when nothing at all changed. They were hit with the same thing in 2008. Many simply couldn't believe it was planned betrayal so they made up this thing about "spinelessness." The meme took on various forms but the most used one - and thankfully used up by now - was that deep down they are for the working class but "have to do these things to get elected." Not altogether false but definitely misrepresents the real truth: They do these things because it's the job they are hired to do. If you want them to do a different kind of job, send each of them a million dollars.
OK. So they're sell outs, right? Why not call a spade a spade, rather than constantly apologizing, making excuses? I'll answer my own question: It's because, by doing so, we oh so smart liberals and progressives can maintain the hopey-changey perspective within this abusive relationship with our so called representatives in the WH and Congress. If its just a matter of spinlessness, well, we can help them with that. Just give them more support, guard their backs.
What Monbiot is doing here is giving new life to a meme that has done much to destroy the left? I'm rather sick of it.
The "spineless" meme is ridiculous. The Democrats (and Republicans) whether in the White House or Congress know exactly who they represent and why. Unfortunately, because we have lost any semblance of a "representative democracy", the losers are the citizens of this country.
What happened to the "edit" feature?
A correction to my comment above: "Monbiot is making use of a meme that gained traction in 2006" (not 2000)
Nothing, you just can't edit a post someone replied to already. Pretty good feature actually.
Harris Interactive certainly agrees with that study.
http://news.harrisinteractive.com/profiles/investor/ResLibraryView.asp?BzID=1963&ResLibraryID=37050&Category=1777
Kind of an "Egg or Chicken" question tho, right?
Stupidity reflective of Conservatism, or the reverse?
Was the ignorance inherent in GOP policies (IE Echo Chamber/Faux News) the cause of "Disinformation" and resulting flawed opinions? Or were the initial flaws more accepting of the Republican Perspective?
I especially appreciate the "Socialist" mantra repeated incessantly among GOP conservobots.
Previously Posted Exchange:
The core of your “Socialist” remark is that Libs/Dems equal Socialists/Communists.
I will concede that I’m in complete agreement with that statement to the extent that all LOYAL GOP members (and supporters of that party) are IDIOTS.
Additionally, those clever enough to debate this point (among that party & supporters thereof) are merely POSING as LOYALISTS in order to take advantage of misguided followers.
They actually support the Corporate agenda, as we’ve previously discussed.
That would be you, Reicht Wing.
http://open.salon.com/blog/m_kitt/2011/08/28/recently_enforced_censorship_policies_at_gocomicscom
http://open.salon.com/blog/m_kitt/2012/01/07/gocomics_policies_of_censorship_reprisal#comment_2766717
REJECT THE GOP!
Maybe conservatives are "stupid" - but isn't this a chosen "stupidity" that they *need* because it is in their material interests to have it? Isn't this "stupidity" what enables them to concentrate so much power, to become rich, rule over other people and nature and to decide over their fates? I mean, I find that people from my class (controllers) often suddenly acquire this "stupidity" - once they get a job that gives them money and power and position. So tbh, I think this is quite often (especially in the case of the ruling and controller classes) the wrong way around. People become "stupid" because it is in their interest to be "conservative" (I hate the use of this word for these radical assholes). Of course this is probably not relevant for the "lower classes" :-/
You're confusing 'stupid' with all conservatives. Many of the leaders are very intelligent and highly manipulative. They play the rubes for personal gain. Ultimately their base may be too small, however. Playing only to stupid whites and greedy rich is perhaps not quite a large enough group considering the increasing minority populations.
Absolutely not. This is called "rationalisation", and these are intelligent people (as I said, of the controller class - economists, engineers, managers) who really do drift rightward once it's psychologically worth it. You should know all about that :-)
Since when do people on the left believe in the validity of intelligence tests?
Very good question, dwatkins9. All other things being equal, the IQ tests can predict some things related to the likelihood of school success. But they are not valid in finding what I would call deep intelligence: connecting the dots, learning from experience, common sense, empathy, honesty and courage. These things are found in abundance in ordinary people.
I doubt this phenomenon of " Any party elected by misinformed, suggestible voters becomes a vehicle for undisclosed interests" is confined to "conservatives". Go on over to the HuffPost and try and engage people there. The place is full of pro-Obama zealots that believe that Obama can do no wrong. Try to tell them that Obama is not a man of the people and the hatred and venom will fly in your direction SO fast. It's just as bad as trying to engage conservative true believers, or tea party crazies.
El Mysterio: Because Truth-out morphed into another on-line org, I'm not sure if that's where I read an interesting essay by Barbra Streisand. She was very astute in pointing out that the MSM press and its well-regarded interviewers let a lot of lies pass without challenging the speaker who promotes them.
I read down the posts in response to the article, and at the time there were 76. Only TWO people brought up the fact that Barbra Streisand, for all her astute commentary on the lies left to fly out of Republican mouths, didn't see the EXACT same thing taking place with key Democrats.
She, like Michael Moore, and a former professional-astrologer pal of mine, all are trapped by the 2-party world that is truly the political equivalent of the story, "Flat lands." If you don't argue with them, about all the Republican failures of imagination, then you are an enemy--equivalent to a traitor, rooting for the "wrong" team. To try to get them to see that BOTH are virtually the same, and playing for the same owners is little short of the same sort of heresy that had women like me burned at the stake for our beliefs not that long ago.
I didn't bother to post... and noticed that the general forum consensus was too complacent with the "Republicans are such fools, aren't they?" conclusion as to jump on anyone who saw outside of that cognitive bubble.
Where have all the Obamabots gone on CD comments? Hm, they are still on other sites, just not here. Whatsup with that?