Monbiot.com / By George Monbiot
comments_imageCOMMENTS: 423

The Triumph of Ignorance: How Morons Succeed in U.S. Politics

Obama has a lot to offer, but until our education system is fixed or religious fundamentalism withers, anti-intellectuals will flaunt their ignorance.
October 31, 2008  |  
 
 
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How was it allowed to happen? How did politics in the United States come to be dominated by people who make a virtue out of ignorance? Was it charity that has permitted mankind's closest living relative to spend two terms as president? How did Sarah Palin, Dan Quayle and other such gibbering numbskulls get to where they are? How could Republican rallies in 2008 be drowned out by screaming ignoramuses insisting that Barack Obama is a Muslim and a terrorist?

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

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

It wasn't always like this. The founding fathers of the republic -- men like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams and Alexander Hamilton -- were among the greatest thinkers of their age. They felt no need to make a secret of it. How did the project they launched degenerate into George W. Bush and Sarah Palin?

On one level, this is easy to answer: Ignorant politicians are elected by ignorant people. U.S. education, like the U.S. health system, is notorious for its failures. In the most powerful nation on Earth, 1 adult in 5 believes the sun revolves around the Earth; only 26 percent accept that evolution takes place by means of natural selection; two-thirds of young adults are unable to find Iraq on a map; two-thirds of U.S. voters cannot name the three branches of government; and the math skills of 15-year-olds in the United States are ranked 24th out of the 29 countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

But this merely extends the mystery: How did so many U.S. citizens become so dumb and so suspicious of intelligence? Susan Jacoby's book The Age of American Unreason provides the fullest explanation I have read so far. She shows that the degradation of U.S. politics results from a series of interlocking tragedies.

One theme is both familiar and clear: Religion -- in particular fundamentalist religion -- makes you stupid. The United States is the only rich country in which Christian fundamentalism is vast and growing.

Jacoby shows that there was once a certain logic to its anti-rationalism. During the first few decades after the publication of Origin of Species, for example, Americans had good reason to reject the theory of natural selection and to treat public intellectuals with suspicion. From the beginning, Darwin's theory was mixed up in the United States with the brutal philosophy -- now known as Social Darwinism -- of the British writer Herbert Spencer. Spencer's doctrine, promoted in the popular press with the help of funding from Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller and Thomas Edison, suggested that millionaires stood at the top of a scala natura established by evolution. By preventing unfit people from being weeded out, government intervention weakened the nation, according to the doctrine; gross economic inequalities were both justifiable and necessary.

Darwinism, in other words, became indistinguishable to the public from the most bestial form of laissez-faire economics. Many Christians responded with revulsion. It is profoundly ironic that the doctrine rejected a century ago by such prominent fundamentalists as William Jennings Bryan is now central to the economic thinking of the Christian Right. Modern fundamentalists reject the science of Darwinian evolution and accept the pseudoscience of Social Darwinism.

But there were other, more powerful reasons for the intellectual isolation of the fundamentalists. The United States is peculiar in devolving the control of education to local authorities. Teaching in the Southern states was dominated by the views of an ignorant aristocracy of planters, and a great educational gulf opened up. "In the South," Jacoby writes, "what can only be described as an intellectual blockade was imposed in order to keep out any ideas that might threaten the social order."

The Southern Baptist Convention, now the biggest Protestant denomination in the United States, was to slavery and segregation what the Dutch Reformed Church was to apartheid in South Africa. It has done more than any other force to keep the South stupid. In the 1960s it tried to stave off desegregation by establishing a system of private Christian schools and universities. A student can now progress from kindergarten to a higher degree without any exposure to secular teaching. Southern Baptist beliefs pass intact through the public school system as well. A survey by researchers at the University of Texas in 1998 found that 1 in 4 of the state's public school biology teachers believed that humans and dinosaurs lived on Earth at the same time.

This tragedy has been assisted by the American fetishization of self-education. Though he greatly regretted his lack of formal teaching, Abraham Lincoln's career is repeatedly cited as evidence that good education, provided by the state, is unnecessary; all that is required to succeed is determination and rugged individualism. This might have served people well when genuine self-education movements, like the one built around the Little Blue Books in the first half of the 20th century, were in vogue. In the age of infotainment, it is a recipe for confusion.

Besides fundamentalist religion, perhaps the most potent reason why intellectuals struggle in elections is that intellectualism has been equated with subversion. The brief flirtation of some thinkers with communism a long time ago has been used to create an impression in the public mind that all intellectuals are communists. Almost every day, men like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly rage against the "liberal elites" destroying America.

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

Obama has a good deal to offer America, but none of this will come to an end if he wins. Until the great failures of the U.S. education system are reversed or religious fundamentalism withers, there will be political opportunities for people, like Bush and Palin, who flaunt their ignorance.

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George Monbiot is the author of Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning. Read more of his writings at Monbiot.com. This article originally appeared in the Guardian.
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RE: Why do you want anti-intellectualism to wither?
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Posted by: trel on Oct 31, 2008 3:44 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
You now have your own personal God. Barrak Hussien Obama.

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» Everything political these days... Posted by: ABetterFuture
» RE: Priceless! Posted by: Cybershaman
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RE: Why do you want anti-intellectualism to wither?
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Posted by: Lilykins on Oct 31, 2008 4:54 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The problem is the idiots force their potentially intellectual children into their "proud to be ignorant" lifestyle.
Being a child of fundamentalist parents I have been forced to leave public school at 12 because my parents believed girls should be housewives and having an education would tempt them away from that god-given duty. Later, I went against their will to take a couple of college courses at a community college. I got great grades and won a full scholarship. My entire family then banded together and threaten to never speak to me or my son again if I took the scholarship. I chose my family and have regretted it ever since. At 40, after struggling through horribly abusive relationships with religious fanatical men who believed men owned their wives, I finally escaped from Christianity and now I am living alone and putting myself through school. I've never been happier in my life.
Not a day goes by that I don't think about all the children born to those "proud to ignorant" jerks and the way their children's minds are discarded like trash so the parents can feel better about their own faith in magic. American children are a laughing stock to the rest of the world because instead of science they are taught about magic, instead of learning about the wonders of the human body, they are taught about how "evil" their minds and bodies are. Instead of being loved for who they are, they are hated and told they were born "bad" and have to spend their lives denying and hating themselves. Instead of being told that the world is full of potentials and opportunities, they are told it's evil and scary.
It sickens me. I would never judge a janitor or garbage collector; you never know what hell they may have had to suffer in their lives.

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» RE: Good for you! Posted by: Cybershaman
» Oops - I meant OBNOXIOUS Posted by: fluffmuffinmom

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RE: Why do you want anti-intellectualism to wither?
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Posted by: Fishbone Soldier on Oct 31, 2008 4:57 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Yeah, 'cept this ignorance thing - it really affects everyone. Without the fundamentalist sheep, Bush never would've stood a chance to get elected. Have you been paying attention the last eight years? You know how much this "Crusade in the Middle East" has cost you personally? Your "make 'em slaves" argument is not without merit, but when we have enough of them that they are the ones making the decisions, who's the real slave?

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RE: Why do you want anti-intellectualism to wither?
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Posted by: johnthetreehugger on Oct 31, 2008 5:27 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
don't want to get your hands dirty?

you are a lazy motherfucker. physical laziness is just as bad as mental laziness. Monbiot should have addressed that as well. The avoidance of physical and mental work has been the age old project of the ruling classes and their camp followers in the middle classes. Too lazy to do real work and too lazy to do some real thinking.

you lazy jack asses sit around feeling superior 'cause you shuffle paperwork or stare at a computer screen all day and call that work, and look down your noses at the folks cleaning your toilets and taking out the trash? fuck you. you are lazy, unamerican scum. can't wait till your vaunted economy collapses and you find that have to get your precious little hands dirty just so that you can eat!

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» Swords don't need ammo Posted by: Damhnait
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» RE: What Dreams May Come. Posted by: fluffmuffinmom
» RE: What Dreams May Come. Posted by: blitzmesser

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RE: Why do you want anti-intellectualism to wither?
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Posted by: keubel on Oct 31, 2008 6:23 AM   
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I have to say I have had these thoughts myself. It's to the advantage of Democrats, liberals and progressives, for the right to continue to think the way they do. It takes a lot of people to dig a big enough hole to bury the republican party. You really can't go on making policy on ideas that don't work, or are out and out lies. Either that or you have to bomb everyone.

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RE: HAVE YOU HAD THIS FANTASY PERSONA, LONG???...
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Posted by: blurider on Oct 31, 2008 8:08 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
..OR are we fortunate enough to observe as you make it up right before our eyes?

Self-labeled 'elite'! - HA!!

Nobody called you charming, intelligent or seductive either!

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» RE: Y'all called me an elitest Posted by: Knot_Rich
» RE: Y'all called me an elitest Posted by: lthompson94
» RE: Y'all called me an elitest Posted by: blitzmesser

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RE: To those that would call me an elitist: Thank you.
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Posted by: Quannah on Oct 31, 2008 8:16 AM   
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You can put a .357 on a pig...

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» RE: Maybe not a .357... Posted by: Quannah

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RE: To those that would call me an elitist: Thank you.
[Report this comment]
Posted by: helenwheels on Oct 31, 2008 9:39 AM   
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Well, aren't you somethin'?

Why are you up here bragging about yourself? People who are truly secure just don't do that. Your I.Q. is in the "triple digits"? So it could be a lower-than-average 100? That would be my guess.

You come off as one disgusting, hateful person who deep down thinks that only looks matter. Good luck with that, shallow moran.

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RE: To those that would call me an elitist: Thank you.
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Posted by: fluffmuffinmom on Oct 31, 2008 2:52 PM   
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You "bed" these girls? "Bed" them? Really? PLEASE!

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RE: To those that would call me an elitist: [Most people have "an IQ in the triple digits".
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Posted by: Squarehead on Nov 1, 2008 6:50 AM   
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Most people have "an IQ in the triple digits". Something to do with the selection of 'scale'.

You know, the average IQ being 100.

Of course, the arrogance you have boasted of earlier, is partly explained by your years; BUT that same attitude seems too general in USA today. People like you are part of a program, whether you realise it or not.

Check out Montesquieu, for basic wisdom on what it is to be human. I mean his comment on 'Fool! Do you not know that you lived, and that that is the greatest of your achievements?" Think about it.

IQ is a fatally flawed concept, unless you treat it with the weight it deserves. (i.e., not too much)

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RE: To those that would call me an elitist: Thank you.
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Posted by: blitzmesser on Nov 1, 2008 2:36 PM   
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Who cares? What is a pig with lipstick?
I bed beautiful young college aged girls.
Right out of Dostoevsky.... LOL

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EDUCATED TOILET CLEANERS DO A BETTER JOB!!!
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Posted by: X-POLYGAMIST WIFE on Oct 31, 2008 7:59 AM   
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I'm "BANKING ON HEAVEN" Obama wins because Abraham Lincoln freed black slaves in America. Maybe Obama will free McCain's 10,000 white slaves in Arizona.

http://www.bankingonheaven.com

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RE: Why do you want anti-intellectualism to wither?
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Posted by: PandaBear on Oct 31, 2008 8:39 AM   
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I want anti-intellectualism to wither because I want intellectuals to be respected as much as anyone else, and I want them to be elected to leadership roles. I have nothing against non-intellectuals, but as an academic-type I am tired of the inner voice saying I need to apologize for it somehow.

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Shouldn't you be over in the white suppremist section?..Nihilist!
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Posted by: donl51 on Oct 31, 2008 9:10 AM   
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.

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RE: Why do you want anti-intellectualism to wither?
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Posted by: willymack on Oct 31, 2008 9:23 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Hi Honky. I appreciate the droll humor; it's a good way to start the day. While it's true that not all of us are candidates for MENSA, menial work MUST be done by someone. The stigma attached to those who do drudge work, and have low incomes, ignores the fact that there's HONOR, DECENCY, and DIGNITY in all of us willing to work for a living, regardless of its type and social standing.

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Ambrose Bierce would be proud of you.
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Posted by: Ignatz deFyre on Oct 31, 2008 9:28 AM   
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The inevitable great unwashed have a role to play in society, and not necessarily by design. There is an argument to be made for society not having to trouble itself correcting accidents of birth.

More worrisome are the more resourceful among the idiots. As A.B. defines in the Devil's Dictionary:
IDIOT, n.
A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The Idiot's activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action, but "pervades and regulates the whole." He has the last word in everything; his decision is unappealable. He sets the fashions and opinion of taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct with a dead-line.

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RE: Why do you want anti-intellectualism to wither?
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Posted by: Spiritgirl on Oct 31, 2008 11:34 AM   
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Just a few points to consider, (1)it's the "Jerry Springer-ization" of America! Americans have been dumbed down by so many forces - mis-education, t.v., etc.!! What we are now witnessing are the results, terrible as they may be!!!

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RE: Why do you want anti-intellectualism to wither?
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Posted by: desidid on Nov 1, 2008 12:25 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Students of US History will know that at the time of the Emancipation of slaves, education wasn't important to many whites. It appears that history is repeating itself, because the Republican party is pretty white and the followers are pretty stupid. Not only do the leaders of the party revel in their mediocrity (Bush, Palin, McCain)they elevate those followers who admit the opposition's tax plan sounds better, but I'm votin' fer McCain/Palin anyway (Joe the plumber). Why because scumbags respect other scumbags. They respect those who would sell-out their friends and families for personal gain, because they have and they will again. That is at the heart of nearly every Republican I've known well. One should always dust their feet and not look back when leaving the presence of a Republican they are the vipers of humanity.

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Two Problems in American Political System
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Posted by: Jbuuty on Oct 31, 2008 1:58 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Monbiot does a good job of identifying one of the real problems in the American system. It has become a very elitist setup. The wealthy and some exceptional students from the lower classes get a good education. For the rest education is just enough to get a job. The power elite don't want the average person to get an education. Check out tyrannical governments around the world, and you will see that universities are one of the first places they attack and try to control.

The other problem is the amount of money in US politics. The wealthy buy politicians.

If we could improve the educational system and get rid of the corporate sponsorship of politicians, we might actually become a democracy worthy of the name.

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It transcends politics
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Posted by: Col. Jackleg on Oct 31, 2008 2:23 AM   
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I have been a trial lawyer in the South for 40 years. Raised and educated in the universities of the Northeast, I ventured south and chose the emergent Atlanta as the place to ply my craft in the late 1960s. From the outset, I encountered judges that render Bush and Palin geniuses in comparison. Jury selection became a process of striking white fundamentalists [Baptists] and hoping for panels comprised mostly of blacks. Fact is, southern white juries are biased, neoconservative and resentful of being "talked down to" in the presentation of evidence at trial. Thus, successful trial lawyers are required to absase themselves and resort to "dumbing down" to get past jury stupidity and corresponding judicial unsophistication. It gets worse at the appellate level and if state courts are avoided and federal courts preferred, a trial lawyer quickly learns that the Reagan Revolution has succeeded wildly beyond initial projections and no federal judge is severable from the likes of Scalia, Roberts and Alito. I won't mention Clarence Thomas other than to accord him Belafonte's "porch monkey" designation and the intellectual inferior to Palin, Quayle, Bush et al. We are in deep trouble folks and as the current election campaigns are showing, stupidity reigns supreme in America and it will not change in the foreseeable future. Hope is one thing, reality is a gut check and right now the reality is that this is one stupid penal colony!

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» RE: It transcends politics Posted by: georgiaorwell
» Amen Posted by: Col. Jackleg
» Wait up! RE: Amen Posted by: sallyride
» UT got one thing right Posted by: Col. Jackleg
» RE: UT got one thing right Posted by: sallyride
» Heading to Santa Fe in April! Posted by: NoKidding
» RE: Secession Posted by: oregoncharles
» RE: Secession Posted by: icgodnu
» RE: It transcends politics Posted by: walterik
» Huh? Posted by: Col. Jackleg
» RE: Don't 'Bogart' that thing! Posted by: Cybershaman
» RE: Don't 'Bogart' that thing! Posted by: Cybershaman
» RE: Don't 'Bogart' that thing! Posted by: Squarehead
» RE: Don't 'Bogart' that thing! Posted by: Cybershaman
» RE: eligion isn't the problem, really. Posted by: ConnecttheDots
» RE: It transcends politics Posted by: Knot_Rich
» You make my case Posted by: Col. Jackleg
» RE: It transcends politics Posted by: grethart

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Accurate, of course, but what about Europe?
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Posted by: notabilia on Oct 31, 2008 2:37 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Fine points, indeed, but whither Britannia? Old Europe is not as besotted with jackleg ignorance as the colony, but it is nonetheless a font of arrant stupidity. Witness the prayer warrior Blair, and then look at the merciless racism of German burghers, then see all the western "democracies" united in center-right corporate criminal capitalism. Who are we in American supposed to look for inspiration - Iceland?

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"I've never taught and you've never thought" - Renaissance Man
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Posted by: georgiaorwell on Oct 31, 2008 2:42 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Thanks for the great, informative article.

All one has to really do to seriously understand the ignorance surrounding the general American public is to read John Taylor Gatto's The Underground History of American Education.

When I first read this book, I was shocked into utter disbelief as to how disingenious and calculating some of our early American industrialists were in introducing the zombie factor into the schools: teaching children to become future obedient workers for industry was the goal. Certainly not teaching critical thinking nor encouraging independent thought was the process. The educational system wanted and was used to shamefully promote their future workers into not questioning anything but to mindlessly obey. This had an added bonus in dampening labor union support. I encourage all who have not read this book to read it and weep. Most of us will recognize our own schooling backgrounds in the horrifying facts that Gatto presents. After having taught for many years, I found most of my students unable to even imagine creative endeavor, let alone able to practice it, as it had been seriously stomped out of them by the time they reached middle school on up.

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The only people who eats genetically engineered foods
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Posted by: basil10 on Oct 31, 2008 3:03 AM   
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Remember the experiment? (www.seedsofdeception.com) The guy has 2 groups of mice. One group of mice eats normal foods, the other group gets forced fed on genetically modified foods (force fed because they normally don't want to touch the stuff). After several months, some of the genetic mice begins to be sick, some go in circles endlessly and die, some attacks the other ones, some eat the other ones, and finally every mouse ends up dead. Why should it be different when a human population massively eat that stuff? We are becoming massively nuts. Only in America...

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» RE: The only people who eats genetically engineered foods Posted by: Fat Man at the Buffet Line
» RE: The only people who eats genetically engineered foods Posted by: Fat Man at the Buffet Line

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Great photo
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Posted by: helenahanbasquet on Oct 31, 2008 3:35 AM   
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It speaks volumes.

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» RE: But...but... Posted by: Cybershaman
» RE: But...but... Posted by: rinthy

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Sad But True
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Posted by: bryangalt on Oct 31, 2008 3:42 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I agree that the religious zealotry in this country has become epidemic in the right wing political spectrum and the reason for it is that these folks are truly un-American.

Yep, you read that correctly: UN-AMERICAN.

If these religious folks were true American's, then they would be keeping religion in the church house and stop trying so damn hard to bring it to the State House.

The fact that Church and State were seperated by the Founders is a testiment to their genious. They knew that religion couldn't become part of the State because religion doesn't get along well with others. Religion, despite what it says, always has its own agenda in mind, talking up their story of how things should be while they act like they didn't hear their own propoganda (doesn't that sound alot like the Republicans).

All of you good church folk out their may consider this: if you don't help put the genie back in the bottle, we are doomed to mediocre leaders, loss of world respect (if we have any left after your selection of Bush 2x) and we will pay dearly as we watch our loved ones die from global warming's side effects (war, starvation, etc).

One more thing, in a letter from my Representative, he said I could move to North Korea if I didn't like the way things are going here (read it at Bryan Galt which is an appalling attitude from a US Congressman. He is a side effect of the conservative movement too.

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» RE: Sad But True Posted by: grethart

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The Orwellian nightmare has arrived.
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Posted by: blogoffanddie on Oct 31, 2008 3:45 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
After years of bombardment from mainstream media, the American populace has been dumbed-down and programmed to ignore the substance, realities and the issues that affect their lives and the world around them, and instead focus on the peripheral, pointless and more often than not, irrelevant sideshows created by a news media, government and economic system full of hucksters, political toadies and greedy corporations.

The Orwellian nightmare has arrived. We have become a circus and a nation of voyeurs and peeping Toms. We have become that mindless freak show that millions of simpletons watch every night on their TV's. As a result, we as a people are too distracted, confused or lazy to look up from our TV sets to see or do anything about the destruction that is taking place.

http://blogoffanddie.wordpress.com

Politicians are like diapers, change them often and for the same reason.

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The problem with intellectuals - they think they are smarter than the farmer!
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Posted by: Karl.Ben on Oct 31, 2008 3:46 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This is a pretty elitist article. to assume that Obama has a lot to offer and if you don't vote for him you are ignorant is well, ignorant. Deeply Religious people have no sense?

I agree that voters are mostly uninformed about the issues, intellectuals included. This is why Candidates get $400 haircuts, wear $2,000 suits and spend enormous sums of looking good. Not much else matters.

This may also explain why most blacks are voting for Obama when Hillary was a better candidate and known to them - Obama was and is pretty much an unknown.

Intellectuals have it so hard. Most can't fit the definition!

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» Balderdash! Posted by: moflard
» RE: One Thing Is For Sure Posted by: desidid

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Moron Nation: Monbiot Doesn't Go Far Enough
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Posted by: lorenbliss on Oct 31, 2008 3:48 AM   
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This essay should be reprinted by every daily newspaper in the United States, but of course that will not happen -- largely because the Big Business barony that runs the U.S. wants its workers ignorant, obedient and most of all terrified of the only people who might actually save them from slavery: that is, the intellectuals.

This essay should also be reprinted as an eighth-grade civics class handout in every public school -- and handed out again in the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th grades. But it won't be, not just because the public schools are run by the same ruling class that runs the mass media, but because the U.S. suffers from the most viciously anti-intellectual, maliciously lazy "teachers" the human race has ever produced.

For both these reasons and many more, Moron Nation is forever, no matter the outcome of the election, no matter whether it is legitimate, subverted or cancelled. But at least now somebody has joined Susan Jacoby in protesting induced ignorance -- the savage cult of Stupidity Is Superior that rules us at all levels, whether we are in the schoolyard or in the graveyard.

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You're Preaching to the Choir, Reverend Monbiot
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Posted by: Tom Degan on Oct 31, 2008 3:59 AM   
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This is why we are the United States of America is the laughingstock of the entire planet. It is our positive genius for sending men and woman who aren't qualitfied to manage a rural convenience store to positions of power in Washington DC.

The rogue's gallery of idiots is long and impressive - in a matter of speaking. In no particular order of importance, stupidity or incompetence:

Phil Gramm
Heather Wilson
Dan Quayle
Jesse Helmes
Michelle Bachman
GEORGE W. BUSH
Strom Thurmond
Trent Lott
Katherine Harris
GEORGE H.W.BUSH
John Ashcroft

You could go on all day compiling a list from the last decade alone.

What the hell is wrong with the American people? In 2000 Weeda Peeple chose the half-witted frat boy, Bush, over the far more qualified Al Gore simply because more people said they would like to have a beer with the jackass from Crawford, Texas.

In other words, Al Gore is a smarty pants policy wonk. I can't relate to him. George W. Bush is a fucking idiot - just like me!

We have the leaders we deserve.

Tom Degan
Five Days
Dan Qayle
Ronald Reagan

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» RE: That last sentence... Posted by: ZPaul
» RE: That last sentence... Posted by: Tom Degan
» RE: That last sentence... Posted by: rinthy
» Neo-fascist Nobel Peace Prize Winner? Posted by: Col. of Truth

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Darwinism = Social Darwinism
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Posted by: nemonemini on Oct 31, 2008 4:05 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Monbiot's argument is right-on, until he brings in Darwinism. If ever there were a dumbed down evolutionism, it is Darwinism. The usual attempt to differentiate Darwinism from Social Darwinism is in evidence here. It is Darwin's theory that produces Social Darwinism, and somehow liberals have hurt their own thinking by forgetting what that progressive William Jennings Bryan knew well, the emergence of Social Darwinism from Darwin's theory, which was always a cleverly disguised version of classical liberalism and its economic ideology.
Analysis today at:
http://darwiniana.com

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» RE: Darwinism = Social Darwinism Posted by: Cybershaman
» RE: Darwin wasn't omniscient Posted by: greenknight

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How Did It Happen? One Word....
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Posted by: shill on Oct 31, 2008 4:12 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
M-O-N-E-Y. The people who stand to gain by many of us being ignorant have it. The rest of us don't.

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A Good Summation
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Posted by: kegbot1 on Oct 31, 2008 4:18 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
As the last poster pointed out, this column will not go beyond the progressive press. Not only are Americans trained to be proud of their ignorance, they will savagely lash out at anyone who tries to extricate themselves from their ignorance.

This line from Morpheus to Neo in "The Matrix" is especially important:

"You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inert, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it."

And let me second Jacoby's book - it is an indispensable read to understand how we got to this point in American history.

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» RE: A Good Summation Posted by: peskyfly1

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If it were only that simple
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Posted by: JPHickey on Oct 31, 2008 4:25 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
No doubt religious fundamentalism plays a significant role in the stunting of the mental development of so many Americans. However,advertising and the mainstream media are even more pervasive.

The breadth of knowledge is limited in order to simplify the conditioning process. Advertising involves repetition of the talking points that lead up to the sale usually with the intention of limiting and narrowing the range of human decisionion-making capabilities, to prevent thoughtfulness and lead to an emotionally-based decision to buy.

Since the media depends on advertisers who depent on sales, often the buyers are sold a "pig in a poke".

Only a year or two ago, though knowledge to the contrary was readily available, Ford's F100 big gas hog truck was the #1 seller in this country, along with millions of gas guzzling SUVs. Talk about stupidity!

Today, GM is losing billions and crying for a bailout from the government, yet, their main TV ad is for this Cadillac hybrid Escallade that gets a mere 20 miles per gallon. What a crock! My 1990 Honda Civic Wagon gets 38. The citizens of the U.S. are supposed to bail out GM. I suppose we're so dumbed-down that they'll get away with it. Certainly the mainstream media won't be clueing us in about what's going on here.

Selling is easier when the buyers are developmentally retarded, I suppose.

It's the same with politics. I can't go very far into it, but the confidence artists who originated the financial meltdown are in charge of dealing with it. Talk about the fox in charge of the chicken coop.

Letting these greedy miscreants get away with the biggest ripoff in the history of the world, following the failed trickle-down approach, is beyond the pale. Let's hope most of us aren't dumbed-down enough to fall for this, this time.

Especially when so much knowledge is alredy available that will work successfully, from the botton up -- like the "Green New Deal" approach.

Okay, so I haven't given up, despite the grinding "low life" influences of big business, politicans, and stunted religious zealots. So, despite his compromising and diplomatic presentations, I sincerely urge everyone to vote this Tuesday for Barak Obama! We've got to get busy doing something worthwhile ASAP!

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Are you really surprised?
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Posted by: Nodarse on Oct 31, 2008 4:29 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Education, or lack of it, is simply one implement used by our government to pursue it's most important purpose....CONTROL!

Another effective tool is to pit one group of people against another. Thereby diminishing the possibility of grassroot efforts to break the the status quo and demand real progress from our government.

Does anyone honestly believe that the U.S. was LESS fundamentally Christian in the past than it is today? And yet, I'm suppose to believe that this group is responsible for the intellectual dumbing down of our nation?

An ignorant population is NECESSARY for the few to control the many. This has happened throughout recorded history. And the "Land of the Free" does not enjoy any special immunity.

If your concerned about lackluster government imposed education standards in the U.S., then STOP SENDING YOUR KIDS TO GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS!

By the way, it's a fact that "Fundy Christians" are taking their children out of Government Schools in droves.

Isn't it a coincidence that they are now being blamed for our declining collective intellectual capacity?

Divide and Conquer!

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Public Education: What Went Wrong? // Corporate America: What Went Wrong?
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Posted by: Elurby on Oct 31, 2008 4:32 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
#######
#######


Blame both Marxism and capitalism
for this steep moral/cultural/
political/financial decline of
America:


Public Education: What Went Wrong?
http://publiceducationwhatwentwrong.blogspot.com/


Corporate America: What Went Wrong?
http://corporateamericawhatwentwrong.blogspot.com/


#######
#######

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It's not that they're morons. They're self-deluded and think they're above it all.
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Posted by: maxpayne on Oct 31, 2008 5:18 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Be it social or economic issues, these self-deluded "conservatives" think they have it all. On the economic side, even when they're in debts up to their eyeballs and could even benefit from what little a Democratic plan could offer though I'd prefer Nader's plans, they go in to DENIAL MODE claiming to be helping their neighbors even as they stand up for politicians who sell them out on foreign policy issues such as "free" trade and resource wars at the expense of hemorraging the funding needed for the very public infrastructure these same people need to survive even as they call reckless wars and "free" trade "patriotic" and denounce those of us who oppose them as "terrorists". They think they'll be FLYING RICH PIGS ala Donald FUCKING Trump despite the reality that they cannot go from an annual income of 50k to 250k in even a decade unless they really took themselves seriously and went through major improvements in thinking and lifestyle. Sure, they'll call that expensive and it might very well be but somehow they'll buy into the RIGGED capitalism BULLSHIT of borrowing huge sums of money which they really can't afford just to somehow buy a business for 300k even when their yearly salary is only 50k. As a matter of fact, the best they could actually hope for was a 5k increase but with decreasing salaries against the working class these days, they better be prepared for as much as a 10k drop to 40k. That said, some of these poor schmucks will blame anyone but their favorite rightwing media lunatics for the damage done. Grover Norquist and Ann Coulter are somehow their "heros". Worse, those of us in the working class who try to stand up to the Wall $treet goons are persecuted by these same self-deluded "conservatives" on Main Street hell bent on "defending" Wall $treet. Somehow, these LOSERS engage in sadistic pleasures of fighting against their own working class to create socialism for Wall $treet even as they claim to denounce socialism. It is no coincidence that for the past 28, perhaps 40, years and likely counting on more to come, Wall $treet can continue to have plenty of field days watching Main Street shooting its own feet out all the while Wall $treet will keep laughing its ways to the banks until their ribs fall apart.

And it's no different on social/culture issues. Like the economy, they think they'll fly above God and be all powerful by engaging in authoritative madness in the forms of supporting pols who would much rather legislate morality rather than let God do the judging. These same bible thumping LOSERS will even give in to supporting "free" trade, wars for oil, war on drugs even while allowing poison pills such as Viagra and corn-fed shit to further POISON their brains into even more delusions of grandeur, giving bailouts to Wall $treet all the while crying "socialism" just like lying losers such as "Joe the Plumber" now campaigning with Mccain like crazy, wrecking the environment and the public infrastructure which kept them alive in the first place, etc ... It's hard to feel sorry for these self-deluded die-hards who would much rather shoot themselves in the feet or even the head and drag the rest of us down with them but the best way to deal with these shenanigans is to say "Take it or keep drowning but don't cry about it !" When will these self-deluded "conservatives" quit sucking up to special interests on the "right" such as NRA and Big Religion which are big time sellouts guarding Wall $treet against Main Street? God knows !

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Obama is a moron!
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Posted by: Iconoclast421 on Oct 31, 2008 5:19 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I love how George seems to think that Obama is somehow not included on that long list of morons. Oh George, you never fail to disappoint!

How is it not moronic to sit there in a debate with McCain about tax policy, and allow the same old lies to pervade? Right now, there are at least 20 million people who think that Bush's tax cuts resulted in increased tax revenue! And they accept this as proof that Bush's tax cuts were a success.

Do they understand that it wasnt Bush's tax cuts that increased tax revenues, but it was actually Greenspan's inflation of the monetary supply? Do they understand that Greenspan created a huge bubble which resulted in hundreds of billions in home equity loans that contributed to GDP? Money borrowed into existence, from a contrived bubble, infecting and temporarily inflating GDP! And these people have the nerve to be surprised when GDP fizzles out? Ha! That was the plan all along. The last 5 years have been contrived, specifically by design. But even now, most McBama supporters do not understand this. And they likely never will, because they are too busy following the pied piper of the media.

You can bet Obama understands all this. I should not have called him a moron. He is pretty smart. Smart enough to know that he'd be lynched if he talked about any of this stuff. So he aint talkin about it.

And that means he is no different from another Bush or Clinton. He will follow the globalist gameplan. If he was a real candidate, he would be talking about immediately auditing and nationalizing the Fed. Opening a new investigation into 9/11. Declassifying all black projects dating back more than 5 years. And for god sake, he'd be doing something about the prison system, which is extremely discriminatory.

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» Make Up Your Mind, Iconoclast Posted by: Carol Burns

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Ignorance
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Posted by: RedFoxOne on Oct 31, 2008 5:20 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
LOL, Ignorance is truly bliss. At this point I simply cannot believe anyone with an ounce of common sense is taking McBush seriously.

Jiff
Privacy Center

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dipconsult
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Posted by: dipconsult on Oct 31, 2008 5:22 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The problem of "invincible ignorance", not just of so many voters but of the politicians themselves, lies at the heart of the failure at the same time (2002/3) of both US Presidential and UK Parliamentary democracy: despite every effort of those specialists, diplomats etc. who knew the Middle East & international affairs, UK & US politicians for the most part signed off on the Iraq war, though widely predicted to prove a disaster.

Both the US and British electorate had to be deceived into support of the war. Cheney & co. to a great extent succeeded in the US. In the UK the "march of a million" through London showed that Blair and the Murdoch press had not had as much success - but they went ahead anyway and protest evaporated ("now we must back our brave soldiers").

To this day many of us Cassandras who tried to stop the catastrophe still cannot get across our assessment of the new world scene that resulted from the Iraq war. The war supporters in politics and media cannot allow themselves to admit to so great and so obvious a folly and so deny us a hearing.

Yes, Obama too will have the utmost difficulty in getting America back on the track of cooperation from the catastrophic track of confrontation and the vain attempt to establish American global hegemony.

So it's not only the ill-educated and the religious fundamentalists that need to have their eyes opened, but almost all the "Anglo-Saxon" political/media class! Tall order - but surely we must try! I believe use of the internet in innovative ways could force at least part of the "traditional" media and thus the politicians to pay attention to world reality.

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» RE: dipconsult - Tony Blair Posted by: Carol Burns

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vade D
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Posted by: vade_dyset on Oct 31, 2008 5:39 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Europe sends their religious zealots, feeble-minded, criminals, and low performers to the USA, then they whine about ignorance in America. Go figure.

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» RE: vade D Posted by: igancedo

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People are stupid
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Posted by: scheherezade on Oct 31, 2008 5:42 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Almost every day, men like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly rage against the "liberal elites" destroying America.

Yes, almost is the key -- recall that whenever he spies a tiny opening, O'Reilly departs from bashing "secular-progressive" (?) intellectuals to remind his "moran" fan base that he "went to Harvard" too.

Like most anti-intellectuals, Bill is feeling left out and overlooked by his "elite" colleagues, and life in general. Venting to his grotesquely stupid audience (as evidenced by the nightly email readoff) no doubt reassures him he's not the dullest knife in the drawer, by a long shot. This appears to be a symbiotic (or perhaps mutually enabling) relationship -- the fans are also feeling good about themselves after a Two-Minutes Hate session with Mr. Goebbles/O'Reilly.

As an earlier poster alluded, America's decline towards the lowest common denominator has happened in Europe and other places, throughout history -- reaching a tipping point most notably just as Weimar Germany was moving towards turning things to the positive.

The problem appears to be an inherently human one and begs a structural/biological solution that thus far, nobody seems in any danger of uncovering.

People are stupid and crave authority.

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» The Fascist Propagandists Posted by: FoonTheElder

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Religion Wants The Agenda
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Posted by: bryangalt on Oct 31, 2008 6:10 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I agree with the idea that the human race does appear to have a problem with being truly free. While we pay lip service to the concept on TV everyday we are simultaneously allowing it to slip further and further away from us.

This seems to be an effect of the religious zealouts in the US because of their self-righteous belief that they can help bring on Armegeddon and thus the return of Jesus.

In the meantime, the moderate and left wing folks are in denial that anyone would purposely jeopardize their future and the future of the human race on a story from Revelations.

Thus, this allows the religious zealots to move their agenda forward. If anyone does attempt to challenge the religious agenda, they are attacked immediately as being a communist, an athiest, un-American, etc. which is ironic considering those same people are the ones that are truly un-American.

Check these quotes out and tell me if they have some bearing on today's situations:


"The loud little handful will shout for war. The pulpit will warily and cautiously protest at first…The great mass of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes, and will try to make out why there should be a war, and they will say earnestly and indignantly: ‘It is unjust and dishonorable and there is no need for war.’

Then the few will shout even louder…Before long you will see a curious thing: anti-war speakers will be stoned from the platform, and free speech will be strangled by hordes of furious men who still agree with the speakers but dare not admit it.

Next, statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.”
--Mark Twain

“Conceit, arrogance and egotism are the essentials of patriotism…Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate.

Those who had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot.

It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all others”.
— Emma Goldman

“Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.”
--Adolf Hitler

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies…if the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency...the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent that their fathers conquered.”
— Thomas Jefferson

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The only 'good" thing about it is...
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Posted by: QuestionAuthority on Oct 31, 2008 6:44 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
...that the best educated and most intelligent are also the best equipped to survive in a world of idiots and fools. If that's an advantage. It's a recapitulation of the old saw that "In the land of the blind, a one-eyed man is king."

The problem with the 'Armageddonists' is that they indeed are capable of setting off WW III in pursuit of their Millennial Kingdom. ANd that is one thing that no amount of intelligence can survive.

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Religion and Politics: same lie, different god
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Posted by: nfamous on Oct 31, 2008 6:57 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Both religion and politics teach people to be subservient to those in power. It teaches that we need to be taken care of and that we cannot manage our own lives. Only those in power know what is best for us because they are superior. What a joke. The people in power could afford to go to Harvard or Yale. If anything they are inferior to the rest of us because they are egomaniacs. Politics is nothing but another religion to people looking for a god to worship.

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I'll tell you why our leaders are 'morans'
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Posted by: 6399 on Oct 31, 2008 7:05 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Because a large portion of Americans are mildly retarded at a genetic level. I'm not smiling. That's not hyperbole. I'm deadly serious.

Just spend a few minutes thinking about all the times you've seen a video wherein:

Some dipshit pointed to Australia thinking he's really pointed to Iran.

Some redneck couldn't locate Canada on a map.

Some blonde trophy wife, arms laden with Gucci bags, didn't have the vaguest notion who our sitting vice president is.

Some goofy hiptard with eight facial piercings has no idea where we are currently engaged in one of our two imperial landgrabs.

Ask 100 high school seniors if they know who our sitting Secretary of State is and my guess is only 10% would get it right.

Put plainly - Americans are inbred degenerates who have limited futures in ditch digging.

Just look at the guy in the article photo for crying out loud. He's no different than the guy at the GOP convention who was holding the "Mavrick" sign over his head in a display of intellectual self-flagellation.

My wife is Brazilian and even she noticed that it was misspelled.

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Idiocracy
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Posted by: ebishirl on Oct 31, 2008 7:06 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
If you haven't seen Mike Judge's hysterical movie, "Idiocracy," go rent it or buy it now. The premise is that, as the ignorant reproduce faster than the well educated, the U.S. evolves over 200 years to the point where almost everyone is an idiot (the president is a pro wrestler, and crops are withering because they're being irrigated with a Gatorade-like beverage laden with electrolytes). As a result, two average-intelligence people who were frozen in the 21st century then revived 200 years later, are considered geniuses (or effete and ridiculous, because they talk using "big words.")

The first time I saw "Idiocracy," my only thought was, "Mike Judge is a genius, only he got the timing wrong. It didn't take 200 years -- we're there now."

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» RE: Idiocracy Posted by: madmac10
» RE: Idiocracy Posted by: helenwheels
» RE: Idiocracy Posted by: babs
» Brilliant Posted by: kepstein7777
» RE: Idiocracy Posted by: berserkr1979

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Moral snobs and spoiled morons.
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Posted by: archives@uwyo.edu on Oct 31, 2008 7:07 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Americans are anti-intellectual because schools and media make them that way. Academic intellectuals are usually moral snobs. Media thrives on pandering to the moron.

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Dark Ages
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Posted by: Kathryn54 on Oct 31, 2008 7:07 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The Dark Ages began with the fall of the Roman Empire. As now, the period was dominated by a worship of ignorance and religious fundamentalism.

History always repeats itself, but only the educated get the warning.

Kate

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» RE: Dark Ages Posted by: sallyride

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I am a recovered Christian Fundamentalist
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Posted by: Bushmaster on Oct 31, 2008 7:27 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I grew up in a bible believing church. Six / 24 hour days of Creation week and all the rest with the old testament laws to boot. Some of them. We did not kill adulterers or homosexuals or make women leave the house and live in the back yard during mensuration. To a child's mind who was taught the bible was the word of God and it must be obeyed those things were irresolvable contradictions.

Overall Christian fundamentalism was a soul destroying experience for me and I am sick at heart to see people in positions of influence promoting the ideas, 'values'? that I know have the ability to sicken and bring out the worst in the human personality.

One thing that stands out clearly to me is that if a person fervently believes in a God who will burn people alive until they are dead, then their view of morality and ethics can easily morph into Social Darwinism. The Puritans, early fundamentalists in this nation, believed it. If you were wealthy, God had blessed you. If you were poor the opposite was true. American political and cultural values seemed to have been extrapolated from this point of view.

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Terrific Topic and Discussion - thanks all!
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Posted by: sallyride on Oct 31, 2008 7:35 AM   
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Does anyone know how to get "back here" or follow this? I noticed on another site, clicking our "login name" shows all the contacts, URL links, and they notify us when someone replies to a thread we posted. Neat, eh!

Have a great day - if you can.

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Entropy
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Posted by: Quasar on Oct 31, 2008 7:35 AM   
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In the face of chaos, the natural inclinaiton of the mind is to ignore all that does not satisfy one's immediate sense of safety, brute pride, and base instincts for food, sex and violence.

Learning is tough. Thinking is tougher. And there is a fine line between education and indoctrination.

All successful politicians know this even if they know little else. Ignorance is power.

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religion is not a monolith
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Posted by: liberallibrarian on Oct 31, 2008 7:36 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
As a proud liberal and active Catholic with 3 graduate degrees, I get so tired of having all religions treated as if they were wholly peopled with the ignorant. Monbiot partly qualifies his comments with "fundamentalist," but he and many of the commentators who responded make it clear that they mean "all religion." That generalization is almost as ignorant as the positions they condemn. Yes, a lot of the U.S. has become scarily anti-intellectual and proud of it, and yes this has been fostered by some religious groups and leaders. But there's nothing inherently anti-intellectual in believing in something beyond the observable, anymore than appreciating art or love is anti-intellectual. Religion is not monolithic.

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» think about what you're saying Posted by: inverse_agonist

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christianity in America has become a la carte
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Posted by: l_double_e on Oct 31, 2008 7:45 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
most christians pick and choose parts of the bible to support, mostly due to what their pastors/preachers tell them. None of these people really read the bible. If they did, they would see that Jesus believes in spreading the wealth, Jesus preached that no rich man would ever go to heaven, and anyone who told other wise is a FALSE prophet (read the book of Matthew). It's amazing that Kerry was painted as an intellectual elite, even though he attended university with George W, but i guess when one is accepted based on merit and not because of daddy, they must be an intellectual.

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» Jesus was a socialist Posted by: hurricane hugo

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What about "all men created equal?"
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Posted by: sliver on Oct 31, 2008 7:46 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This article tries to blame ideologies for the stupid presidents we have had. I say it has just as much to do with one of the cornerstones of our country, "All men are created equal."

Much of the country believes in this credo so fervently that they think they should be able to match wits with the president.

Why do you think Joe the Plumber walked up to Obama? He was thinking "If I could just talk to that Obama, I could tell him some things he hasn't thought about yet, and I could change his mind."

Joe thinks his senior year in high school is roughly equal to Obama's Harvard Law School degree, which he wouldn't want anyway. If he dabbled with a community college, he probably found out that he doesn't need that kind of education. "You don't learn nothin' there," he might say. "They don't know what it's like in the real world."

So this philosophy of people thinking they are equal, no matter their experience or capacity, has actually led to people who are not curious and don't want to learn from others, because they think they know enough already. They are trained to not look up to people, but rather to look at them on an equal footing. If someone has has improved themselves greatly, it is easy to undercut their accomplishments by pointing out that they are now different.

So why would they vote for John Kerry or Barack Obama, who clearly have had different life experiences? They feel more comfortable with Bush and McCain, because they know guys like that down at the bar or coffee shop. They don't want to learn something new or even have to face someone with new ideas.

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speaking of "moran" protesters...
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Posted by: counterpoint on Oct 31, 2008 7:47 AM   
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I photographed a bunch of Colorado School of Mines students outside an Obama rally this fall who held up signs for more drilling. But the happiest looking guy held the hand painted sign that said:
McCAIN/PALAN...
Too bad I can't embed it.

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Don't blame the teachers
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Posted by: Mamarianne on Oct 31, 2008 7:47 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Visit any public school and you will see dedicated skilled professionals who make up the vast majority of teachers. They are burdened with crowded classrooms, lack of financial support, and the unfunded mandate to leave no child behind. Sadly, tag lines like the one that accompanied this article echo the all too familiar "blame the schools" tone. Yes, there are needs for reforms in U.S. educational system. Undermining that system with programs such as vouchers does not help. Overburdening that system by making teachers jump through paperwork hoops, causes good teachers to give up and find other work. As teachers, we try to never leave children behind, but we cannot make up for parental and societal neglect. If the education system in your community is struggling, get involved. Run for school board, volunteer to help with school activities, tutor, and--since you can read this--thank a teacher.

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» RE: Don't blame the teachers Posted by: tjg1984
» RE: Don't blame the teachers Posted by: bobtr900

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Who is the smartest?
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Posted by: gabbyone on Oct 31, 2008 7:54 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
You have all had a great run with this article but if every person you have put down today would decide to take next Monday off,
you would all be sitting outside of your closed Starbucks weeping because you can't get your morning fix. The people you so denigrate are America. They build your roads, fix your plumbing, pick up your garbage, produce your food, and manufacture the goods you need. They give you all the leisure time to sit and make fun of them. They also have something that none of you have and that is common sense and
I can tell from what you have all written you don't have it. Common sense would tell you that trashing people who hold your future in their hands may make you feel intelligent but
it is far from smart. It is your attitude and the attitude of your candidates that brings about their defeat every cycle. I guess these people are a whole lot smarter than you think because they defeat you every time.

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» RE: Who is the smartest? Posted by: madmac10
» RE: Who is the smartest? Posted by: maxpayne
» RE: Who is the smartest? Posted by: redbird30328
» RE: Who is the smartest? Posted by: maxpayne
» RE: Who is the smartest? Posted by: helenahanbasquet

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Fantastic!
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Posted by: mountainmama on Oct 31, 2008 7:57 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
What a wonderful, terrific article!!! Thank you so much Alternet for posting this. It is absolutely right!!! Love it, love it!

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National IQ test
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Posted by: USAFVeteran1966 on Oct 31, 2008 8:07 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Any American who thinks Sarah Palin is qualified to be a heartbeat-away commander-in-chief shares her IQ which equals Alaska's median wintertime temperature.

Vietnam vet/Obama supporter
Eight reasons to vote against John McCain

PS: Hugh Scott asked me to thank the many AlterNet readers who visited his NONPROFIT website, www.UnfitMcCain.com, which received nearly two million hits since being launched in May 2008. As Scotty emailed me about his AlterNet promotional efforts, "Mission Accomplished!"

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» RE: National IQ test Posted by: sallyride

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Well, for one, they succeed because they tell you what you want to hear.
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Posted by: ABetterFuture on Oct 31, 2008 8:11 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Cries of "free healthcare"! "Free welfare"! "Free ponies!"

Come to mind.

Lol, try this one for your next poster: "The morons is us for beliving in free lunchs"

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American Voters
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Posted by: kmarx on Oct 31, 2008 8:13 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
"How was it allowed to happen? How did politics in the United States come to be dominated by people who make a virtue out of ignorance? Was it charity that has permitted mankind's closest living relative to spend two terms as president? How did Sarah Palin, Dan Quayle and other such gibbering numbskulls get to where they are? How could Republican rallies in 2008 be drowned out by screaming ignoramuses insisting that Barack Obama is a Muslim and a terrorist?"

Easy answer: the American people want to see their own reflection in the leaders they elect. Hence they elect morons, jackasses, fools, demagogues, imbeciles, and a host of other losers! You see, I told you the answer was an easy one!

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I Must Disagree
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Posted by: kmarx on Oct 31, 2008 8:38 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
"Like most people on this side of the Atlantic, I have spent my adult life mystified by American politics. The United States has the world's best universities and attracts the world's finest minds. It dominates discoveries in science and medicine. Its wealth and power depend on the application of knowledge. Yet, uniquely among the developed nations (with the possible exception of Australia), learning is a grave political disadvantage."

What you say George is changing as we speak. For example, when a moron like jackass jr (Georgie boy) can get accepted at Yale and Harvard it tells us that nepotism is alive and well.

Some of the best work in science and medicine is taking place overseas. This is due in part to a economically-based cultural environment in America which brainwashes its people, especially the young, into believing they too can become rich while sitting on their duffs and investing in the global market. So why work? So why pursue an education in some of the more difficult disciplines like math and science?

A major problem is with Corporate America and our crooked government, a wholly owned subsidiary of Corporate America. This cabal loves sending the best jobs overseas and importing cheap overseas labor to replace those with the greatest abilities here. What can one expect under these circumstances? America is a has-been society and deserves to be as the public has elected some of the dumbest people on two feet!

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» I must disagree. Me too Posted by: Cathyc

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A mistake in navigation...
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Posted by: zooeyhall on Oct 31, 2008 8:53 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
might have made the Pilgrims end up in Madagascar back in 1621.

Then maybe America would have been spared the importation of the religious crazies from Europe.

Any chance that Europe might take them back?

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A New Cultural Identity
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Posted by: gjones on Oct 31, 2008 8:54 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
is what this country needs. If you think about the relatively young age of this country you can see us as a teenager trying to break away from our mother country (England) and HER church, and we're doing it in the most rebellious way possible; we are biting off our noses to spite our faces. That is what religious fundamentalism is doing for us. In our rush to define who we are, we are destroying ourselves.

If there were truly a seperation of church and state in this country, then churches would have to PAY TAXES and be HELD ACCOUNTABLE for the damage they do. Spewing hatred is just as bad for the citizens of this country as spewing toxic waste. They are the same thing. Churches have gotten a free ride on our shoulders for far too long and I don't see any way to stop the downhill spiraling that we are doing until we realize that giving a religion, ANY religion, tax-free status elevates them beyond that of free Americans.

Please, lets call for a REAL seperation of church and state. Take the word 'god' off of our currency, take the word 'god' out of our pledge of allegiance, and take back our country for the people.

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» RE: A New Cultural Identity Posted by: Cathyc
» RE: A New Cultural Identity Posted by: Lauren

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This isn't really new
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Posted by: Bob Doublin on Oct 31, 2008 8:57 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I went to Wikipedia and read their article on Adlai Stevenson and his presidential campaigns in 1952 and 1956. They talk about him being accused of being an "egghead" because he was so intellectual. Remember that term? I also remember hearing it in 30's and 40's movies. Just the same old same old

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All it takes is -----
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Posted by: symcokid on Oct 31, 2008 8:58 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
a smooth presentation, a good line of BS and no experience like Barack Obama, then you're in like Flynn. It's either slave reparations under another guise or a perpetual war in the Middle East, so really what choice is there???

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Imbalance
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Posted by: aonghus36 on Oct 31, 2008 9:02 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
>One theme is both familiar and clear: Religion -- in particular fundamentalist religion -- makes you stupid. The United States is the only rich country in which Christian fundamentalism is vast and growing.

Religious fundamentalism can make one stupid, I agree. It seems to overemphasize one area of the brain, the right side(feeling, intuition). The heart would rule the head. Overemphasis on intellectualism gives too much prominence to the left(logic, reason) side of the brain. This can lead to imperception of intangibles. The head would rule the heart. Either way, those who would rule over us, though they disagree with each other, on the face of it, would have us emphasize the one side of the brain, at the expense of the other. I think we should listen to neither of these factions, but rather temper reason with intuition, and balance logic, with feeling. I beleive we should read, but we should meditate, too. This would lead us to that which is true, or even True, not that which is dogmatic. The Goddess Themis is often depicted holding a balance scale. The balance is better when it exists inside us, otherwise it will never be external to us.

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Christian economics and Social Restriction
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Posted by: ezstevey on Oct 31, 2008 9:28 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The religious right is inconsistent in their arguments, read the article explaining why:
Religious Right Hypocrisy: Social Restriction and Economic Freedom

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Home-Schooling Is The Only Option For Many Gifted Kids
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Posted by: johnyradio on Oct 31, 2008 9:44 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Mr. Monbiot, you fail to recognize that self-education remains, for many smart young people, the best alternative to the miserable state of public and religious education.

Your attack on self-education is, in fact, in-agreement with right-wing attacks on intellectualism. A broken public education system is one of their weapons against intellectual progress.

While it may be true that home-schooling is used by Christian fundamentalists to isolate their kids from secular education, home-schooling is an alternative for progressive, pro-intellectual parents to circumvent the damaging influence of mainstream American education-- particularly parents who cannot afford to send their kids to private school.

It's not uncommon for home-schooled adolescents to study college-level material; some even enroll in college.

"college sophomore Moshe Kai Cavalin is cramming for final exams in classes such as advanced mathematics, foreign languages and music. But Cavalin is only 10 years old. 'I'm studying statistics,' says the alternately precocious and shy Cavalin, his textbook lying open on the living room desk of his parents' apartment in this quiet suburb east of Los Angeles. His parents home-schooled him."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24612730?GT1=43001

"My own homeschooled children entered college at the ages of 13, 12, and 13. They were finished with Calculus III and all college general requirements by the age of 15."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2017802/posts

Abraham Lincoln was not the last great self-taught success. Many heroes in science, business, and the arts were self-taught, home-schooled, didn't go to college, or simply dropped out, including Richard Avedon, Alexander Graham Bell, David Ben-Gurion, Carl Bernstein, Ray Bradbury, Richard Branson, Art Buchwald, Andrew Carnegie, Agatha Christie, Arthur C. Clarke, Mark Twain, Joseph Conrad, Maya Angelou, Woody Allen, Bill Gates... the list goes on.
http://www.autodidactic.com/profiles/profiles.htm

Personally, when I was flunking out of high-school algebra, I was also teaching myself computer programming and electronic circuit design, composing music, reading college-level books, and engineering sound in a professional theater. I stopped making an effort in the classroom, because that classroom was an insult to my intelligence.

Conventional education is irrelevant to, even damaging to, many gifted kids, partly because the system is designed to accommodate the lowest-common-denominator. Classes are geared to the least-advanced students in the room, so the smartest kids lose out. It's based, partly, on the left-wing, idealistic, politically-correct, but wrong view that everyone is intellectual equal, and therefor should receive an identical education. Gifted kids, this nation's promise, are thus abandoned.

In addition, conventional American education, like the Chinese system, emphasizes rote memorization, not creativity. Rote memorization is important, but without creativity, it produces intellectual conformity, and thus social conformity. Social progress, scientific advancement, and political fairness need a healthy dose of non-conformity.

Until the American public education system delivers a world-class education, my kids will be home-schooled, or private-schooled if I can afford it, or schooled in another country.

-Johny Radio
http://inyourear.org

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One of the problems
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Posted by: LeeAnnG on Oct 31, 2008 9:50 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I'm not sure if religious fundamentalism creates ignorance or if the already ignorant tend to be religious - sort of like "not all conservatives are stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives." However, from my 60 years of observation, ignorance and religious fundamentalism are closely related.

Unfortunately one problem is that, in many ways, American schools are not doing a particularly good job. I've been working for a school system for 22 years, and I was married to a teacher for 25 years in PA and WV, so I have a pretty close association with public schools.

In general, I've found a significant lack of intellect among school administrators. I do editing for all the county's handbooks, and it's just amazing how dreadful the writing of administators is from principals up to the superintendent. They can't spell, misuse punctuation, and have no idea which nouns are proper and which are not. The majority of them think "high school" is a proper noun.

The head of one English department took down the schedule of BBC Shakespeare plays from the bulletin board in the English office because he didn't think anyone would be interested. He did not know that Nick Adams was a Hemingway character and thought Antigone (which he pronounced Antigoan) was written by Shakespeare.

One principal "corrected" my sentence, "This misbehavior results in the student's having to stay after school." He didn't know that gerunds get a possessive.

Yet another principal wanted me to put the following sentence in his handbook, "If a student needs to go home, they must report to the office and wait for their parent." When I told him that was grammatically incorrect, his answer was that English was never his strong subject. Wow! I never would have guessed.

An elementary school principal came into my office and complimented me on my always having a book to read at lunchtime because, as he told me, he never reads. How can a person encourage children to read if he never reads?

If I had a dollar for every time I heard an "educator" use a subject pronoun as the object in a sentence just because it followed the word "and," I'd be wealthy. My boss, who used to be a school principal, consistently starts sentences with phrases like, "The trouble between she and the secretary..." or says, "Come into the office and talk to Mary and I."

If schools were doing their job, people like Goldwater's granddaughter wouldn't write sentences that start with, "Myself, and some of my cousins..." as if "I" isn't a word you use in the beginning of a sentence. "Myself" used to have a real meaning - it indicated that one was doing something alone or was actually alone, as in "I will do it myself" or "I was sitting by myself." Now people use "I" as the object of the sentence when "and" is present and "myself" as the subject when "and" is present. How did that happen?

It's not surprising that so many posters think "it's" is a possessive, that "Clinton's" and "American's" are plurals, that people feel "badly" (one wouldn't say "I feel terribly" or "I feel happily"), and that "alot" is a word.

I realize that there is more to communication and education than grammar. If schools were actually encouraging creativity and critical thinking, or if administrators displayed an understanding of history and current events, an evolving language that assumes "if you know what I mean it's good enough" might not be an issue. In reality, it's just one more indication of poor education.

Yes, religion does play a part in dumbing down the population, but until we get actual scholars to administrate our schools, we will continue to get citizens who are illiterate and unable to speak or write the language.

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Lilly
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Posted by: Lilly on Oct 31, 2008 9:54 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Educated people = the elite = authority figures, and the anti-intellectual crowd doesn't like authority. On their websites (try townhall.com) they rant against speed limits, helmet laws, community zoning laws, mandatory vaccination, drinking age laws, gun control laws, occupational licensure requirements, and all forms of government regulation. They regard taxation as theft. They argue for the destruction of the public education system, which they want to replace with homeschooling, and they don't want educational requirements for the homeschooling parent or state-imposed curricular requirements. They want all pharmaceuticals to be available without prescription. They even argue for medical self-diagnosis and treatment using freely purchased nostra. And they LOATHE colleges, universities, and professors. I once pointed out a repeated grammatical error in the introductory blurb of a right-wing website, citing and explaining the rule. Immediately came a hot retort, "Who made up that rule and why should I follow it?". BTW my statements in this post are based on my many hours glued to conservative websites, which hold me like a hypnotizing cobra, and I have filled notebooks with such posts as "Contrary to what the lying liberals have been saying for decades, the death penalty does have a detergent effect." (Vic, townhall.com, 7-14-07)

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» RE: Lilly Posted by: wal55
» RE: Lilly Posted by: tjg1984
» RE: Lilly Posted by: Lilly
» RE: Lilly Posted by: redbird30328
» RE: Lilly Posted by: Lilly

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Its not as if the Progressives don;t have their share of Morons
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Posted by: EncinoM on Oct 31, 2008 10:20 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Look to the truthiness movement, that at its core rejects scientific modelling and questions. Or the constant assualt against progress in the fields of science.

The real cause is that many are wedded to one outlook on the world and view the world only through those lenses.

Many posts here attack religon and explain things in marxist terms and class warfare. They are so blinded by their faith in one set of belief, that those so don;t share their opinions become the unkept masses.

The problem has nothing to do with educations and everything to do with the inability to see the merit in the other side and debate the pros and cons.

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» eh... Posted by: inverse_agonist
» RE: eh... Posted by: EncinoM
» Oh, the irony Posted by: GuitarBill
» RE: Oh, the irony Posted by: EncinoM
» RE: Oh, the irony Posted by: GuitarBill
» The "truthiness" movement? Posted by: Jeanne

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Importance of Role Models
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Posted by: taxidriver on Oct 31, 2008 10:27 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
When our president laughs at his own inability to pronounce common words, and takes a perverse sense of pride in his own ignorance, there is surely a "trickle down" effect. People do look to the president for inspiration; he or she is a role model, like it or not. I wonder how many kids, after watching Bush, replied "It's just fuzzy math" when a teacher asked them for the square root of 81?

That's another reason why I hope Obama wins next week. He's a thoughtful, intelligent, well-informed person who does not mangle his syllables. Nor does he talk down to the American people.

Words do matter. So does intelligence, class, and dignity. Let's hope they win out on Nov. 4th.

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» RE: Importance of Role Models Posted by: redbird30328
» RE: Importance of Role Models Posted by: maxpayne
» RE: Importance of Role Models Posted by: redbird30328
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If it were up to the uneducated and uncurious
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Posted by: marid on Oct 31, 2008 10:36 AM   
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we would still be clubbing things over the head and living in caves. I am glad we at least got past that.

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It's all a complicated issue...
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Posted by: Tim Chadron on Oct 31, 2008 10:35 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It's true. I believe that religion is a problem, not only in this country of christian fundamentalists, but in the middle east where religious fanatics create all manner of problems.

It's also true that ego creates major issues. Our collective ego as a country keeps us from seeing solutions to problems that have been implemented by others around the world, simply because we believe ourselves superior to these people so they could not possibly have any ideas that would benefit us.

It's also true that being intellectual doesn't necessarily make you more wise than the person with little education but vast life experiences.

It's true too that it's difficult, or so it seems anyway, to find people to run for public office that are intellectual, wise, and possess a sense of caring for the "common man".

The world is complex as hell and I'm not sure there are answers to these questions on a large scale save one. Education that teaches us that we are all linked together.... The intellectual and the uneducated laborer. The politician and the person he/she is supposed to serve. The rich and the poor. The secular and the religious.

Rugged individualism is a myth to a large extent today. Where did you get the food you ate today? Or the clothes you wear? Or the fuel for your vehicle? Or your vehicle for that matter? The list is endless, even for those who really come the closest to being rugged individualists. WE HAVE TO RELY ON EACH OTHER!!

Right now, it is the richest of this nation who seem to understand this the least, and eventually, they too will pay a price for their ignorance.

I am 47 years old and in relatively good health. I like to thing positively for the most part about life. I try to see the good where ever I can. But something in me tells me that I will not die a natural death, and that I will see a true revolution in this country within my lifetime. And I believe those things simply because we do not understand yet how interconnected we are and how the time for being divisive has to end, and soon.

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jlowell
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Posted by: jlowelld on Oct 31, 2008 10:48 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The anti-intellectualism of the American electorate owes quite a bit to the fact that the major news agencies are owned by the most conservative elements of the corporate culture, as well as to the complete co option of labor unions--who no longer play a role in informing workers on social issues.

The mystery of how the U.S. can simultaneously have some of the most respected institutes of higher-learning in the world, and yet somehow that body of knowledge is repudiated in the general public (or at least in the political realm), can be partly explained by political/economic structure of the institutions. One element of that structure is the evolution of the "management system" of universities, where instead of the academics heading the university, and taking stipends to off-set the additional hours required by administration, full-time managers are hired to administrate the universities. These managers are typically gleaned from non-academic sources or "disciplines" (such as business colleges) and are paid salaries 2 - 5X their academic counterparts. In essence, these full-time administrators are "owned" by the regents. The regents are invariably business owners who in most cases are conservative, under-educated, and whose financial/political interests would not be served by universities with a powerful voice in the culture.

These factors are just part of an overall system where wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few individuals; who in turn own the political system from top to bottom, and whose interest are served by maintaining the 'mythology of democracy', but are in fact absolutely opposed to the reality of democracy--which, if it came into being would [of course] be the end to their way of life.

The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of [private cartel] lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.--President Thomas Jefferson

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» The end of democracy.. Posted by: Cathyc
» RE: jlowell Posted by: charlesp210

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It'd be funny if it weren't so sad
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Posted by: willymack on Oct 31, 2008 10:53 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I live in a part of Oregon devoted to ranching and farming. The high desert climate is harsh here, so farming means mostly alfalfa hay, potatoes, and some hardy strains of wheat, barley,and rye. The people are descendants of those who braved the Oregon Trail long ago. For some inexplicable reason their thinking is mired in the nineteenth century, and superficial, to say the least. This makes them suckers for the blandishments of phonies like (Sen.) Gordon Smith, (Rep.) Greg Walden, and, of course, the bushies. They can't point to one positive result of the trust they've placed in these crooks, but support them anyway. There's quite a bit of racism here-not only against Blacks, but Native Americans as well. If these people are ever going to be the citizens they should be, they'll need a complete overhaul of their minds. Maybe if Obama is elected, and proves to be half as good as I hope, they'll come around a bit, but I wouldn't bet a paycheck on it.

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A Christian Replies to Mr. Monbiot
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Posted by: jimswanson on Oct 31, 2008 10:59 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
James A. Swanson, Los Altos, CA
www.bushleagueofnations.com [for FREE downloads of entire book]

Thank you George Monbiot for your passionate article. I wish I had written it myself.

I’m a very active progressive Christian who is appalled at the rise of the Christian Reich’s upside-down version of Christ and Christianity—Pro-Rich and Pro-War—and the GOP’s War on Iraq and War on America.

Thanks to America’s warmongering Christian Reich, being “a Christian” has understandably become a negative in the eyes of most of the world, and I can empathize with the rapidly increasing number of Americans—especially our younger citizens—who have no use for Christianity.

As for me, I have chosen to stay and fight to reclaim my faith from those who use it to support a rightwing imperial power structure.

Christianity will remain a powerful weapon in American politics for at least another generation, and we abandon this weapon to “the morons” at our peril.

Engaging and exposing the Religious Reich without using the Bible is like hunting rats at the city dump without using your best ammo.

In any major battle you must know your enemy.

This and much more is discussed in, "The Bush League of Nations: The Coalition of the Unwilling, the Bullied and the Bribed – the GOP’s War on Iraq and America," by James A. Swanson (2008, CreateSpace Publishing, 448 pages).

As a gift to patriots everywhere, the entire book can be downloaded for FREE at www.bushleagueofnations.com. Please pass along the good news.

I ask for nothing in return, except that you consider using my book to help kick out America’s worst political party ever.

Jim Swanson
www.bushleagueofnations.com

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Lern to reed, ya freakin morans
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Posted by: Dboy on Oct 31, 2008 11:28 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Love the picture! Probably the funniest photo ever posted on Alternet.

dboy

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Common Sense no longer common
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Posted by: WyrdSister on Oct 31, 2008 11:50 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Some of the things that have come from the Christian Right flies so far into the face of what we all know as Common Sense, and with so many buying into it, Common Sense has gone underground.

The new common sense now has one believing that God is a Bigot and Discrimination is the new Rule of the Land. It has us believing that W was elected twice and that the majority of the country shares in his Delusions of Grandure, and are rewarded by calling them Patriotic. The new Common Sense says that if enough people believe the Lie, it will become the truth.

I am happy to be in the Underground with those who have, now, the Uncommon Sense. The sense that allows us the Freedom of Thought that results in Truth.

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Its gun prohibition, not evolution
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Posted by: drp on Oct 31, 2008 12:19 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
There is one issue in the US that cuts across all sorts of political issues and continually loses elections for the democrats. This is firearms prohibition.

Outside the major urban centers on the coasts and greatlakes, being on the "wrong" (i.e. prohibitionist) side automatically swings 3-7% of the vote againt you, no matter how much the same voters may agree with you on other matters.

Personally, I agree with Obama on most social issues and disagree with Palin on almost everything but her support for the right to keep and bear arms. But that single point of agreement is sufficient for me. There are a lot of other who feel the same way.

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Another face of the disease
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Posted by: Ahimsa on Oct 31, 2008 12:26 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I am a professional and a college professor, presently dedicated to the deeper study of the disciplines of my profession.
I have been getting a very strange reaction from educated people, mostly intellectuals, actually. I am not talking about "morans" here.
During social introductions, when I say that I am a college professor, the reaction is, "OK, but what do you DO" (this is after I mention my double affiliation, my double interest as a professional and academic.)
I guess being a college professor is not enough, It doesn't count.
I find this disturbing, and not because I expect to be celebrated. Teaching tends to be considered an honorable occupation in other cultures...
What is up with this?

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Ad Astra State Activist
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Posted by: dburress on Oct 31, 2008 1:41 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Ignorant and anti-intellectual yes, numbskulls and idiots no. It is a grave mistake to underestimate your enemies.

The leaders of the radical right are clever and effective politicians who have outtalked us and outmaneuvered us to accomplish damage all out of proportion to the popularity of their true positions. We are winning this year not so much because we have learned more effective responses, but rather because this is a year when almost any white male average Joe Democrat could have beaten the Republicans handily. It is truly a miracle that we had the candidate we do have positioned to take advantage of these times.

But little will have been accomplished other than laying some shibboleths of racism to rest if we continue to underestimate the enemy and overestimate our own capabilities. If for example Obama's health care plan fails then judging from 1994 there will be a substantial and rapid Republican resurgence. And it is quite likely that it will fail, because Obama has proposed nothing that will can reduce the money and political power of the main enemy of adequate health coverage, which is the insurance companies. Also, Obama shows every sign of getting himself mired in an unwinnable war in Afghanistan. The left needs a powerful movement on the ground immediate to resist these twin mistakes.

Moreover, we still have a lot to learn from the right about strategy, discipline, and rhetoric. I don't mean that we can copy their tactics, but we can learn the supreme importance of developing better tactics of our own, and I see only limited progress on that score.

For example, many of seem to see Obama as the natural leader of the progressive movement. Presidents rarely play that role, with Lincoln and FDR being partial exceptions. Obama in particular has set himself up as an honest broker who can translate the power we generate on the ground into policy. We desperately need independent organizations and leaders and a disciplined movement that can generate that power.

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So How Come Monbiot Is Such an Ignorant Troll?
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Posted by: opmoc on Oct 31, 2008 2:06 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
9/11

Tony

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Ignorance Is Bliss
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Posted by: penobscotdziekuje@yahoo.com on Oct 31, 2008 2:27 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This article proves the point that ignorance is bliss. We were never known for being a country of philosophers anyway, so we get what we elect. I'm tired of Reagan-type politicians running the godforsaken land.
But then again, we are a nation of "morans." However, I know there are plenty of intelligent and bright people in the U.S.A. but I wonder where they are to lead us in a better direction. Education no longer provides us with equal opportunities to make it. Some people may graduate, but learning HOW to USE intelligence isn't universally applied directly from our minds to society. What's INTELLIGENT about the CIA?
The way we use "intelligence" varies from one person to the next. You can detect it in speech, tone and mannerisms.
Lastly, in order for us to move beyond a national consesus of Dummkopf stage we must invest in educating ourselves of the pitfalls of ignorance.

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Proving once again, that...
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Posted by: jvaljon1 on Oct 31, 2008 2:37 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
...people get the government that they deserve. For instance--people who live in the greatest democracy the world has ever seen (barring Greece BC) and who FAIL TO VOTE--will lose their country.

If every citizen who could have voted in the year 2000, did vote--it would not have been possible for Katharine Harris to get away with tossing enough votes away so that her boy Bush could "win". Harris only had to throw 3000 votes away. 300,000--and that would have been NOTICED.

There was an article in a London paper, in 2004, which headline read: (I paraphrase) "How can 59,000,000 people, be so dumb?"

That figure was about 53% of the vote. Think about it, people-- only half the eligible voters, voted! What happened to the rest of them?

A people too stupid to keep what they have, is destined to lose what they have. As a former Republican who lost out during Bush #1--then recouped everything and then some, during the Clinton years--of COURSE I have voted Democrat ever since!

Only to find that it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is what Corporate America wants. That is--unless C.A. is overwhelmed by a tsunami of individual voters! And it could have happened in 2000; Al Gore was a shoo-in, only nobody cared whether he got in or not. Of course, everyone was flush at the time. So nobody but a few patriotic die-hards, bothered to go guarantee their future security.

And now here we are. Yeah. We get what we deserve. If/when Obama wins, I sure hope that people won't let the vote get away from them ever again. That they teach their kids to vote by taking them to the voting booth. Republicans, I know, do this. Why don't the Democrats?

It's too much even for them to bother to vote--much less to teach their own kids, how to preserve their precious liberty, I guess....

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F- Article. Hypocrital Alternet Bigots!
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Posted by: centure7 on Oct 31, 2008 2:40 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
In many regards this article is completely right. Voters are idiots and they, rather than our 535+ congress people, are responsible for the election of our horrible leaders and voters are responsible for the mess we are in. It really does make me happy to see they are finally seeing the light.

However, the the concept that being a religious fundamentalist equates to being ignorant, is offensive and disgusting bigotry on the part of Alternet. Alternet is so quick to call religious fundamentalists bigots when they mistreat gay people, a rare thing as far as I know, yet Alternet has the hypocricy to call all religious fundamentalists ignorant and pretend they are some kind of pond scum without realizing that is the same bigotry they spend a good fraction of their articles blabbering about.

I have every right to be both an intellectual and a religious fundamentalist, and any other kind of extremist under the sun without Alternet badmouthing me just for the fact. At least some extremes are good and possibly some religious fundamentals are good as well. But for Alternet to go around parading the possibly five fake Christians who mistreat gay people and then claim religious fundamentalists are ignorant, is a highly ignorant thing to claim itself!

I find it strange that I said this same exact thing a couple weeks ago and my post was rated a 1, yet when Alternet says the same thing and the only difference is they add in bigotry, they suddenly get rave reviews. If I were a bigot too by badmouthing fundamentalists knowledge of facts I'm sure my post would have scored a five. This unfounded assumption is based on their lack of ability to see that religion is just another one of the infinite philosophies out there and if religion didn't exist it would simply be replaced by something they would find equally disturbing.

And I should add (since Alternet likes that loser Obama who voted for the "patriot ACT", and yes I will mention that in every single Alternet post I make) that just because Obama sounds great does not make him an intellectual at all. In fact anyone who sounds that smooth is the kind of person I trust the very least. But anyways I'm sure there will be someone who has lots of evidence that Obama is an intelligent individual and they won't leave Alternet embarrassed. I remember however that Obama said there were something like 57 states and so very much question his intelligence, though look forward to be given evidence otherwise.

The third party candidates on the other hand are all clearly very smart people, and why an intellectual would support the big-two oligarchy (Republics or Democrats) is beyond my comprehension.

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» from his own website, of course... Posted by: inverse_agonist
» RE: from his own website, of course... Posted by: inverse_agonist

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Did Sarah Palin deliberately mispronounce Rashid Khalidi's name to play to GOP's uneducated base?
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Posted by: yellow on Oct 31, 2008 2:55 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It isn't really hard to pronounce the name of Arab-American professor Rashid Khalidi. Joe the Plumber's last name, a long German one, is actually much harder to recall and pronounce. So is former NYC Mayor Rudy Guilliani's for that matter!! How does one mispronounce Khalidi? There are only three simple syllabols. I don't know if she tried to distance herself from university intellectuals or if she thought that correctly pronouncing an Arab name would somehow make her suspect as a radical commie-terrorist-Muslim? Who can figure these crackers out anyhow. And why even bother?

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The Paper Trail, The Money Trail, The Media Trail, The Corporate Trail,
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Posted by: opmoc on Oct 31, 2008 3:06 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The History Trail, The Written in Published Book Form Trail, The Btitish Movie Trail, The Bollywood Movie Trail, The Continental Europe Movie Trail,
Hollywood, TV across the World and Journalists

Is ALL Recorded

And Easily Analysed

And so it is extremely EASY

To IDENTIFY ALL THE CRIMINALS in GOVERNMENTS Across The World

But The Politicians Are Usually Just The Puppets

The Trail Now Goes Right To The Top

And The Guy at The Top

Is



Michael Palin

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Monbiot pegs the Xtian fundies
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Posted by: DaBear on Oct 31, 2008 3:56 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
One theme is both familiar and clear: Religion -- in particular fundamentalist religion -- makes you stupid. The United States is the only rich country in which Christian fundamentalism is vast and growing.

Therein lies the crux. A group of narcisisstic, delusional, arrogant, triumphalistic, Orwellian, totalitarian, violent, savage and emotionally bankrupt people clustered in one giant cult. Those of us who escaped that craptasm know all about it. I think it's funny that it takes a Brit to point it out and make people listen... but then again 90% of the commentary here never deals with Monbiot's premise... gotta luv 'merkuh.

If we can find a way to sequester the whackos from public and civic life, help them grow up and stop sucking the Jayzis tit, we'll all be the better for it. Until then, it's fuckin' armageddon this and that.

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So Is It Music Or What?
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Posted by: opmoc on Oct 31, 2008 3:57 PM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I apparently read the post above

And got what I thought was a reasonable response complete with link to a suitable video in what was it 11 minutes?

I must admit to something

There was this band playing live completely representing the most completey Brilliant Performance of Led Zeppelin since I saw them at Knebworth in 1979 (Twice)

In our Local Pub

And there was this little bloke looking through the Pub's Window...

And I gestured for him to COME IN

The Pub didn't Charge

It Was and Still Is FREE to come in

So he wouldn't come in

And so the gig finished

And the band dismantled all their kit

And he was still standing there

And so we asked him back to our home with all our friends

And he hardly spoke a word of English and hardly any of us spoke a Word of Spanish

But it didn't matter

There was Electric Guitars and Acoustic Guitars and Drums in our Kitchen

And so he stayed the night - and we welcomed him back to stay again

And Barry said - he was on The BBC 6 'O' Clcok News Playing Live at This South American Festival In The Centre of London

So he came back again for a second night very late - and we said you are sleeping here downstairs

And my Wife's best oldest Schoolfriend was sleeping naked alone in ths spare bedroom

And a about 5:00 am

He crept into her bed

And she said hello

Get out of my bedroom please Now

So he retired Gracefully

(And I Thought She Was Completely Insane - Probably Would Have Got The Best Sex in Her Life - But She Said No - and He Respected her Wishes Gracefully)

And so He invited us to visit his Mum and Dad and Entire Family high up in the Mountains in Peru...

He Said Tony & Julie - You Are Very Welcome - This is My Address

Tony

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Comparison unfair to Australia
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Posted by: David Baker on Oct 31, 2008 4:46 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
In general Monbiot's article is a good one. However, I'd like to quibble with one of his comments:

"Yet, uniquely among the developed nations (with the possible exception of Australia), learning is a grave political disadvantage [in the US]."

This is very unfair on Australia. The Australian Parliamentary Library actually publishes information on the qualification of Australian parliamentarians. Here is the breakdown of the current parliament:

More than three-quarters of the members of the current parliament have post-secondary school qualifications. In total, 177 of the 226 politicians (78 per cent) have such qualifications. (Fellowships, memberships, and associates of professional or other bodies are not counted.)

http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/RN/2005-06/06rn24.htm

Admittedly the Conservative party (paradoxically called the Liberal Party) ran a very anti-intellectual and negative campaign in last year's election (very similar to, in fact strongly influenced by the sort of campaign the Republicans have run since at least Reagan). The Conservatives were soundly defeated.

I believe the percentage of Australian Parliamentarians with post-secondary school degrees would stand up well against most other developed nations. I challenge Monbiot to prove otherwise.

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just think
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Posted by: billklinton on Oct 31, 2008 6:02 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
"Just to think about.

Obama/Biden vs McCain/Palin, what if things were switched around?…..think about it.

Would the country’s collective point of view be different?

Ponder the following:

What if the Obamas had paraded five children across the stage, including a three month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?
What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?
What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?
What if McCain had only married once, and Obama was a divorcee?
What if Obama was the candidate who left his first wife after a severe disfiguring car accident, when she no longer measured up to his standards?
What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair while he was still married?
What if Michelle Obama was the wife who not only became addicted to pain killers but also acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?
What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?
What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five?
(The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.)
What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?
What if Obama couldn’t read from a teleprompter?
What if Obama was the one who had military experience that included discipline problems and a record of crashing seven planes?
What if Obama was the one who was known to display publicly, on many occasions, a serious anger management problem?
What if Michelle Obama’s family had made their money from beer distribution?
What if the Obamas had adopted a white child?

You could easily add to this list. If these questions reflected reality, do you really believe the election numbers would be as close as they are?
This is what racism does. It covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in one candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in another when there is a color difference.

Educational Background:

Barack Obama:
Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in International Relations.
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

Joseph Biden:
University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

vs.

John McCain:
United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899

Sarah Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism

Education isn’t everything, but this is about the two highest offices in the land as well as our standing in the world. You make the call."

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Better use "spell check" or be labeled an intellectual moron!
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Posted by: common intelligence on Oct 31, 2008 6:20 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Propounding wisdom in a sea of morons may be a meaningless rant.
I'll play it safe and bow out of this one!

The Buddha would not challenge to a debate with a moron because winning would be meaningless.

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It Shouldn't Be Too Hard For American Families When Removed From Their Homes If They Go Peacefully
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Posted by: opmoc on Oct 31, 2008 7:05 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
And let the Fascist Thugs Think They Have Done a Brilliant Job Throwing You out of YOUR HOME

Cos the minute You Have Left

Your Home Belongs To The BANK

And The Bank Can't Sell It

Your Home is Completely Worthless To The Bank

So Just Spend a Night Outside in a Tent

And The Next Morning

Move Right Back In To Your HOME

It's Yours

You Are Paying The True Rent To The Mortgage Company

NOTHING

The Repo Men Will Be Doing Their Same Trick a Few Streets Away

They Have Done You

They Won't Be Coming Back


So you are back in your home - but possibly without water, electricty and gas...

Fresh Clean Water is Really Important

Get a Big Water Butt To Collect The Rain From Your Roof

Collect FUEL - Wood, Coal if you Can Find it - To Keep Warm

Buy some tin food - sure it won't last - but if you have got enough to maybe start a soup kitchen - then your neighbours will help

No One Starves or Freezes To Death

The Crisis Will Only Last a Short While

The Food is Still Growing and The Farmers Still Want To Distribute It

It is The Farmers Who Are Keeping Us Alive

Tony

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DUMBED DOWN TO BECOME AMERICAN SLAVES IN A NEW THIRD WORLD COUNTRY CALLED AMERICA! SCARY!
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Posted by: stopthemaddness2 on Oct 31, 2008 8:58 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It is a systematic dumb-down process that is pounded into America so that they are subdued into being the new American Slave. Credit, which is debt is slavery. The fact that we support and pay huge sums of money to ball players, that "play" sports, awarding them million dollar contracts but will not pay a fraction of this to teachers that are in charge of educating our youth. I am sure if teachers pay-scale was upgraded tomorrow to the tune of $100,000 a year or $150,000 a year, with strict re-certification courses, every two years.

This type of upgrade of standards raising the bar high, the quality of education and our students would soar to where it should be now in this technology age, the age of nano-technology, but instead this does not happen. The TV shows, such as Family GUY, and stupid dumb-down disrespectable gags, the video games, the ipods, the DVD's, all the celebrity hype shows and non substantive media all add to this overall dumbness. So it spawns a Sarah Palin, type it spawns and spread this stupidity and its acceptance of being DUMB.
Most young folks in our society do not read anymore. That alone makes a huge educational decline our culture.

You want to see something really scary, watch at Jay Leno show when he goes out in the community to interview folks on the street asking them simple questions they should know, such as who is the Secretary of State, how does the Constitution begin, all of them, young folks, can not answer this question. Sad, and scary. It is as if there is a plan to try to keep us all dumb down. Thus the need for alternative news. Where is the hope, where is the change. American Slaves in a new Third World America. What a nightmare!

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THE NEW AMERICAN SLAVE IN AMERICA'S NEW THIRD WORLD COUNTRY- DUMB AND DEBT DOES IT WELL
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Posted by: stopthemaddness2 on Oct 31, 2008 9:11 PM   
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It is a systematic dumb-down process that is pounded into America so that they are subdued into being the new American Slave. Credit, which is debt is slavery. The fact that we support and pay huge sums of money to ball players, that "play" sports, awarding them million dollar contracts but will not pay a fraction of this to teachers that are in charge of educating our youth. I am sure if the pay scale for teachers was increased tomorrow to the tune of $100,000 - $150,000 a year, with strict re-certification courses, every two years to keep the education current, along with the same monetary upgrades in curriculum, schools and other education incentives, the dumb down, what MTV, and video games all day, would decrease considerably. The inventors and artists, and intellectuals, and scientists with major new discoveries, philosophers, and newer technologies into the 21st and 22nd century would come awake. As it stands, I don't see any major advancements

This type of upgrade of standards raising the bar high, the quality of education and our students would soar to where it should be now in this technology age, the age of Nano-technology, but instead this does not happen. The TV shows, such as Family GUY, and stupid dumb-down dis-respectable stupid gags, the video games, the i-pods, the DVD's, all the celebrity hype shows and non substantive media all add to this overall dumbness. S

So, it spawns a Sarah Palin type, that incorrectly tells a third grader what the 1st Amendment in the Constitution states, and talks in circles, and is totally ill-educated about every subject she talks about. It spawns and spreads this stupidity and its acceptance of being DUMB. Dumb is just accepted as normal intelligence. Thus an actor who goes from reading scripts is now in charge of a huge state and reads public policy. Amazing!

Most young folks in our society do not read anymore. That alone makes a huge educational decline our culture.

You want to see something really scary, watch at Jay Leno show when he goes out in the community to interview folks on the street asking them simple questions they should know, such as who is the Secretary of State, how does the Constitution begin, all of them, young folks, can not answer this question. Sad, and scary. It is as if there is a plan to try to keep us all dumb down. Thus the need for alternative news. Where is the hope, where is the change. American Slaves in a new Third World America. What a nightmare!

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ALL EYES, IN EUROPE AND NATIONALLY ARE WATCHING THE VOTES THIS TIME..... BEWARE NEOCONS!
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Posted by: stopthemaddness2 on Oct 31, 2008 9:36 PM   
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I remember that quoted figure of 59,000,000 and the European news papers asking how could people in the US be so DUMB. There's that word again. Well Bushie DUBUA BOY better watch it this time, because all of Europe is closely watching, and folks with big money like Warren Buffet and others are closely watching this time to the votes, and the posts that I have read, and I've read many of them all are in high favor of OBAMA winning, people in Gemany, Australia, South America, even Switzerland, are routing for OBAMA!!! ALL EYES ARE WATCHING THIS TIME BUSHIE!!!

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Going Over to the Dark Side
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Posted by: macdon1 on Oct 31, 2008 10:21 PM   
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I'm a poor person who got an excellent ivy league education on merit (scholarships, etc.) but I was dumb enough to think I could change the system from the inside. All I ended up with is a poverty stricken old age because you can't succeed on the inside unless you step over to the dark side. I do, however, still have my integrity and a lot of books...

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Here Here!
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Posted by: charlesp210 on Oct 31, 2008 10:36 PM   
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Great to see someone else note the sad irony of how the pseudoscience of Social Darwinism that Bryan rejected is now the prevailing ethos among religious fundamentalists, while they reject the well established science of the Theory of Natural Selection.

Natural Selection has nothing to do with explaining how a small number of people become super rich, then use their power to take away the rights of others even to earn a decent living, with the result being that everyone suffers as the economy collapses as the economy collapses from too much inequality.

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I'm a retired librarian
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Posted by: wireup on Oct 31, 2008 10:42 PM   
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who worked the reference desk in public libraries. I lost count of the number of times that PARENTS did their kids' homework.

The parents would come to the reference desk asking for materials necessary to accomplish the homework. Whenever I asked where their children were and why they (the parents) were doing the homework instead of their children, I was invariably informed that the children had jobs and couldn't do their homework!!

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Too Many Problems To Mention
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Posted by: bessie on Oct 31, 2008 11:35 PM   
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Tax exempt groups, like religious corporations, create their own power that far exceeds their real value. That's one real problem in American politics. The power of these groups is comparable to any lobbyist only because of the capital behind their agenda. Take that away and it might be a totally different ball game. So it's obvious, make these religious corporations pay taxes and see where the chips might fall. Another problem, with education, is more complex. The very intelligent obviously can manage to rise to the top no matter how dismal their education is. That's not the real issue for the majority of students who rely on education to advance their goals and well being. My own children complained to me about being taught that the American Indians were our 'friends' and then it was so obvious that massive genocide had occured. I had the same history lesson for at least eight years but at the same time I was taught how to write a sentence and, later, a term paper. This is no longer happening. You either get it or teach yourself or something in between. So the "morans" have a lot of reasons to complain, and as for the rest of us, we have to figure out ways to make sure that everyone learns how to write a sentence and, also, be exposed to truth about American history and as individuals to be made to feel that they matter.

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They DO like thoughtful, reasoned, intellectual analysis sometimes ...
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Posted by: RossB on Nov 1, 2008 6:54 AM   
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A lot of the people whom this article decries do like critical thought and intellectual analysis, when they don't know it's happening. Ever listen to a football coach break down a game? All that needs to happen is to convince people to demand as much from their politicians.

What would happen, in the reddest of any red state, if the coach was asked about the upcoming game, and simply replied, "They're a bunch of jerks. We're going to hand it to them because they're jerks, and little girls like Broadway Joe Namath."

"But what can your quarterback do against their scrambling defense?"

"Well, he's 'the Boxcar', you know, I think he'll be totally awesome because he's the Boxcar."

The guy would be busted down to washing jockstraps for JV in no time. The fans want to be violent, screaming and insensitive, but they want someone with a brain behind the wheel. So there's hope.

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It's Not Anti-Intellectualism, It's Anti-Elitism. There's a Difference
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Posted by: SkeeterVT1 on Nov 1, 2008 10:05 AM   
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The author of this article reveals his own elitism in the way he repeatedly skewers the intellectual capacity of Americans. He would have better contributed to the discussion by not insulting the intelligence of the very people he criticizes as anti-intellectual. To do so only results in a retaliatory counterattack on himself as "an elitist snob who thinks he's better than anybody else."

He confuses "anti-intellectualism" with anti-elitism. Americans are anti-elitist by nature; after all, we fought the American Revolution against the elitist snobbery of British royal society. It's in our country's DNA.

Barack Obama is proof of this. He is perhaps the most highly intellectual presidential candidate since John F. Kennedy. But unlike Kennedy, Obama was never part of the elite; he grew up with very modest means, whereas Kennedy was raised in one of the the wealthiest families in America.

His campaign is succeeding because he has appeals directly to the vast middle-class mainstream of America as no Democratic presidential candidate has be able to do since Bill Clinton -- another high intellect who was never part of the elite.

The hysterical attacks by his opponent, John McCain, that Obama is an "elitist" have largely failed, because the American people know from having observed McCain over the years that he and his Republican Party represent the elite -- a fact which was made plainly clear by McCain's response to the economic crisis -- and thus his attacks ring hypocritically hollow.

Americans don't have a problem with people who are intellectual. Rather, they have a problem with people of high intellect who put down others who are less intellectual than themselves. That's elitism.

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The Quick Answer To How Morons Succeed In America
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Posted by: desidid on Nov 1, 2008 12:41 PM   
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Racial, ethnic, and familial nepotism.

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» IGNORANCE Posted by: Jest2007

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Ignorance, you said ignorance? Here is the perfect ignorant at work
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Posted by: ubaguba on Nov 1, 2008 5:13 PM   
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbEwKcs-7Hc

Listen till the end!

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EGALITARIANISM
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Posted by: billwald on Nov 1, 2008 6:50 PM   
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The difference is that GB calls their upper house "House of Lords" while we call ours, "The Senate." In theory, Brits are ruled by their "betters." 80% of Americans think they are above average. Americans don't have "betters." They elect good old boys who they can laugh at.

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» THE REAL DUFUS IS Posted by: reelman

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MARXISM
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Posted by: sherman on Nov 1, 2008 9:56 PM   
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A little Marxism is good for a anal retentive such as ours. clean out the inner canals, so the ---- can freely flow.

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Opinion Uber Alles
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Posted by: Lilly on Nov 1, 2008 10:10 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Watch any teacher in any American classroom. Sooner or later, he/she will call for a show of hands reflecting students' opinion: "How many of you think x is right? How many think y is right?". TV and Internet continue this with constant interactive polls. Americans are absolutely brainwashed that their opinion can be set equal to fact. I once taught in a system that required, each year, a writing exercise in which students were to demonstrate that they could distinguish between fact and opinion. It would have been easier to teach Calculus to orangutans because everything in these kids' experience had taught them that their opinion WAS fact. There is a story about a kindergarten class that wanted to know the sex of its pet guinea pig so the children took a vote. At the other end of the spectrum, I once sat in a doctoral seminar in RESEARCH, for God's sake, where a student's citation of experience-based statistics got a peer reaction of "Oh, I don't FEEL that is true". And go to any message board dealing with a medical or health issue, where reading one article creates an expert who outranks the doctor who trained for twenty years to say what he says. We Americans have powerful opinions: don't bother us with facts from uppity elitist authorities who think they know better.

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» RE: Opinion Uber Alles Posted by: realtruther

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There's one completely false assumption here:
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Posted by: Ian MacLeod on Nov 2, 2008 12:28 PM   
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"Until the great failures of the U.S. education system are reversed or religious fundamentalism withers, there will be political opportunities for people, like Bush and Palin, who flaunt their ignorance."

Failure, my ass! The RadRight spent more than three decades spending our money in ever-increasing amounts on things that not only didn't improve the system, they DISimproved it, and they got exactly what they wanted! From "peer group" passing to the culmination in NCLB with so much time, money and effort totally wasted in teaching kids to pass specific (and inadequate, of course) tests instead of actually educating them, to wasted resources forcing already underpaid teachers to gain useless "specialization" credits and certs and better teachers having their hands tied, then being fired because of the predictable results: a nation of fucking idiots who have no idea of how to use their own minds, and totally susceptible to propaganda from the Right and from religious (read here "superstitious" or even "fantacist") fanatics. People who think the sun revolves around the earth and is 5,000 years old, who don't believe in evolution or climate change, who believe that "Left Behind" series is accurate biblical teaching, who are sure that all the destruction of the environment will be repaired or replaced after Jesus shows up and kicks all those "other people" (and never try to tell them that Jesus was a long-haired radical Jew and not a blue-eyed blond or a brown haired, hazel-eyed WASP!) into Hell so none of it matters anyway, who are totally paranoid about any different skin color, religion, culture or even cultural heritage other than their own, and on and on it goes.

The bastards got EXACTLY what they paid for!

Ian

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Response to Naive Americans and AlterNet Authors
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Posted by: aberdeen on Nov 2, 2008 9:42 PM   
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Response to author of article on AlterNet regarding politics and American stupidity.

I have believed since high school that there is much fundamentally wrong with the U.S. education system and much more wrong with Christianity in general and conservative fundamentalism in particular.

However, many modern progressives continue to display a severe lack of consistence in logic by taking the cheap shot road of blaming our problems on religion, rather than on the overwhelming evidence that our problems are based on human greed and thus, caused by our own selves, organized religion being only one of many byproducts of such greed created to enhance and protect wealth.

So-called "enlightened" thinkers of the 18th Century indulged in much violence, including the extremely violent French and far too violent American Revolutions. How is one supposed to blame this and other violence on religion as being the root problem, when some of our most educated people in the 21st Century, many of them agnostics and atheists, continue to design biological, nuclear and worse weaponry?

I am no fan of religion myself, but it would seem that most modern progressives who contribute to AlterNet fail to understand that there just might be a significant and fundamental difference between God and religions supposedly based on God and likewise, that modern Darwinism is one of the most superstitious, dogmatic and myopic of all religions, as it's fundamental assumption that the universe is a product of self-design not only is not based on any evidence, it completely contradicts all known evidence and human experience.

For example, nobody knows for certain how the pyramids of Egypt came to be as we can observe and touch them today; it is just assumed by every rational human being that someone designed them. There is no evidence that anything has ever designed itself from the top down, while ALL known evidence suggests otherwise. And likewise, there is no evidence that anything ever came to be in motion by itself, while ALL known evidence suggests that nothing can be in motion unless somewhere up the chain, first being put in motion by an external force.

It is therefore, scientifically accurate to conclude that the universe is a product of design until someone can definitively prove, based on evidence, otherwise. No other conclusion is scientific for the fundamental reason that it is not based on evidence.

And getting back to education, this author says the following regarding our rather violence-prone and quick to exclude slaves, women and the working class and poor from the spoils founding fathers: "...men like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams and Alexander Hamilton -- were among the greatest thinkers of their age."

I have noticed that many who write for AlterNet use similar "cherry-picked" historically innacurate and false claims regarding our founding fathers to back up inaccurate positions and rather shallow conclusions, conveniently leaving out the following:

Jefferson explicitly stated and seems to have strongly believed that human rights were "endowed" by our Creator, which agrees with the Bible, which incidentally, Jefferson began re-writing while a sitting president and, while still a sitting president, began attempting to make his version of the New Testament the officially recognized government version, thus ensuring that it would be taught in every public classroom.

Madison stated that he believed the first amendment would aid in the spread of Christianity.

And Franklin openly vocally complained that those assembled at the Constitutional convention were not seeking guidance from God nearly enough.

Richard Aberdeen
Free 20-Song CD
WHO WOULD JESUS BOMB?

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CONTINUATION OF ABOVE POST
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Posted by: aberdeen on Nov 2, 2008 9:44 PM   
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Now, even if there is no God, which is far less logical than to conclude there is no universe and, even if this author's conclusions are somehow correct, they are based fundamentally, on gross scientific and historical lies, which contradict all know scientific, historical and other evidence.

And finally, what is clearly wrong with American education is that knowledge is divided up into convenient non-connect "disciplines", where God is pretended to not be a question for science and morality is not a question allowed at all. And thus, many of our brightest children become designers of star war machines, rather than Jonas Salks and Albert Schweitzers.

It is perhaps accurate to blame the lack of political and moral vision on American education, but it is even more fair to blame it on the ACLU and modern progressives, who refuse to allow the teachings of Jesus, the founder of human rights, to be taught in our public classrooms.

Someone like Socrates or Aristotle might fairly conclude, that modern progressives have made their own shallow bed of godless education and now, they get to lie in it with G. W., Dick Cheney, global pollution and morally bankrupt Americans, who go right on shopping at the mall and purchasing SUV's in the middle of a Middle East war, accordingly.

Sincerely,
Richard Aberdeen
Freedom Tracks Records

Free 20-Song CD
WHO WOULD JESUS BOMB?
Freedom Tracks Records
www.FreedomTracks.com

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a critical perspective on conceptions of "backwardness" and the South
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Posted by: jtroane on Nov 3, 2008 7:13 PM   
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I am astounded by this article. What? Inherent in this article and the comments that follow it, are notions that the South is somehow the great polluter of the collective intellect. That 'Religious Freaks' are the problem. Interestingly white Notherners and Captial drift from view and fade to the margins, much like whiteness in general. I don't agree with the prosperity gospels or the like but to pin the problems of this world on those folks who make up those congregations without an interrogation of capital or hegemony is wrongheaded and elitist at best. This elitism mirrors the problems of the historic pseudo liberalesque left and even the historic left in general... this uncritical embrace of eurocentric notions of modernity and progress. I hate to burst the author and commentor's bubbles but Urbane Northern elite and their euro cousins haven't done much to move the world in a positive direction. the world is dying and it is partially THEIR FAULT!! And what of the history of illiterate Communists in 1930's Alabama, white and black? What of the Zapatistas? What of the yeomen of Western North Carolina following the Civil War? A lack of education doesn't necessarily mean absence of radical mobilization. And there are plenty of dumb and extremely conservative academics...

moreover,there are ways in which collective mobilization has been historically demonized and cut off, channeling resent of power into different channels. white people in Southwest Virginia have a good reason to be extremely critical of "modernity and progress". their land and their bodies have been bled by northern and euro capitalists. that their resistances have often been colored by racism is a matter of history and hegemony, not as simple as dumbness and backwardness.

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IGNORANCE
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Posted by: Jest2007 on Nov 3, 2008 7:45 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The biggest threat to democracy in this country is voter ignorance. Otherwise, how would a Sarah Palin be considered a viable candidate? Many voters do not base important electoral decisions on an understanding of the issues, and the backgrounds and positions of the candidates. In fact, they operate from a level of ignorance that is profound. The majority of people in this country believed that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the attacks on 9/11. And, then, after the 9/11 Commission had established, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Saddam Hussein and Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, fifty percent of population still believed Hussein was responsible for the attacks. Probably many of them wouldn't even know the location of Iraq. Ignorance in the realm of politics, government, and geography is pervasive in this country. Recently, a college student who was planning to be a teacher was asked where Beijing was located. She had no idea. When a college graduate does not know the name of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, this country has a serious problem and alarm bells should be ringing. Such a profound lack of knowledge is the most outstanding threat to our democracy. One of the major reasons for this ignorance is that the educational system in this country no longer emphasizes the teaching of civics, history, and geography. Every student who graduates from high school should have a working knowledge of the Constitution, the structure of the federal government, political issues, domestic and international issues, and geography; otherwise, the leadership in this country will continue to fail the populace. And we will continue to elect substandard leaders. The last 7 1/2 years is a prime example of this failure, which was of monumental proportions.

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Upside Down
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Posted by: atritium on Nov 6, 2008 11:44 PM   
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The problems we are told are so important (global warming, pollution, energy, etc.) are the product of materialistic science, not religion. That 50% have an STD by the age of 25 is not due to religion, but people acting contrary to religious beliefs.

The current housing & credit crunch is due to materialistic Boomer wasting their money on lottery tickets, electronic junk, houses and cars above their means contrary to the teachings of religion instead of saving.

It was decided that a central committee of smart people (The Federal Reserve) knew better what interest rates should be, and they were set at 1%, luring an immoral population even further into self-indulgenece.

None of this is due to following religious beliefs, but the opposite. As society has become more secular, problems have multiplied.

The success of the west is based on a specific set of beliefs: that the world can be understood and is worth understanding (leading to science), that humans were made in the spiritual image of God, thus have intrinsic worth (human rights), but voluntarily corrupted themselves (requiring representative, decentralized government).

If one thinks humans are bags of chemicals that randomly developed over time, then human power and yourself become the measure of all things. Economics eventually arrives at centralized control by those who pursued power (socialism, communism, etc.). But since no one can know enough to control anything all the time, this will always fail.

The history of the 20th century since Darwin has been mass-murder: Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot all sought to create modern scientific states free from religion as you want. 80 million+ were killed and the states still failed.

Instead of recognizing your world view has always failed and is continuing to fail, you point the blame at precisely those people who have nothing to do with it and have been warning and teaching against these problems. They were right all along.

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Palin
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Posted by: sicntired on Nov 10, 2008 12:59 AM   
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What else is there to say.If this is what religion is about,forget it.Casting out of witches?She'd probably agree to witch burnings and another inquisition if she thought she could get away with it.Religion is based on tales passed down from men shivering in a cave worrying that demons would come in their sleep and steal their being.The stories of the two current largest cults are based on a story from ancient Mesopotamia and passed down through Egypt.If you look at them logically they're actually quite quaint and funny.What is done in their name is anything but.

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Alternet Comments:

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RE: Why do you want anti-intellectualism to wither?
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Posted by: trel on Oct 31, 2008 3:44 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
You now have your own personal God. Barrak Hussien Obama.

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» Everything political these days... Posted by: ABetterFuture
» RE: Priceless! Posted by: Cybershaman
» RE: Priceless! Posted by: Lauren
» RE: Priceless! Posted by: lisaisalefty
» RE: Priceless! Posted by: bluepilgrim
» RE: Priceless! Posted by: john mont

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RE: Why do you want anti-intellectualism to wither?
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Lilykins on Oct 31, 2008 4:54 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The problem is the idiots force their potentially intellectual children into their "proud to be ignorant" lifestyle.
Being a child of fundamentalist parents I have been forced to leave public school at 12 because my parents believed girls should be housewives and having an education would tempt them away from that god-given duty. Later, I went against their will to take a couple of college courses at a community college. I got great grades and won a full scholarship. My entire family then banded together and threaten to never speak to me or my son again if I took the scholarship. I chose my family and have regretted it ever since. At 40, after struggling through horribly abusive relationships with religious fanatical men who believed men owned their wives, I finally escaped from Christianity and now I am living alone and putting myself through school. I've never been happier in my life.
Not a day goes by that I don't think about all the children born to those "proud to ignorant" jerks and the way their children's minds are discarded like trash so the parents can feel better about their own faith in magic. American children are a laughing stock to the rest of the world because instead of science they are taught about magic, instead of learning about the wonders of the human body, they are taught about how "evil" their minds and bodies are. Instead of being loved for who they are, they are hated and told they were born "bad" and have to spend their lives denying and hating themselves. Instead of being told that the world is full of potentials and opportunities, they are told it's evil and scary.
It sickens me. I would never judge a janitor or garbage collector; you never know what hell they may have had to suffer in their lives.

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» RE: Good for you! Posted by: Cybershaman
» Oops - I meant OBNOXIOUS Posted by: fluffmuffinmom

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RE: Why do you want anti-intellectualism to wither?
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Fishbone Soldier on Oct 31, 2008 4:57 AM   
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Yeah, 'cept this ignorance thing - it really affects everyone. Without the fundamentalist sheep, Bush never would've stood a chance to get elected. Have you been paying attention the last eight years? You know how much this "Crusade in the Middle East" has cost you personally? Your "make 'em slaves" argument is not without merit, but when we have enough of them that they are the ones making the decisions, who's the real slave?

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RE: Why do you want anti-intellectualism to wither?
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