Our Dumb Democracy: Why the United States of Stupid Still Reins Supreme

[xchrom]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/01/22



Astoundingly, Mr. Obama – the supreme pragmatist and compromiser – gave an inaugural address that was as strong a defense of progressivism as we have seen in thirty years. Yet it will take more than words to make a difference. As the echoes of his speech fade, we are still faced with ultra-rightwing terrorists threatening to hold the US economy hostage to a set of demands that the majority of Americans disagree with.

These are the same loonies who deny global warming; the same ones who set up a museum showing prehistoric humans walking with dinosaurs; the same ones who think the answer to gun violence is more guns; the same ones who voted against relief for victims of Sandy … the same ones who want to shove ultrasound instruments into women’s vaginas and tell people who they can and cannot marry while simultaneously shouting to the rooftops about freedom and values.

Yeah. Their freedoms, their beliefs and their values, please. All others step to the back of the bus, or consult Leviticus. You know, that font of ancient wisdom that tells us when and how to stone our neighbor’s daughter.

Want to know how our political discourse got so mind-numbingly stupid?

[datasuspect]

1. tv

[Egalitarian Thug]

5. Single largest contributer of dumb in America.

[datasuspect]

7. it's no coincidence

that television content is referred to as "programming."

[The2ndWheel]

11. No coincidence that we're all called "products" of the school system either

[Egalitarian Thug]

13. Missing the homophonic error in the title is deliciously apropos.

The "new media" that we now rely on for news and information is run by functionally illiterate amateurs.

[Aristus]

19. Yeah, how hard is it, after all, to spell 'rain'?

[Egalitarian Thug]

20. LOL!

[Aristus]

21. Their stupidity reigns down on us all...

[Egalitarian Thug]

28. AAAAAAARGH! MAKE IT STOP!

[snot]

36. Thank you all. Such a relief to know I wasn't alone.

[JackRiddler]

26. Heh. Okay. But reign it in, now.

[MynameisBlarney]

15. It is just ahead of religion

in that regard.

[Arugula Latte]

16. I don't know -- I'd put religion as the number one contributing factor.

[MynameisBlarney]

22. It used to be...

But tv has since replaced it as the number one opiate for the masses.

[datasuspect]

31. people are only religious enough now to beg God for shit

but that's pretty much the crux of religion - begging God for shit.

[Egalitarian Thug]

17. TV is more inclusive than religions, but both are rooted in fantasy and this nation has

completely withdrawn into a fantasy world.

[roguevalley]

18. reigns . :D

[AlbertCat]

24. TV: Single largest contributer of dumb in America.

I disagree. TV may indeed be a vast wasteland, but it also has many shows that educate. There are happy gays and whole shows about drag queens. Blacks and asians and gays are all friends in some places on TV. There's old and new art. Science may be sandwiched between "Ancient Aliens" but it's at least THERE.

I say the SINGLE largest contributer of dumb in America is

RELIGION.

It has no "shows" that educate AND is on TV.

The more religion and its support of division and prejudice get power thru government, the lower we sink.

[Egalitarian Thug]

27. Including minorities in a fantasy is better than excluding them, but doesn't alter the

fact that it is a fantasy.

Including infinitesimal tidbits of actual science in an ocean of anti-science only serves to legitimize that anti-science programming and doesn't necessitate the capacity to discern those tidbits from the dreck.

Art, education, debate, news? Where?

American TV has merely supplanted and improved the role of mass indoctrination that religion used to fill. Plus, more people watch TV than are religious, so I think that while there is no doubt that both have severely negative effects, TV has a significant edge over religion in catapulting the dumb. But I do agree that losing either of these cultural sinkholes would go a long way in waking us up from our long nightmare.

[AlbertCat]

29. Art, education, debate, news? Where?

It's there. You have to look for it in the vast wasteland.

And the positive roles of minorities play a huge role in changing attitudes toward them and equality.

Religion doesn't deliver any of this.... even if it expresses it.

[Richard_uk]

30. Corporations are people

The American democracy has been hijacked. It is now a corporatocracy (is that a word). After 20 years in the USA I am afraid that I bailed out on you. I now live in the UK where we have a right wing government that is working to prevent global warming, funding (a little begrudgingly) socialized healthcare and cutting the cost of our military. It is required at an election to publish a manifesto detailing its political position and to defend it. I would not vote for them but when I compare them to GW and the republicans they are great.

Oh and we have the BBC, its a little pro royal but otherwise independent.

Its great to watch Obama from over here, good luck working with the Republicans, you have my sympathy.

[GCP]

38. I bailed too

31 years in the US, bit couldn't take the insanity any longer. I now watch the gun debate with a profound sense of deja vu and know nothing will change.

[Scuba]

2. Imponderables ...

from the article ...

National “Defense:” If the US was spending more than the next 16 countries combined on defense prior to 911, why did we need to create the Department of Homeland Security to defend ourselves?
...

If Citizen’s United is about Free Speech, why does it cost so much? Republicans and plutocrats are set to spend far more than $1 billion on the presidential race.

...


Deficit Duplicity: Why are Republicans once again threatening to shut down government over extending the debt ceiling, after voting for the Ryan’s first budget, which required multiple and astronomical increases in the debt ceiling until the year 2062?

...

Deregulation, Trickle Down Redux, or Fool me once, shame on you … If thirty years of policies featuring deregulation, tax cuts for the rich and starve the beast policies resulted in the economic crash in 2008 – the worst since the Great Depression, which was also preceded by laissez-faire policies – how can more of the same be the solution?

[RC]

9. Brought to you by the same kind of people that think(?) that

more guns are the answer to gun violence.

Deregulation, Trickle Down Redux, or Fool me once, shame on you … If thirty years of policies featuring deregulation, tax cuts for the rich and starve the beast policies resulted in the economic crash in 2008 – the worst since the Great Depression, which was also preceded by laissez-faire policies – how can more of the same be the solution?

None of them can even conceive of doing something different when what they are doing isn't working. The same irrational mind-set also keeps reelecting them.

[pampango]

3. Nice post, xchrom. Love this excerpt: “Stop Illeagles.” Yup, gotta hate it when eagles get ill.

[hobbit709]

14. You don't want to get eagle puke on you, it's nasty.

[Demeter]

25. Hobbits would know all about that, for sure

Personal experience!

[hughee99]

37. Gonna have to make that boarder fence SUPER high. n/t

[marmar]

4. k/r

nt

[libtodeath]

6. Brilliant!

[Rob H.]

8. Irony: an article about stupidity with an incorrect word in the headline

It's reigns, not reins.

(Edit: To the OP, I know it's commondreams, not you.)

[Rob H.]

10. This is one that got me during the election

If Republicans really hate deficits, why did the last three Republican Presidents run up more than 66% of the nation's cumulative deficit – more than all other Presidents combined? And why didn’t rank and file Republicans utter a peep against it when they did?

I had a Republican friend on Facebook (who unfriended me after the drubbing Romney got) who was screaming about how huge the deficit was under Obama, and he voted for Bush the Lesser--who my former friend seemed to think had nothing at all to do with how our economy got where it is today--twice. He also was screaming about "big gummint!" even though the size of the government exploded under Bush and he didn't seem to care at all about it then. Some people, I swear....

[mojowork_n]

12. On that same general theme... possibly even related, some verse.

Just read this at opednews.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/mediocrity-equals-death-by-e-b-bortz-130120-108.html

for all the talk of
free expression
and the liberation
of the artistic soul
is it not clear
there's very little
creative fire
that really surfaces
or takes root
or inspires?

we're being droned out 24/7
by the pundits
and
unsocial media
with talking points
kept within
predictable restraints
like the straightjacket
or a starched white shirt

even the words
freedom
peace
justice
that so permeate our texts
are losing all practical applications
wars continue
prisons fill
most politicians
return their contributions
with custom legislation
for their captors

so far
the great upheaval
has passed us by
the lid stays on the soup kettle
opening occasionally
to dole out a piecemeal
of disappointment
(so let's start a new facebook page)

it's true that
the words and music and colors
that can ignite a generation
still kindle
in the darkness
every once in a while
there's a new spark
but nothing burns
every facade and border and prediction
or goes wildly
all out
way down the road
like a chuck berry song

--- e b bortz

[NorthCarolina]

23. The summation is spot on:

"The answer to all these questions is simple – these absurdities exist, because our media has replaced truth, accuracy and reality with balance, false equivalency, and stenography and Democrats have been silent co-conspirators.

Why? Because the press is a wholly owned subsidiary of corporations, and too many Democrats feed at the corporate trough.

And that’s not funny, but it is stupid."

How true, how true.

[just1voice]

32. What if the sign read "Angryblack-menistan"?

How about "angryyellow-menistan" or "angryred-menistan"? How about all the dumb people in Amurikkka stop referring to racist repukes and "angry whites" as that's racist as shit in itself?

Racist aholes have existed for a long time, such as the KKK which was all white people but did American society then start referring to all while males as "WhiteKlan-istan"?

There are plenty of war crimes, bank crimes and real corruption for "white people" to be sincerely angry about without being thrown into a group of racist repukes.

[Luminous Animal]

34. The sign says what it says because it is angry white men who are proposing to create

fortress communities (Like Glen Beck's Citadel) to wall themselves in from the influence of Democrats and other liberals. The cartoon is referencing this loony movement.

By the way, "yellow" and "red" are slurs, "black" and "white" are not.

[Skittles]

33. HUGE K&R

[RainDog]

35. another great find, xchrom! thanks! nt.