America: Divided against itself

[T_i_B]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1318960,00.html

If Bush wins fair and square on November 2, then what conclusions can we draw about a nation that consciously decides this is the course it wants to take? We might start by ruling out a few. First, it will not mean that Americans are stupid. They aren't. Compared with the rest of the world, they are pretty well educated and certainly no more stupid than Britons, French or Portuguese were when they had an empire. Nor will it mean they have been duped. They haven't. They have been lied to constantly and their mainstream media has served them poorly, particularly over weapons of mass destruction, the connection between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein, and the Middle East.

But in a nation where the internet is widely available, and films, books and radio stations present other opinions, Americans have had access to a wide range of viewpoints, including Howard Dean and Michael Moore. True, dissident voices have been marginalised. But they have not been extinguished - and, if anything, have grown more mainstream in the past year. So if Americans come away from the plurality of opinions with which they have been presented to back Bush, it will not be because they did not know that other views were out there, but because they chose to believe one set of views over others.

The question is, why? Partly because they have not been presented with much of an electoral alternative. The choice, come November 2, is between a man who prosecuted the war and a man who voted for him to do so. Indeed, Kerry's polling numbers have only started climbing since he began putting a distance between himself and Bush on the war, as he did during the debate.

Then there is fear - Bush's invisible running mate. Republicans have explicitly claimed that the US will get hit again if Kerry wins. "Weakness invites those who would do us harm," says one radio ad, broadcast last week in the swing states. The Democrats are now at it too. In the past few weeks, they have argued that a second Bush term could cause more casualties, another Vietnam in Iraq, a military draft, a secret call-up of reservists and even a nuclear attack against the US.

[DebJ]

1. The USA ranks 49th in literacy....meaning 48 other countries

have higher literacy levels than US citizens. So I dispute your comment that "Compared with the rest of the world, they are pretty well educated...."

[ixion]

3. Yeah, I find that debatable as well

We rank near the bottom of industrialized nations in math and science, our public school system neither encourages critical thinking, only passive regurgatation, and does not adequately prepare for the leap from High School to College, and does not accurately teach geography or world history.

I would argue that this does not make us 'well-educated'.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. The US is not too far down the list

18th in mathematical literacy; 15th in reading literacy amongst OECD countries at age 15, beating, for instance, Germany and Italy in both cases.

[ixion]

5. 18th and 15th and we should be proud?

I believe that's a case of lowered expectations. ;-)

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Not something to be proud of, but neither can you use it as an excuse

for electing a 'corrupt, chimp faced, lying alcoholic' (in the words of a BBC comedy show) for president. US education is still in the same league as other western countries, even if it doesn't lead it.

[ixion]

7. sure, but I base that opinion on having gone through it

and I had the happiness to have a decent public education system. I was woefully ill-equiped to go through my Freshman year in college, knew only a little about world history (basic overview of greek mythology and the roman empire), and having been taught only rudimentary critical thinking skills.

I base these assumptions on what I learned in the next 7 years of college.

So I look back now, and I say to myself: "what if I had opted not to go to college? What if I had joined the work force at 18 instead?"

And I shiver, because I realized my own ignorance at that point would have become my worldview.

That's where I think education falls short.

Of course, I'm a firm believer in social reformation through erudition. ;-)

[Wright Patman]

2. Great Britain

is really the only other respected country in the world (Israel is not respected and is closer to being a pariah nation) whose government enthusiastically supports the thinly-disguised imperial natural resources "smash-and-grab" operation known as the "war on terror."

Had your puppet/poodle Blair said no, we would be a lot closer to ending this fiasco. Instead, the Anglo-American financial elite will take the whole world to its grave. We may have less time before a new Dark Age sets in than anyone thinks.

[MissMarple]

8. Many Americans are parochial, uninformed, preoccupied.

Many actually believe their favorite party's campaign ads.

This guy neeeds to either stop drinking the funny kool-aid, or do a bit of that investigative journalism he is trying to immitate.

He ends with:
"The country is riven on almost every axis possible - between red states (for Bush) and blue states (for Kerry), between the religious and the secular, the metro and the retro. "Not since the civil war has the country been so divided," argues John White, professor of politics at the Catholic University of America. Whether Bush wins or loses, these rifts will endure. America is not just a nation at war with the world; it is a nation at war with itself."

Much of this is artificially created and promoted with the intent to divide. Americans are guilty of allowing their critical thinking skills to atrophy and of believing the snippets of "news" and radio driven propaganda are actually factual and complete. Too many Americans have no clue how we are preceived abroad and those who do, and still support George, do not understand what our country used to stand for.