Polls Show Many Americans are Simply Dumber Than Bush

[Pharaoh]

Americans need desperately to comprehend that if Bush attacks Iran and Syria, as he intends, terrorism will explode, and American civil liberties will disappear into a thirty year war that will bankrupt the United States.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11696.htm


:dem: :dem: :dem:

[serryjw]

1. This is beautiful.....

I couldn't have said it better myself. The only thing he missed is our countries love of 'stuff' and could care less about freedom

[juliana24]

2. Most people think staying out of jail is freedom.

[RC]

3. You have a good point there.

[thefool_wa]

4. Wow

No there is truthful condemnation. Unfortunately the closer we get to the American Police State, the more this is becomming simply the truth.

[ktlyon]

20. and they don't think they have done anything wrong

if they don't get caught

[Pharaoh]

5. we are very close

to a total control of the country by a bunch of nutjobs!!!!!!!!!

[spooky3]

6. Everyone should click on your link--and look at who the author is!

[Pharaoh]

7. author? someone you know?

[MadisonProgressive]

8. He's a conservative republican

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: [e-mail]


This make the article much more amazing.

[Pharaoh]

9. aha! right you are

some of the normal old republicans think they're nuts too.................

[spooky3]

11. exactly

[stevedeshazer]

15. Paul Craig Roberts was on Thom Hartmann's radio program last week

It was fascinating to listen to him.

[kineneb]

16. PCR has joined the "light side"

I think the Neos call them "paleoconservatives." They are rather fond of the Constitution and hate BushCo, but never would vote Dem. I think the Rs have lost a lot of these folks, perhaps permanently.

[Clark2008]

29. The Dems could win them over with balanced-budget

proposals and a show of force on national security issues.

Pretty simple, really.

[MN ChimpH8R]

17. Roberts has been hammering away on this

for quite a while now. There's a collection of his columns at antiwar.com, IIRC. He has also gone off at length on the assault on the middle class and the deindustrialization of the United States. A very interesting fellow he is.

[Cleita]

10. What's really bothering me isn't low IQ's but

that our nation seems to be bi-polar. I can't believe Americans accept what has been dished out to them by these criminals. Since when has it been acceptable to hurt other human beings from the highest offices of our land? Since when do half the population agree that it's okay?

Torture is not okay, no matter what the circumstances.

The end justifies the means is definitely not what a democracy is about.

Invading other countries, especially those that can't defend themselves from the most formidable military in the world, just because you can, isn't acceptable.

Why has half our population forgotten what decency is?

I find this amazing.

[KoKo]

12. LOL's you probably "nailed it!" n/t

[Kurovski]

13. A stunning bit of reality...

"spying without a warrant is no more effective in reducing the threat of terrorism than spying with a warrant."

[emdee]

14. Thank you for that link

:dem:

[Dhampir Kampf]

18. Well stated

[AlamoDemoc]

19. Well..I travel and that's exactly what they ask! n/t

[Douglas Carpenter]

21. some more poll info I got from an article by Gore Vidal

here is the alternet link:

http://www.alternet.org/story/31321 /

I usually post links emphasizing the liberal/left side of Americans..but I have to admit -- not all polls are as encouraging.

snip:
"Meanwhile, the indoctrination of the people merrily continues. "In a 'State of the First Amendment Survey' conducted by the University of Connecticut in 2003, 34 percent of Americans polled said the First Amendment 'goes too far'; 46 percent said there was too much freedom of the press; 28 percent felt that newspapers should not be able to publish articles without prior approval of the government; 31 percent wanted public protest of a war to be outlawed during that war; and 50 percent thought the government should have the right to infringe on the religious freedom of 'certain religious groups' in the name of the war on terror."

snip:
"Meanwhile, millions of adult Americans, presumably undrugged, have no idea who our enemies were in World War II. Many college graduates don't know the difference between an argument and an assertion (did their teachers also fail to solve this knotty question?). A travel agent in Arizona is often asked whether or not it is cheaper to take the train rather than fly to Hawaii. Only 12% of Americans own a passport. At the time of the 2004 presidential election 42% of voters believed that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11. One high school boy, when asked who won the Civil War, replied wearily, "I don't know and I don't care," echoing a busy neocon who confessed proudly: "The American Civil War is as remote to me as the War of the Roses."

We are assured daily by advertisers and/or politicians that we are the richest, most envied people on Earth and, apparently, that is why so many awful, ill-groomed people want to blow us up. We live in an impermeable bubble without the sort of information that people living in real countries have access to when it comes to their own reality. But we are not actually people in the eyes of the national ownership: we are simply unreliable consumers comprising an overworked, underpaid labor force not in the best of health: The World Health Organization rates our healthcare system (sic--or sick?) as 37th-best in the world, far behind even Saudi Arabia, role model for the Texans. Our infant mortality rate is satisfyingly high, precluding a First World educational system."

[Blue Velvet]

22. "If you're not angry, then you're just stupid or you don't care...

How else can you react when you know something's so unfair?
When the 'men of the hour' can kill half the world in war
Make them slaves to a superpower and let them die poor..."

Ani Difranco - "Out of Range"


Reading this article and thread brought the above song lyric immediately to my mind.

And the really striking line from the article, for me, is this:

"Americans need desperately to understand that 95 percent of all Muslim terrorists in the world were created in the past three years by Bush's invasion of Iraq."

Ya know, it's amazing to me how much of the truth of this world and this administration - about which so many Murkins are oblivious - really can be boiled down into five-second, easily-understood sound bites such as this. And yet, as the article's heading suggests, this is still something "you won't find on CNN."

Now, obviously, it is not in the interests of the Corporate Media Whores to soil their wallets/broadcasts with this kind of message. But I wish more of the Democrats who have access to the airwaves had more of an ability to put the truth out there in this succinct, attention-grabbing "Constitutional/World Crisis For Dummies" kind of way. At this point, Howard Dean seems to be the person who does this the best.

[XanaDUer]

23. Here is an example...

http://tinyurl.com/9ojta


"Subject:
Natural Gas Billing Prices

To:
President George Bush

January 28, 2006

Dear President Bush,
First, I'd like to say that I have backed you up 100% on the choices you've made for our Great Nation. But pardon me sir, now to the point of this email. My name is Thomas Reynolds out of Mineralwells, Tx. I'm a 40yr old man with a family of 5 to feed and support. Today sir, I recieved a $401.00 Gas Bill. In all my days i've never recieved a bill this high. Sir, I have worked in the Natural Gas Drilling Fields and i'm sorry but, the Gas Drilling Companies should not be allowed to just buy up Coastal Fields with Hay encluding buying all the hay that's there just to drill. That all comes back on the tax payers and people like me who's supporting a family. It raises the natural gas bill..."

(bangs head against wall in frustration) :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

[graywarrior]

24. There's a big percentage of the US popluation who never

completed 8th grade. What is it only 1% of the population reads. Shit, I taled to a state reps assistant the other day and she couldn't even spell her name. I shit you not.

[electron_blue]

25. that's what I've said before - Americans understand bj's, they don't

understand lying about going to war.

[struggle4progress]

26. If most people were dumb, we wouldn't stand a chance.

Most people can figure out which end goes up -- if only they have the facts.

That's why the rightwing places such emphasis on control of media outlets, and it's why they devote so much energy to the production of noisy dishonest propaganda.

[Greyhound]

27. You and I must travel in vastly different circles. The overwhelming

majority of amerikans I meet will stand in the rain complaining about how wet the drops are.

[struggle4progress]

28. I never met a successful organizer who had the view people are stupid

[Greyhound]

30. Interesting, I've never met an effective leader that didn't make

allowances for lack of education and/or understanding.

[Pharaoh]

31. Rent the movie

Junebug if you want to see really dumb america in action.............it is hilarious,the world of the freeper......

[struggle4progress]

33. Neither "uneducated" nor "confused" is the same as "dumb."

Sure, to organize people, you start with them, where they actually are.

But taking the view that they're stupid doesn't work: almost everybody will pick up on THAT real fast -- and will resent it ...

[Straight Shooter]

32. There is a difference between stupidity and willful ignorance.

People who are ignorant and proud of their ignorance are difficult subjects to educate. I think this explains bush's popularity with many people; he acts like an ignorant a** but got into the Oval Office. Some people are reassured by this, they think it means he has the "common touch" and therefore understands their lives, their needs, their wants, their pain.

Little Boots is craftier than that. At times he does show remarkable abysmal idiocy, but beneath that is cunning depravity, carefully hidden by Rove's stage management. From the first time I saw bush's photo in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, I had him pegged as a cold, cold man.

[struggle4progress]

34. To win, we need actual people in motion: we won't get them moving ..

.. if they perceive that we think that they're dumb.

And certain of the rightwing memes are intended to create and reinforce that perception: why, for example, do you think they constantly repeat "liberal elitists"?

I don't see any reason for us to help them with this particular meme ...

[Pharaoh]

35. I feel it's too late

they have too much power and WW3 is already in motion.

[struggle4progress]

36. Never won a fight by giving up.