August 26, 2010
Much has been written lately about the fact that Americans are becoming increasingly dumb. How has this happened? Some commentators have expressed the opinion that young people spend too much time playing video games and not enough time reading. Whatever the cause, the statistics are shocking. Lloyd de Vries recently did a report for CBS News concerning a Roper Poll of people aged 18-24, conducted for National Geographic. Despite the wall-to-wall coverage of Hurricane Katrina, one-third of those polled could not locate Louisiana on a map. Only 50 percent could locate New York State on a map. Sixty percent could not locate Iraq on a map of the Middle East. A recent Gallup Poll revealed more of the same:
When Americans are asked to identify the country from which America gained its independence, 76% correctly name Great Britain. A handful, 2%, think America’s freedom was won from France, 3% mention some other country (including Russia, China, and Mexico, among others named), while 19% are unsure.
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Only 66% of those aged 18-29 know that America gained its independence from England, compared to 79% of those aged 30 and older.
My favorite result from that poll was the revelation that 18 percent of the respondents believe that the sun revolves around the earth. Roll over, Copernicus!
After reading so much of the news coverage concerning the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico (it’s west of Florida and south of the Alabama – Mississippi border) I’m beginning to suspect that the news and entertainment industries are responsible for dumbing-down Americans. While we’re at it – we should be mindful of the role of the United States government in this effort. Consider what our President said on August 4th:
“A report out today by our scientists shows that the vast majority of the spilled oil has been dispersed or removed from the water,” Obama said.
Beth Daley of the Boston Globe gave us another example of what our government told us about all that oil:
Earlier this month, Jane Lubchenco, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief, declared that “at least 50 percent of the oil that was released is now completely gone from the system, and most of the remainder is degrading rapidly or is being removed from the beaches.’’
On August 20, we learned about the falsity of the government’s claims that the oil had magically disappeared. The Washington Post put it this way:
Academic scientists are challenging the Obama administration’s assertion that most of BP’s oil in the Gulf of Mexico is either gone or rapidly disappearing — with one group Thursday announcing the discovery of a 22-mile “plume” of oil that shows little sign of vanishing.
As time drags on, it is becoming more apparent that both BP and the federal government are deliberately trying to conceal the extent of the damage caused by the Deepwater Horizon blowout. Lisa Hooper-Bui is a professor of entomology at Louisiana State University. She recently wrote an op-ed piece for The New York Times, discussing the frustration experienced by scientists (including herself) who are attempting to measure the impact of this event on the environment. As it turns out, unless you know “the secret handshake” – you might as well give up because you ain’t findin’ out nuttin’:
The problem is that researchers for BP and the government are being kept quiet, and their data is unavailable to the rest of the community. When damages to the gulf are assessed in court or Congress, there might not be enough objective data to make a fair judgment.
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Independent researchers like me and my team — we study the effect of things like oil and dispersants on insects — have had to rely on the meager discretionary funds provided by our university departments, particularly in the early weeks of the disaster. And, as the weeks have rolled into months, we have found ourselves blocked from a widening list of sites, all of which are integral to completing our investigations.
America’s dumbed-down “sheeple” have been conditioned by the news media to disregard accounts of cover-ups, unless such accounts have been authorized by the corporate sponsors of those news outlets. The expression “conspiracy theory” is invoked to serve as a stamp of falsehood on any factual account running contrary to a mainstream-approved narrative. The usual tactics involve the use of such terms as “grassy knoll” or “Oliver Stone” as though the evidence disputing the “single bullet theory” of President Kennedy’s assassination has been conclusively discredited and that anyone who rejects the Warren Report is a fool. (In fact, the most recent of the thousands of books on this subject — Head Shot by physicist G. Paul Chambers, PhD — demonstrates that the physics behind the lone-gunman theory is not only wrong — but scientifically impossible.)
Uncritical reliance of the authority of the “mainstream” news media (and – for that matter – whatever can be found on the Internet) has also served to “dumb-down” Americans in a big way. The horizons of our reality have been crimped to exclude “troublesome” information and our attention has been focused on American Idol drivel. I was reminded of another example of the “conspiracy theory” stigma when I stumbled across this piece, appearing in the Financial Times, which was co-authored by President Clinton’s former Chief of Staff, John Podesta. The article presented a great argument for allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire for the wealthiest two percent of households. When I saw Podesta’s name, I was reminded of his position on another so-called, “cover-up conspiracy theory” — the subject of UFOs and what the government really knows about them. Here is a video clip of John Podesta making the case for disclosure of data compiled by the United States government on the subject. In a speech before the National Press Club on November 14, 2007, Mr. Podesta said this:
“I think it’s time to open the books” (on government investigations of UFOs). . . . “We ought to do it because it’s right. We ought to do it because the American people, quite frankly, CAN handle the truth and we ought to do it because it’s the law.”
Yes, the truth is out there — but if you limit your information intake to what you are fed by the mainstream media (or any other authoritarian source) – you might not find it.
Geithner And Summers Draw Flak
August 30, 2010
It’s coming from everywhere. House Minority Leader, John “BronzeGel” Boehner, while giving a speech in Cleveland on August 24, called for the ouster of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner as well as the removal of National Economic Council Director, Larry Summers. Bridget Johnson reported for The Hill that on August 28, Representative Tom Price (R-Georgia) echoed the call for Geithner and Summers to step down: “They need to resign because the policies that they’re putting in place are not being effective.”
An editorial from the Republican-oriented Investors Business Daily expanded on Boehner’s criticism of the duo, without really giving any specific examples of what Geithner or Summers did wrong. That’s because what they did wrong was to protect the banks at the expense of the taxpayers — the same thing a Republican administration would have done. As a result, there have been simultaneous calls from the left for the sacking of Geithner and Summers. Robert Scheer wrote a piece for The Nation entitled, “They Go or Obama Goes”. Here is some of what he said:
Economist Randall Wray wrote a great piece for Wall Street Pit entitled, “Boehner Gets One Right: Fire Obama’s Economics Team”. Professor Wray distinguished his argument from Boehner’s theme that because neither Geithner nor Summers ever ran a business, they don’t know how to create jobs:
As an aside: If you take offense at Professor Wray’s suggestion that the government should get actively involved in job creation, be sure to watch the interview with economist Robert Shiller by Simon Constable of The Wall Street Journal.
The Zero Hedge website recently published an essay by Michael Krieger of KAM LP. One of Krieger’s points, which resonated with me, was the idea that whether you have a Democratic administration or a Republican administration, both parties are beholden to the financial elites, so there’s not much room for any “change you can believe in”:
“Keeping people divided and distracted” helps preserve the illusion that there really is a difference between the economic policies of the two parties. If you take a close look at how President Obama’s Deficit Commission is attempting to place the cost of deficit reduction on the backs of working people, the unified advocacy for the financial sector becomes obvious. What we are left with are the fights over abortion and gay marriage to differentiate the two parties from each other.
It’s time to pay more attention to that man behind the curtain.