Reply #6: It's the blinders that come with being an "insider"...

[ljm2002]

...and buying into the "conventional wisdom". It is really a very powerful psychological phenomenon, based on inner tapes that start with phrases like "Everyone knows...". For example, "Everyone knows that Saddam GASSED HIS OWN PEOPLE!" "Everyone knows that Saddam IS EVIL!" "Everyone knows that Saddam HAS WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION!"

It's really weird how effective this internal dialogue is. Most of us are prone to it in one form or another. But the insiders in our government and financial insitutions are particularly prone to it, and unfortunately particularly well able to influence national discourse. So by repeating their internal convictions -- which are not convictions at all but merely accepted "common wisdom" -- they promote it outwards to the whole country, until "Everyone knows" becomes part of the internal dialogue of much of the populace.

So as the reporter confesses, they just discount those darned rabble-rousin' students and old hippies, because "What do they know? Why, everyone knows ..."