The ignorance of the masses will be the downfall of our country. By design.

[Atman]

So I've just read yet another gloom and doom prediction about what's in store for our country. This time, it's about the dollar crashing by 90% and hard times like no living American has ever seen.

Cheers! Pour another merlot and go shopping. Or if you really want it all to go away, simply join the ignorant masses and rally 'round 'Good Morning America,' 'The Today Show' or virtually any so-called newscast on television.

My wife an I just returned from a trip deep into the bowels of Republicanism, Florida, where we spent five days catching up with old friends at my thirtieth class reunion. We talked about old times, but save for one particular classmate, who now resides in Germany, no one talked about current times. And unlike our cable system back home, neither of the two hotels we stayed at had MSNBC available on their systems, not that we actually had much opportunity to watch television.

We spent the last day at the in-laws, who watched "Dancing With The Stars" in the evening, and "Good Morning America" over coffee the next day. They, like most of the others we talked to (besides my ex-Pat German friend) were living in total blissful ignorance of anything political. It's easy to see why; if you rely on "the media" as a source of news, this country is doing great. There is not a care in the world. Even the sub-prime mortgage crisis gets short-shrift, and is brushed off as a minor blip, despite the fact that where we stayed, there were more For Sale signs than palm trees. Some boldly advertised the desperation of the homeowners -- "MAKE OFFER," "MUST SELL," "Rent to own, Move in Today."

Despite what every student of the non-mainstream "news" sources know, that the plummeting housing market still has probably a year to go before it reaches the bottom of the ravine, in the brief time I did catch some so-called news, the local reporter was declaring "It's a buyer's market! Now is the time to buy!" Well, sure. If you want to see your investment depreciate faster than an entry-level Kia.

If a regular reader of any online news forum dares log off for a few days, he will discover a la la land of carefree Americana. There can be no doubt that the American corporate/defense conctractor-owned media does not want to scare the masses. They could easily get people shopping again, but they don't really view a run on canned goods and bottled water the kind of holiday numbers that make the Happy News Hour. German ex-Pat and I were talking about the state of the economy and the ignorance of the general population, specifically regarding the plunging dollar. Another classmate nursing a beer nearby chimed in that we were crazy. "The dollar always fluctuates. It goes up and down all the time."

"Yes, it does," I told him, "but when was the last time you remember the Canadian dollar being worth more than ours? When was the last time you remember foreign nations dumping the dollar as their currency of choice?" We gave him a long list of examples, which were met with eye-rolling, and his segueing into a bizarre non-sequitur about the real problem...the real problem, according to Mr. Don't Worry Be Happy, was the number of nudist resorts in Florida, where old people were taking Viagra and having unprotected sex and spreading aids.

I paused to belt back a drink as rapidly as possible, hoping the numbing effects of alcohol would stop me from responding the way I wanted to. It rarely works that way, though, does it? But I was able to resist the urge to go off on a tirade, accepting that this was not the time or place, and the guy really wasn't even part of the original conversation to begin with.

So I dare you, DUers. Log off for a week. You'll quickly understand why my friend and my in-laws and the rest of America isn't marching in the streets with torches and pitchforks, demanding the impeachment and imprisonment of our so-called leaders. It's because in the media-fed world in which most people live, there simply is no longer ANY source of real news. On GMA that final morning, my in-laws listened in rapt attention to a very serious analysis of Marie Osmand's dance routine and her standing among her competitors. This was NEWS. It went on seemingly endlessly.

The evening news, the local variety, was all about local heroes, holiday air traffic, recipes for Thanksgiving leftovers. But notice how we're not hearing any news about the holiday shopping numbers? Oh, and of course, "The Surge" has been a resounding success and we love the war again.

In my fantasy world, as George W. Bush and Richard "Dick" Cheney are frog-marched from the White House in hand cuffs, the executives at NBC/GE, ABC/Disney, Viacom and Fox will be tethered to them by a length of heavy chain attached to a cannon ball, crisp orange jump suits awaiting them after a long bus ride to a Halliburton detention center.

The fan is spinning at high speed, and there is a stock pile of shit just waiting to topple over right onto it. But don't count on the media to get anyone prepared for it. It'd be bad for advertising sales.

(edited for typos)

.

[Echo In Light]

1. Yes, what's familiar is coming to an abrupt end. However...

During this epochal era, a period of dark energy is inevitable in waking the masses, calling them back into a striving toward authentic self which will yield positive results across the landscape. But yeah, the looming crash will be quite ugly, unfortunately.

[Le Taz Hot]

2. Please note my sig. line.

n/t

[Mnemosyne]

3. Ignorance AND apathy. Good post, Atman! n/t

[Atman]

5. I think the apathy only comes from not knowing they should care.

I mean, the corporate media tells them everything is hunky-dory. What's to get all riled up about? Like my buddy who didn't understand the ramifications of the plunging dollar, the media deliberately avoids explaining anything except for that some Europeans might not get a good deal at the duty free shop if they travel here.

.

[havocmom]

34. Some bright people CHOOSE not to know how bad it is all getting.

I know some pretty intelligent individuals who 'just don't want to think about it...' They DO have the ability to get some real news/facts. They run the other way. They just want the good times to continue, even if it IS just in their heads and their charge account balances.

Yes, the masses are blinded on purpose by the oligarchy. But there are loads of people who could know better but refuse to. They infuriate me, and many members of my family are in that group.

[Mojorabbit]

110. My best friend is this way

She is so intelligent but chooses not to know. She is also a republican and proud of it. She has no idea of anything that is going on. She is also happy as a clam and not depressed and worried like I am. Sigh.

[Auntie Bush]

96. Also, there is no mention of the likely possibility of OIL being sold in Euros

and no one really understands what disastrous effects that will have
on the dollar or even why...including me...and I listen.

[bdamomma]

4. I remember this saying I heard.

Ignorance will be mankind's downfall.

sadly, people are going to learn the hard way. Denial is bliss.

[zabet]

6. The dumbing down

of America by the
media has been
a success.

[The2ndWheel]

7. 2nd law of thermodynamics

Can't escape it.

[madokie]

8. I seen it with my own eyes last weekend

we had our annual thanksgiving feast and my wifes birthday party and except for one of our friends was even mentioned anything about Iraq or the coming money crunch, and some of 'em really should be worried about that, and when she did all the other girls shook their heads like we don't want to hear it. So blissfully we go through life, worry what me worry. I know a party is not the place to talk politics but it was like no one are paying attention. I'm just not sure if its by design by them or the fact we have zilch or very little coverage of any of our real problems on the news series, all of 'em. They're not news programs anymore

[unpossibles]

84. I noticed that too

The several conservatives who are normally very outspoken and loud and usually give me shit for being liberal were all strangely quiet about politics.

And one exception was when my father in law started up with his usual bit about how Global Warming is a hoax to get Al Gore rich. My friend who was in town for the holiday, and who is a Climate Scientist explained in minute detail exactly why every point he brought up was wrong. He tried once to argue, and said that "an equal number of scientists disagree" to which she answered that she knows and works with the majority of those scientists, and that almost all of them agree that Climate Change is real.

Normally I jump into these conversations, but it was nice to let the expert speak. Sadly, I doubt it sank in, but you never know.

[sinkingfeeling]

9. Yes, the total 'tune out' of Americans and their pursuit of a fast buck and

consumerism will result in the downfall of this country. Ignorance (along with obesity) are the hallmarks of our citizens. Because I do always have a TV running in the background when at home and the 'loss of signal' from the station airing 'Ugly Betty' last night, I tuned into "Are You As Smart As a Fifth Grader?" for the first time. There was some college frat guy (didn't catch what year he was in college) as the challenger. This guy couldn't locate an adverb in a simple sentence! I'd bet he will get his MBA and land a $80K a year starting salary along with 'perks' and advise people on how to invest their money!

[L. Coyote]

10. B.S> ALERT! Make them think the situation is hopeless, and they don't vote!

Is a Negativity Psy-Op in full swing?
Pile the doom BS high enough and you will cause a segment of society to tune out.
Make them think the situation is hopeless, and they don't vote!

[Atman]

11. I'm not exactly sure what your point is.

Are you claiming I'm trying to get people to tune out? The media certainly isn't. So, are you claiming that you AGREE that the media should lie and sing "Don't Worry Be Happy," just so we'll vote, even if it's for all the wrong reasons?

:shrug:

.

[L. Coyote]

16. My point is that doom and gloom ideation and prediction impacts voting rates.

[Atman]

17. Oh.

So you support the lying by the media just to get more people to the polls? To what end? Just to have a high turnout of ignorant people who are voting FOR the very same people who are lying to them, because they don't know any better?

Hmm. Interesting.

.

[L. Coyote]

20. Sorry, I'm not going to argue about words you put in my mouth.

[Atman]

25. Don't get your knickers in a twist! Help me understand what you're saying!

Chill, man! I really, honestly, don't get what your point is. Enlighten me. Who is your post directed at? It certainly isn't the media spouting the doom and gloom...in fact, only in the last day or two have I heard them even begin to mention a looming recession with any real discussion behind it.

I'm not putting words in your mouth...I'm trying to figure out the words you put on the page, that's all.

.

[DemReadingDU]

19. Wouldn't people Affected by the doom & gloom

go vote for a change in lawmakers? If they are unhappy, wouldn't they vote for something better?

Maybe it is the people blissfully happy who would be scared by the gloomy predictions? If they are happy, why worry? why vote?

[Echo In Light]

27. Good points. We also experience fear for good, life-affirming reasons...

It's a self defense mechanism. Those who avoid harsh reality - a telltale trait of most "conspiracy" deniers - are naturally quick to deem unpleasant facts as merely theoretical in their attempts to trivialize and downplay the magnitude of the dilemma. That way, for them, tomorrow will be an exact replica of today ... in the broader sense.

[deutsey]

126. Yeah, it's like saying that a doctor's "doom and gloom" prognosis

of cancer only makes the patient want to give up.

Most cancer survivors I know saw their prognosis as a clarion call to fight the disease.

[HughMoran]

61. Stop making sense!

Just stop it I tell you! if the world isn't going to end soon, half the wild-eyed posters will get discouraged.

[treestar]

12. If the dollar weren't the international currency of choice

Why would it be a disaster? All other countries have survived hereto without their currency being dominant. The Canadians lived until recently. So let them be the superpower for a while. They can't screw the world up as bad as the U.S. has done.

To me, the media does promote panic. CNN every evening has this header, "The War on the Middle Class." The immigrants are destroying everything. :sarcasm: To me, Faux and CNN actually exaggerate.

[Truth2Tell]

109. The media manufactures phony crises

like immigration, and ignores the real ones, like the falling dollar.

The reason this is different than Canada etc. is that they haven't built up a huge pile of debt in their currency at on overly inflated rate. Sure, we don't need our phunny money to rule the planet - and the planet will be better without it - but the fall is gonna hurt a lot of people here in idiotville.

[Ishoutandscream2]

13. I watched a BBC roundtable discussion last night

on the Republican debate. A moderator, and three pundits. No fireworks, no soundbytes, just good, intelligent discussion. Why can't the American media do this? Do they really have such a low opinion of us? Those, of course, are rhetorical questions.

[LibertyLover]

14. Parents of a good friend of mine moved to Florida 20 years ago

in retirement. Her mother was already in the early stages of dementia, and had never been particularly interested in politics or news anyway, but her father had been. Granted he was pretty conservative even then, but still when they lived in NJ he read 3 newspapers a day, the NY Times, the Daily News and our local paper the Bergen Record, which has won any number of awards for news coverage. Then came the move to Florida - out went the papers, except for the local rag, and in came Rush and others of his ilk. I can't remember the number of times my friend would call to tell me that, when she would try to talk to him about X event or Y crisis that, according to her father, X or Y couldn't be that important because the local newspaper hadn't carried a story on it or Rush had dismissed it as a liberal plot. Fast forward to today. Said friend moved to Florida 10 years ago to be near her (now deceased) parents and to be in a warmer climate. I'm hearing the same sh*t from her now - oh, the war can't be going that badly because her local paper or Fox News tells her so. And this was a woman who graduated from Mt. St. Vincent in NYC magna cum laude and go elected to local government in her upstate NY town as a Democrat. It's disheartening, distressing and more than just a bit frightening.

[Atman]

15. Florida is NOT the same place where I grew up.

Back when I lived there, it wasn't really considered "the South." But now it is truly deep south. Strong southern accents everywhere, and country music or Fox news playing everywhere we went. It's as if people are required to check their brains at the state line as they enter. I couldn't live there anymore.

.

[LibertyLover]

26. I remember visiting Florida when I was 10 or 11 (40 some years ago)

and for goodness' sake, Miami and its environs were the 6th borough of New York City. :evilgrin: You could get the NY papers at newsstands as easily as the Miami papers and cream cheese and bagels were the staff of life. I didn't visit Florida regularly until my friend moved down there. And boy can I see the difference - mega churches on every street corner, Faux news on most tvs and Rush, Sean or Bill as background noise. My friend's daughter was 16 when they moved and in her last year of high school - she went to community college in Ft Myers to finish high school and get a jump start on college. She used to come home with all sorts of religious tracts courtesy of her classmates, who were appalled that she accepted evolution as a given, didn't go to church, knew real-honest-to-goddess pagans and planned to register as a Democrat on her 18th birthday. Sadly, the life there got to her and she is now a fundy Christian who has given up plans to work in her field (marine biology) and instead works for her church. And yes, she registered Republican. :grr:

[Nay]

79. Agreed. FL isn't the same. I'm a native Floridian -- the schools used to

be THE BEST. Now, I wouldn't put my cat in one. And you're right about how it was never really a Southern state until recently. I wouldn't live there now for anything.

[Ishoutandscream2]

81. Okay, Atman you would probably think of me this way

Texas drawl, like country music. I don't watch Fox news.

Just because we talk a little slower doesn't mean we're slow.

[glowing]

88. It really depends on where you live.. the further north you go in Florida,

the more "southern" it is... The more south you go, its more like leaving the country and visiting a carribean island or Mexican coast hot spot...

[Mojorabbit]

112. I live here

and what I am seeing is the demise of the old southern charm and an influx of people from up north.
Since I have lived here for almost 40 years off and on, I think the problem is that there are a lot of new people who have changed the landscape and have no idea of the history of the area.

[JeanGrey]

22. Which is why I get VERY alarmed when people talk about

Hillary "easily" taking Florida.........................

[Tesha]

31. It's like their brains get snatched...

It's one of the many reasons why I believe that secession
(from "Jesusland") is the only sane course of action.

Tesha

[Ghost Dog]

119. Far Out n/t.

[BrklynLiberal]

32. Maybe it is something in the water????

[BrklynLiberal]

18. Yup, yup, and yup....

http://earthhopenetwork.net/bush%20art/new%20bush%

[bdamomma]

21. this is way overdue with these criminals, and they will keep

on doing damage until they are stopped.

[tom_paine]

23. Segueing the conversation into nonsense dead-end is something Bushie Drones have been programmed

to do.

God, it is all so horrific to come to such an odious and really unAmerican conclusion as that, but like in 1937 Germany, it is long past time for mincing words and poltie euphemisms about what we face here in 21st Century Imperial Amerika.

You are correct and the astonishing thing to me is how well and completely it works,and how well and thoroughly reality can be rewritten.

And yes, and it keeps working and working. Hell, even among people who should know better then denial is tremendous.

Even here at DU, a minimum of 30% think you are a Crazy Moonbat for saying this "consprascy theory" stuff.

As you just saw, outside DU, one of the torches of freedom still left in our darkening nation, that number drops to, literllay 0.5% if not less.

The same insanity looking at this upisde-down world of commonplace insanity must be the tiniest of flavor (I'll say it again, Thank God the Bushies are not as violent as their Nazi Prototypes were - as you say it was discovered that overt SA and SS behavior was bad marketing practice, so our Bushies don;t have that for their rebranding campaign - very smart, in an ad agency kind of way) of what it was to live in that most horrible of horrors, Nazi Germany 1937, which was made so many magntiudes of scarier and more evil by virtue of the entreme violence by the last Bushies of Germany.

But this is undoubtedly what it felt like. I know, I have read the accounts. Be happy Busie Thugs are wandering the streets at night beating the shit out of Liberals and vandalizing their homes.

But that would be bad PR, bad marketing, and not at all in keeping with the Rebranding Campaign for the New Totalitarianism.

[Le Taz Hot]

124. It's not necessary

for them to roam the streets at night and beat the shit out of us. There are other ways to get us to cooperate. Ship our jobs overseas, lower wages and we'll be happy with whatever crumbs fall off the master's table. Domestic spying. Election fraud. Corporate-owned media telling us white is black and up is down. They give us shiny things like iPods and iPhones (sort of like the Roman games but less bloody) and news about Brittany to keep us occupied.

We, in our utter complacency and laziness, are our own worst enemy. They don't need bullets and bayonets, they have us.

[hvn_nbr_2]

24. Marie Antoinette, inside out and backwards

Marie Antoinette, queen of France during the French Revolution, famously remarked, "Let them eat cake!" when told about the peasants being angry because they had no bread to eat. In saying that, she demonstrated her complete ignorance of conditions in her society.

Today's Americans, blissfully ignorant of their society's conditions, figuratively say, "Let us eat Twinkies and watch Dancing with the Stars!"

[SidDithers]

28. I couldn't log off for a week...

without some sort of patch, or gum, to get me through.

DU is like heroin for the intellect. It's a refuge in a storm of ignorance. An island surrounded by an ocean of teh stupid.

Sid

[catmandu57]

29. Sometimes, most of the time we live in an echo chambert here on DU

People don't understand why I'm so upset, they don't know what I know, and what hurts is they don't want to know. They're perfectly happy vegging on whatever is the hit program and the local paper, I'm getting to the point where I don't care anymore. It will be the story of the Grasshopper and the Ant all over again, when the shit hits the fan there's going to be a lot of people wondering what the hell happened.

It's a sad situation.

[Ezlivin]

30. "You take the blue pill... you wake in your bed and you believe whatever you want to believe."

Given the Matrix choice between taking a red pill and seeing reality or taking a blue pill and not seeing it, most people in this country would gladly take the blue pill.

That's what is truly frightening to me. People want to live in a fantasy world. They believe that by having faith they can live the good life and none of the bad things will ever touch them.

I don't want bad things to befall this country but it is growing increasingly apparent with each passing day that nothing short of a tremendous disaster will awaken the masses. Unfortunately, once awakened they will have no clue as what to do next. They'll just wander around like zombies with Alzheimer's.

[Tesha]

33. Don't you wish we could just dissolve nineteen tons of...

Don't you wish we could just dissolve nineteen tons of
red pills in the drinking water?

Tesha

[Ezlivin]

56. But then I'd be an "environmental terrorist" and you know what happens to them...

:)

[Old Smokey]

35. Excellent post

[Joanne98]

36. But but they know all the names of the American Idol contests...

:sarcasm:

[leftofthedial]

37. I can't wait for the new season of American Idol

The Broncos sure do suck this year

The liquor store over by the mall is selling cases of Budweiser for $11.99

[Rydz777]

38. Bread and flat-screen circuses. Problem is that the flat-screens

are made in China and the bread is getting more and more expensive - the risks of living in a declining empire.

[natrat]

39. ya know what-fuck them for being so stupid, not picking up on the obviousness of it all

[Atman]

42. As usual, my sub-freeper stalker is all over this thread.

It's comical. Once again, most of the sub-freepers simply don't address the points raised in my post. The ones that do seem to have specifically ignored points I raised, such as the old friend who claims the dollar fluctuates all the time. Of course, I specifically addressed that; yet, it DOES fluctuate all the time, but it DOESN'T get dropped as the standard currency of nations "all the time." Like, how about NEVER? But hey...just ignore it, pretend it wasn't said, and it will go away.

They're equally clueless on several other points I raised, and seem to think that I've just been to Florida for the first time in my life. When you see the sub-freepers' responses to this thread, you see the problem. They're just fucking stupid. They can't comprehend facts laid before them, they can't read a paragraph and absorb anything stated within. They're just flat-out morans. Of course, they'll never see it that way. It's more fun to post non sequiturs disguised as insightful commentary.

.

[Cetacea]

67. Now you know how "Conspiracy Theorists" must feel.

The rolling of eyes, the disbelief in what you are trying to communicate, the "sub-freeper" responses...

Your perceptions are absolutely spot on. I remember when Florida had some of the best radio stations in the country. Now it is Clear Channel central. The last classical radio station was sold off just after the 2000 selection. The radio dial is full of variations of the same station, which is odd considering that South Florida in particular is the bread and butter of many an artist in terms of CD sales.

I was scanning the tuner yesterday and stopped at one station just long enough to hear a female jock ridiculing the "doom and gloom economic naysayers" because the stores were crowded. She didn't mention how people are leaving Florida en masse due to falling real estate values and the increased cost of living.

I disagree with you that the average Joe/Judy don't have a clue. I talk to people all over the country and all are complaining are a bit anxious...

You are correct about the hand the media plays in all of this.

[natrat]

75. one of these smart people wrote an essay somewhere and concluded

americans won't wake up until they are starving

[Ron Green]

40. "Don't discuss religion or politics"

This is something I've heard since I was a child, more than 50 years ago. It's wrong. Religion and politics are the VERY things we must discuss, if we're going to have a fully engaged society. Even some people on this board buy into the "religion" part of this old bromide, thinking that religion is ONLY a personal matter, and somehow not part of the fabric of any society.

Anyway, the Market, as one leg of the 3-legged stool on which culture rests, always seeks to control the other two, the the Church and the State. And because of modern communication technology, we now don't even have to warn each other not to discuss religion or politics; it's all been packaged as entertainment and delivered with a monthly cable bill.

[lazyriver]

41. RE: "So I dare you, DUers. Log off for a week".

I recently did this when I went to visit family over Thanksgiving. I came back to a dead computer and really just got everything back today. I felt very isolated, unconnected to reality and, to be honest, scared. I hadn't realized how dependent I'd become on alternate sources of media nor had I realized how much of the population relies solely on the morning or evening news for ALL their information about the state of the country and the world. Not one person in my family knew a single damned thing about any of the following people or events. In fact, they hadn't ever heard anything about them: Scooty Libby, Valerie Plame, Downing Street Memo, Blackwater, the "accidentally transported" nukes, the Carlyle Group, the MCA and destruction of habeas corpus, the fact that the Canadian dollar is worth more than our own (my brother-in-law from Charlotte, VA who holds a Masters in Engineering vehemently argued with me on this fact, accusing me of making it up out of thin air!), stolen elections, and the list goes on and on and on...

It is mind boggling how easy it is to slip quietly into uninformed ignorant bliss. The powers have created the greatest propaganda machine to date in the American Mainstream "Media".

[Atman]

45. Were you able to deal with the "Where did you hear this stuff" comeback?

That's my other favorite; as you stated, most members of my family have never heard any of this stuff. They ask, incredulously, "Where are you getting this stuff?!" When you tell them that it's not from GMA or Katie Couric, they roll their eyes. Oh, yeah, it's just that internet thingy. All the loony-bin stuff comes from the internet. It is the most frustrating thing ever. Sometimes I wish Al Gore had never invented the gosh darned tubes.

.

[lazyriver]

55. Oh did I ever hear exactly that comeback.

"You know, you can't believe everything you read on the internet". "All that stuff is conspiracy theory written by kooks". But these are the same people who feverishly forward chain emails telling them, "Bill Gates is giving away $1,000,000 to anyone who sends this to at least 10 of their friends" or "Beware of the killer throat-jumping spiders being imported in bunches of bananas from South America". They also believe everything they see on TV.

I told those who would listen long enough to skip GMA, Fox News, CNN and all their usual sources of news and just watch Countdown with Keith Olbermann for one week. I figured it's a mainstream enough source they might actually watch it without their knee jerk reaction to "the internets" and other "sketchy" sources on news like European news organizations not owned by Disney, GE, or the Devil's Imp (Rupert Murdoch). They might actually hear something other than, "USA, USA, we're number one and our economy is doing great".

I am pleased to report I've opened the eyes of two friends. It was the Countdown technique that shook them from their sleep. They started listening long enough to unplug from the propaganda feed and learn about what's going on all around them. Countdown led to Air America (both are hooked on Thom Hartmann now)and that led to using the internet for more than gaming and/or porn. They will never be able to go back to that comatose dream state. In a way though, I'm also sad because in doing so, I've forever made them less happy people than they were a short time ago. That sadness is easily overcome by the knowledge that there are two more voices added to the chorus of us screaming for the rest to wake up

[LibDemAlways]

83. My daughter had to write a paper for a high school

English class on some aspect of life in the future. I suggested she write about an America in which Democracy was officially dead - since we're, if not there already, then damn close to it.

The teacher gave a tentative OK to the topic - provided that she use only "mainstream" i.e, corporate, sources to prove the thesis.

Daughter began googling and discovered that the vast majority of factual info about the shredding of the Constitution comes from (no surprise) sources outside the corporate mainstream.

3 sources had to be from something called InfoTec - a search engine the high school subscribes to. Not surprisingly, there wasn't one article we could come up with that addressed the problem.

Your post is dead on. Bush is sitting in the WH not only because of a corrupt Supreme Court, but because of a truly ignorant citizenry that made it close enough to steal. And it's only gotten worse. Who the hell truly cares what Britney Spears ate for lunch....and yet that sort of crap comes to us non-stop.

[Subdivisions]

122. Hi LibDemAlways. Thanks for your post. Could you please

post a link to InfoTec? I have googled it and have not been able to shake out this search engine's web address.

[LibDemAlways]

125. Looked further into it. It's actually called

"InfoTrac." (My bad).

Anyhow I tried to glean something from the web site and, my best guess is that schools are being sold a bill of goods by some corporate hucksters intent on controlling student access to information.

The topic my daughter eventually chose was nice and safe - flying cars - and even that had only a few, not very helpful, articles on InfoTrac. The bulk of her information came from Google searches - though it was mandatory that she include the InfoTrac stuff in her bibliography.

Then she had to submit the whole thing to another supposed anti-plagerism site called "Turnitin.com" which, I think, is just an excuse to collect data for the thought police. It's all very scary.

[femrap]

43. I used to watch the NBC evening news

but it just pissed me off because what was important wasn't covered. I wanted to know what the people who got their news from TV were seeing. I tell people now that if they aren't reading about world events on the Internet then their head is up their ass. It's like they're still riding horses after the automobile has been invented. Willfully Ignorant.

I never watch local news...ours is just about murders, robberies, etc. which maintains and increases the level of fear.

[Atman]

47. The Orlando local news was mind-boggling.

It was a half-hour police blotter. Nothing but petty burglaries, stabbings, murders, and even a suitcase found by the side of the road which closed the highways for hours. Followed by the traffic report and the forecast for Disney visitors. But not one lick of actual "news."

.

[Lorien]

103. I live in Orlando. It hasn't changed. n/t

[Mojorabbit]

115. Hey Lorien

I hope all is well. I got two squirrels in today. the woman left the babies in the rain for four hours in case the mom came back. Sheesh. At least she brought them to me. We need to get together some day.

[FREEWILL56]

87. Boy do you have the local news pegged.

It is also a bit of sensationalism, mostly about nonsense. An example might be, "Those that pick their nose live longer. For further details tune in at 5 on wxyz.", which they'll have you watch until more than an hour into the broadcast to hear that nonsense. This takes the place of real news and although I use the internet as a source for news, it is not my only source and I had learned to read into some things that were shown on the news aired on the local stations. Don't forget that corporate dollars run the local news too and not just the nonsensical network 'reality shows' or singing contests. I admit to watching them once in a blue moon to forget what I know for the moment as diversive entertainment, but that is temporary for me. See the warning sign there? Those that don't get to hear the real news or just get a small blurp of real news are locked into an oblivious state of denial that is of design.
Many of these posts I can relate to here and I am 1 that has been predicting a very bad recession if not even a recession to occur because nobody is being responcible for much, be they the corporations or the idiots listening to their pretzeldent telling them to just go shopping. With the dollar fading fast they might as well do exactly that, but they should not be buying SUVs as Detroit says to do. All of a sudden cars have bigger engines again and are getting less milage as well as getting larger in size again. Gee, I wonder why Honda, Toyota, etc., etc. are doing so well when the Detroit 3 are lossing money, laying off many employees, and shutting whole plants down? How stupid people are amazes me and the size of the business or how long it has been around is not immune from this stupidity. That's further proof a fascist government the republicans want won't work. We see much irresponcibility in and out of government being ignored, covered up, or spun into praise as a good thing. But the ultimate bad part is, even if many listened or saw through all the bs, not much would change or be done about it all as we lack the position to institute the needed change.
I forgot. K&R to the OP.

[Blue_Tires]

44. ttt

[donkeyotay]

46. Talk about 2 Merca's: one with DU, and one without. I've tried them both.

I'll take the divisive DU over mindless conformity anytime. Great post. I especially like this bit:

"They could easily get people shopping again, but they don't really view a run on canned goods and bottled water the kind of holiday numbers that make the Happy News Hour."

It's good to laugh about it sometimes.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

48. Bravo -- an excellent essay. K & R

[Virginia Dare]

49. No doubt, starting with all the yahoos who voted for the bush regime..

as the fundies would say, you reap what you sow.

[BeHereNow]

50. Dismal, isn't it. Add to to it the number of people who support corporacrat Hillary.

Makes me want to move to another country-
BHN

[librechik]

51. We live in Philip K. Dick's future

a universe all artificial and drug fed.

Wow. At least we're here to witness the conclusion of our story. That's kind of a privilege, in a way.

[Atman]

53. This one's for my stalker and the other lurking sub-freepers

I know, I know...you'll ignore it completely because it's from Keith Olberman's show. You'll discount any of the facts because it's from Keith Olberman's show. You'll ignore the reality that it was Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bremmer, just because it was from Keith Olberman's show. You'll ignore it completely. But I've posted about this before, several times. "There can be no fundamental change in the system without a huge, shocking event by which people will be brought into line."

Here it is. Look at the players again. Rummy, Cheney, Bremmer. The feckless dolt, George Bush, is just a willing dupe, happy to have been called "Mr. President" in exchange for allowing his puppet masters free reign.

My stalker and his friends will ignore this, of course. It's what they do, because their brains are too small to comprehend what is going on, so instead they'll make jokes about me personally, or question my Florida upbringing, whatever. But the truth cannot be denied. BushCo was talking openly about this strategy in the run-up to war. But once the strategy didn't pan out the way they had hoped, it kind of fell off the radar. But the reality is still there.

Utter destruction of our economy is their ultimate goal. Period. That is the sole underlying reason for Bush's massive tax cuts, and his refusal to reverse them despite our massive debt...because he and his buddies will need the cash on hand to survive the hell they have wrought. Shock. They bet that we'll come crawling to them BEGGING for their assistance once the shit has hit the fan.

If you don't see this, I pity you. You haven't been paying attention. They've been publicly pushing this doctrine for years, but of course, never on the same networks that air "Dancing With The Stars" or "Survivor." Because those people are the ones whom they're betting will come begging for them to help.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x72882

.

[LanternWaste]

52. Every I-pod, gaming console and Season 1 DVD Collection Of...

Every I-pod, gaming console and Season 1 DVD Collection Of (insert popular tv dreck here) reduces our collective intelligence by a certain number of points.

Reports of people waiting over six hours to purchase the pc game Halo XXVI, but one has to force drag a friend to watch c-span.

But I don't see it as by design-- it's our fault. Everyone's fault. We all buy this crap. We all watch this crap. We all listen to this crap.

And every one of us justifies that the crap we buy isn't crap at all-- it's everyone else's tastes that are crap. But it's all crap.

We all feed the machine.

[MedleyMisty]

97. Have to disagree a bit.

I can listen to music and play video games and still be aware of what's going on. Some humans can actually multi-task. Hard to believe, I know.

[Ignis]

54. Thanks, Atman. This is just what I was looking for.

I'm trying to explain to my few remaining non-political family members WHY exactly this shit matters. Why they have to take an active role to keep informed, because the MSM sure as hell isn't going to tell them what they need to hear to care.

You rock! :thumbsup:

[Kurovski]

57. K&R. (nt)

[Elspeth]

58. Atman, you are correct

People keep asking me why I am so paranoid. And all I am doing is talking about the dollar and the war.

[DCKit]

59. But could it be termed "Intelligent Design"?

There is certainly a plan and it's been ongoing for decades.

Bread and Circuses in Roman times = Agricultural Subsidies and Jerry Springer in modern America.

[Locrian]

60. great post K&R

The American people are sheep. And they are about the be "slaughtered" as sheep.


We RARELY have the TV on. If so its for a DVD. When we go to other houses is totally creeps me out to see TV a part of the lifestyle. It's on 24/7 - like a background fog. I cannot describe the feeling but it is definitely similar to a drug, like a numbing effect that poisons your brain or some kind of parasite feeding on you. Cant stand it.

[McCamy Taylor]

62. History geography and gov't are taught by coaches in school----this is

because they do not want students to learn anything about real social studies.

[Swamp Rat]

63. k&r

[blm]

64. People SHOULD be frightened - too many have accepted a government that is closed

to its own citizens and that seems to be immune to accountability.

Thanks alot Bill. You assured this when you deep-sixed all the outstanding matters of Poppy Bush's illegal operations - we had them at their weakest by Dec 1992, and YOU protected them throughout the 90s.


http://consortiumnews.com/2006/111106.html

That worked out really well for this country.

[KoKo]

129. And...it goes back to when Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon...he was never held

accountable... And...one could go back to the Kennedy Assassination...MLK/RFK...George Wallace...and back to WWII where much of this got started.

It just goes on and on. What might save us is that finally more information is available to connect the dots. We are the ones who are charged with doing something...because we have the knowlege. But, the push back is incredible and so many just want to put head in sand...shop, watch mindless TV and hope that whatever might bother then will go away. It's kind of always been that way...but when one doesn't live that way, the contrast becomes hard to deal with...in what we know...and what "they don't."

[Habibi]

65. On the other hand, my 77-year-old,

non-college-educated MIL is surprisingly on top of things, and she won't go near a computer. And she subscribes to Reader's Digest. She watches a lot of TV. However, she also lives in a community that still has a good newspaper (Syracuse, NY), and she reads it religiously.

[rockybelt]

66. To realize this

all you have to do is go have coffee with some people in the mornings. They usually don't mind if you sit in, unless they're having a meeting, then they might get pissed.

Talk to them and ask some simple questions. Do you know who Dennis Kucinich is? Are you aware of HR 1955. Do you know who your senator is and how they voted? Do you think habeas corpus will be rekindled? Are you aware that the government is spying on EVERYBODY? Are you aware that firefighters are being trained to find "subversive" material?
The answers will make you want to beat your head against the wall. The majority of them have absolutely no idea of what is happening to them or our country.

I am afraid you are correct in your assertions. I know that I try to enlighten as many people as I possibly can and most of the time it seems like an impossible task. They don't know and they don't want to know.

Apathy is lethal.

[NGinpa]

68. Religious fundamentalism

in America must also be listed as a potential major cause of the dumbing down scenario. The ability of the corporate-media leaders to do what they do is grounded in their use of Christian fundamentalism to trigger the brainwashed responses that we now see everyday. Why think when the bible tells all, and any deviation will not get you to the promised land so says Jesus! Right!

[dysfunctional press]

69. it didn't take a week of logging-off for me...just one thanksgiving dinner with the in-laws...

and some family friends...

YIKES!

[Disturbed]

72. Ignorance of the masses is World Wide. Politicians love it.

New book on China raises a storm - International Herald Tribune ...
... each other and therein lies a bigger problem because that allows more room for the governments to prey on and manipulate the ignorance of the masses. ...

http://www.topix.com/world/china/2007/11/

[tnlefty]

70. My experiment consisted of forcing myself to watch GMA instead of

c-span's Washington Journal for a minimum of 30 agonizing mins. each day for a month. Occasionally I would flip to CBS and then sometimes to CNN to see if what was being covered was much different. I'm at the end of my month and there really wasn't much difference in what was being covered, with the exception of the saturation coverage of Dancing with the Stars on GMA.

At the beginning it hit me like a ton of bricks - what passes for news coverage these days is much more like the Features sections in newspapers.

[EV_Ares]

71. Good post and you expressed your concerns well. Know where

you are coming from. Know some of those same people and its frustrating.

K&R.

[placton]

73. Thanks for confirming I am not crazy

In MI, there are 2 daily papers: Detroit News (crazy right wing, except for drug legalization), and the Free Press (now about as liberal as USA Today). I've read them for years. Whenever I read "news" there (the both have GREAT sports pages! - best in the USA), it is the la la land described. Recently, the News had a series on home forceclosures, and actually blamed it on lack of regulation. This happens about once a year.
Phew!

[Joe Fields]

74. At this point in time, everyone should be paying attention.

I was raised in a family that always paid attention to domestic and world news. I grew up amazed that most of the friends I grew up with didn't have a clue. Nothing much has changed, and that is a great pity.

[peacetalksforall]

76. I have a friend who calls himself a Democrat, but who would turn

me off when I started sharing some news. So, I didn't talk to him about it. Now he's starting to talk and is intrigued with all the conspiracies of 9-11. He asks me questions and opinions - five years late. AND AND AND - I just found out that he has no idea what PNAC is. Never heard of it. It's like starting in all over again. So Republicans won - and they won Democrats who did not bother to keep up. It's said that it's never too late. I'm not sure.

[azygous]

77. It may very well backfire

when things get so bad, everyone can't help but notice they've been screwed. All these years, by design, the MSM has fed us pablum and kept from us the real news. If the media had been doing its job and informing Americans about how their country has been looted, their government taken over by treasonous crooks, and their vote almost completely compromised, they would all be suffering from outrage fatigue and feeling pretty helpless by now.

Instead, a wave of shock and fury may wash across America as people wake up to the alarming realization that America has been stolen from them. There's a far greater chance of rebellion than if people had been hammered with the truth all these years and beat down into a state of helpless frustration.

I'm reaching for any slim possibility of hope here.

[David Diderot]

78. What do we expect?

More Americans believe in the devil than in biological
evolution.  We are talking about people with the beliefs of
medieval peasants.

[mamameow]

80. ignorant?

this called "dumbing down of america". it has been going for a very long time. also has been very effective!!!!!

[unpossibles]

82. lot of truth there

Luckily I run with a decent number of relatively informed people, and several more who have become more informed and made an effort because I do talk about these things to them. I make an effort to not be obnoxious about it, although sometimes it is truly an effort when I encounter the Rush Limbaugh parrots who tell me with a straight face that the economy is strong and that Bush will be regarded as a great President.

One guy was even bragging about how much money he makes, and how he is a self made man. I found out two interesting things. one: that he is in real estate and a slum lord (he was just featured in the paper here for turning off the gas, water, and heat in his apartment buildings because of foreclosures which he was just ignoring, then blamed it on the tenants...), and two: that he recently declared bankruptcy to the tune of over a million dollars.

Declared bankruptcy. This is the same guy who bitches about welfare and public schools. This is also the same guy who told me all of my friends are ex-convict druggie losers, when the reality is he has a mile-long arrest record for domestic violence, DUIs, evictions, etc.

In other words, a typical 23%er. I can't decide if he is a complete moron or a lying asshole. Right now I am going with "all of the above."

ps - I think I am skipping my HS reunion next year. The twenty people there are going to be the ones who never left town and are all Bush bots.

[FREEWILL56]

91. I urge you to go even if only to shove the thorn of reality into them.

[Lost-in-FL]

85. Watch the movie "Idiocracy"

I have my TVO ready for 3:30 am tonight (HBO). Can't wait to watch it. It is pretty much about the "dumbing" of America. It played mostly in librul areas of Texas (the creator of the movie is from Texas) with mixed reviews. It seemed FOX didn't want to promote the movie based on the strong criticism of big companies according to some reviews.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy

"Idiocracy is a 2006 American dark comedy directed by Mike Judge, and starring Luke Wilson and Maya Rudolph. The two main characters submit to a hibernation experiment that goes awry, and they awaken 500 years in the future, to discover that dysgenics, rampant marketing, and cultural anti-intellectualism have resulted in a uniformly stupid human society. The film's title, "Idiocracy", derives from the Greek words idiotes (meaning originally a private individual but, later, an individual who was incompetent or unwilling to participate in public life) and krates (meaning rule or political power)—thus, idiocracy is rule by the stupid."

I know that what is going on in America today is very serious but sometimes you just have to laugh even about something as bad as our current society being this bad. Unfortunately some people will only learn the hard way.

[NuttyFluffers]

92. Beef Supreme!

Brawndo, the thirst mutilator! it's got electrolytes!
:rofl:

[riverdeep]

98. Considering the crap that succeeds in the box office,

I wondered why the movie didn't fare better. Sounds like the suits thought it hit too close to home.

[Autumn Colors]

86. Florida stole my friend

I had a friend who is the daughter of 1960s Woodstock hippies. The mother is a Buddhist and amateur astrologer, total peacenik types. The parents moved from Long Island, NY to Florida when his company (and job) moved. She had been living in CA and in order to extricate herself from a bad relationship, moved to FL to be with her folks. She since met and married a native Floridian who had never left the state before he met her....

Anyhow, these New Yorkers .... all 3 of them have become Bush-bots. I don't mean just conservative... the daughter has become a full-fledged right-wing nutcase. Our 20+ year friendship ended over politics. She seems to believe that she's "moderate"...

I don't know, take a look at her myspace page and you be the judge. Don't forget to scroll all the way to the right to get the full effect of her hate.

http://www.myspace.com/rockcloud

The really sad part is that I lived with her family briefly during our college years and I considered her parents as second parents. Also, I had been an AFS exchange student in high school and lived in Tehran, Iran with a Shi'ite muslim Iranian family. She knows this. She knows I'm still close to my host family (some are here in the USA but most are in Iran) and yet she spews all this ignorant hateful BS against all muslims.

I can't tell you how much I have grieved over the loss of this friendship. We used to be very best friends, like sisters.

:(

[Lydia Leftcoast]

89. Yikes, that's close to self-parody

As DUers know, I'm no fan of Hillary Clinton, but that "Defeat Hillary" banner with a hammer and sickle? :wtf:

[Autumn Colors]

90. Trust me, she's serious

She recently told me never to contact her again.

[FREEWILL56]

95. I too am not a hillary fan, but all of that is going way too far.

Did you see the one of her standing in front of a urinal? And they have the nerve to criticize move-on? WHAT HYPOCRITES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
:rant:

[GoneOffShore]

93. That is one scary MySpace page

She really has sucked down the Koolaid.

Sorry for your loss.

[FREEWILL56]

94. Holy crap, she is really gonzo.

I know how you feel though as I too had a friend of 30 years all of a sudden reveal his true nature to me over a short timeperiod. I even had a thread mentioning it.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=2234535

editted to use the word crap.

[riverdeep]

105. Hate to say it, but your former friend is now a nutcase.

Here are some of the choice banners put up by her MySpace friends, with which I'm assuming she agrees.






On the last one, Vince Foster? Really? Still with that?

That's some strange mindsets there. An almost fetish-like worship of the troops. Even though Ron Paul, advocating for withdrawal, gets the most money of the Republicans from the troops. She enjoys science when it comes meteorology, but not when it comes to evolution. She enjoys heavy metal guitar bands, but thinks Hollywood is destroying our youth.

Damn, Florida sounds like an absolute hell hole. Not like the Florida of the 70's I used to hear about.

[nonconformist]

108. That is one scary MySpace page.... egads

[bonito]

99. Well said n/t

[MedleyMisty]

100. Do you ever get the "They're just giving people what they want"

response when you bring up the dumbing down of the media? Maybe it is what people want, but that's because they've been told that's what they want.

I don't think the species is going to make it much past this century. We're too stupid and selfish and greedy to live. I only wish we weren't taking so much other life with us - other species are cool and don't deserve it.

I've done a bit of research on mental/emotional/moral development, and I don't know if I'm being ethnocentric when I say this - maybe people in other places are better. But seriously, it seems like 90%+ of humans never progress beyond the first stages of black and white thinking, extreme selfisness and slavishness to authority.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

102. For the past 15 years or so, media have been relentlessly dumbed down

When did the American people ever rise up and DEMAND pro wrestling on every channel?

When did the majority demand to have three or four fundie channels and six shopping channels on every cable system?

Who asked that all Hollywood movies be made up mostly of special effects and/or ripoffs of old movies or TV shows?

[Captain Angry]

106. Corporations are not dumb.

1: Wrestling, like any other TV show is only on because the TV station can sell the viewer's eyes to an advertiser. Question: Who was the primary advertiser for wrestling? The US Military.

2: When you pay no taxes (the religion channels), you have a larger budget. When you can use that budget to buy your way onto cable/dish so you can expand your viewership, you gain even more access. Question: Are those channels unwatched? If so, how could the religion and shopping channels stay afloat? They're watched. Constantly. I could tell you stories.

3: If the tickets went unsold, the movies would not get made. Every time another rehash movie comes out, my dad says the same thing. "Our economy must be better than it seems, because these movies wouldn't get made if people would stop going."

Corporations go to where the money is. Why is poker on 50 channels? Why is NASCAR on 50 channels? Because there are enough people watching it to make advertisers continue to buy the time on the air.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

111. But people got along fine for forty years without poker on TV

and I swear, in my whole life, I NEVER heard anyone say, "Gee, I wish they had poker on TV."

Then all of a sudden around the time of the 2000 Olympics, there was an Astroturf PR campaign that supposedly wanted to get poker recognized as an Olympic sport. It was shortly after that that Celebrity Poker appeared to hasten the downfall of Bravo, which used to be a subscription-only channel that showed foreign films.

There's a percentage of the audience that will watch any dumb thing that's on TV. When I was a kid in the 1950s, we had Oral Roberts doing faith healing and cheesy quiz shows. In Japan, there's an audience for talk shows featuring the most airheaded celebrities they can find. I doubt if anyone has ever uttered an intelligent word on some of them.

However, these days, not only are dumb shows proliferating, but new genres of dumbness are being invented. Filling your head with dumb shows to the exclusion of say, intelligent shows or movies or books or non-commercial music makes you dumb from lack of any mental challenge. You are then a perfect target for further dumbing down.

The dumbing of pop culture is not my imagination. I recently canceled all but the most basic cable, retaining basic only because reception is terrible otherwise. Ten or twenty years ago, I would have hesitated to do this, because there were too many things I enjoyed watching: really good dramas from the UK and Australia, along with arts documentaries on A&E, science documentaries and travelogues on Discovery, something besides Nazis and the paranormal on the History Channel, news from Canada on Newsworld International, the best of British television on BBC America, foreign films on Bravo, real worldwide news on CNN. This was what we had been promised: dozens of channels with something for every taste, even those of us who like challenging material.

Well, you know what all those channels are like now, and NWI doesn't even exist anymore. I canceled my cable because I'd look at the day's TV listings and realize that there was nothing I was the least bit interested in watching.

My only regrets are the Weather Channel (important for Minnesotans) and Turner Classic Movies, which has not strayed from its original mission.

Otherwise, I stand by my contention that the segment of the American people that will watch anything that moves on the screen is being deliberately dumbed down with programming that can be understood by anyone with the IQ of a mollusk.

[Captain Angry]

113. I don't question that the shows are dumber than ever.

You can't make people seek out intelligence. TV regurgitates the idea that "I can watch this silly thing because I've had a hard week and don't want to think too hard tonight. I just want to vegetate." And it works.

I really miss NWI. Having the CBC's newsfeed was awesome. If I didn't have LinkTV, my dish would be nearly useless.

I don't ever see the average TV viewer seeking out information again. They've forgotten what it is.

My point before was just that a sponsor will not pay for a show to be on unless people decide to watch it. I can't make people stop watching crap, I can just tell them about all of the things they've never heard.

The only thing that has worked is being right. I told my family and friends that the market was going to get weird, and that housing was in trouble. I told them this 18 months ago. When I put my house on the market, I was nuts. When I sold it, I was stupid.

I'm a genius again. "How much did you make when you sold it? How much has the price fallen since? Wow."

So people that I told about the housing thing are starting to listen now on other things.

A slow process.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

117. "You can't make people seek out intelligence"--especially if it's never offered

Over the years, I had students who were brought up in a typical brainless environment only to be captivated by something they happened to read or happened to see while flipping the channels or happened to hear while turning the radio dial. These accidental discoveries can be the key to a new way of thinking or a new life-long interest.

What will happen to us as these kinds of accidental awakenings become less likely?

[Captain Angry]

118. That is certainly true. Those little sparks can be amazing.

I had never heard of Amy Goodman or Democracy Now until I hit the station while scanning the radio one day.

She's the reason that I found DU, and am so much better informed than I ever was before.

Well to do children will always have access to the sparks. I was very disappointed to watch the Learning Channel and Discovery Channel turn into reality TV channels.

Science TV is incredible, and incredibly expensive, not available on most systems until you buy the top of the tiers.

Good point.

[KoKo]

130. Great Point, Lydia. There's more channels but less variety. Even C-Span

is going to the dark side lately. And what about the promise of "Discovery Channel" and the "Learning Channel." The crap on there is mindboggling compared to what could be on there. There are laws about public programming that was supposed to be on Cable or Networks...but they've not been followed in years. The Media Dereg and Repug and Dem Congress sort of put the breaks on that when "Action for Children's Television" seemed to get bought off. When many parents stopped being able to focus on what their kids were watching because they were watching the crap themselves. We demand too little. And, many folks just don't know how to get involved or they are working several jobs and only want a little peace and escapism when they have a few minutes to themselves.

Have to hope the internet will help in kids finding access to more than the TeeVee offers.

[NuttyFluffers]

131. if i control what you see and hear...

if i control what you can see and hear, then i control what you can think about.

if i control what you can think about, then i control what you can believe.

if i control what you can believe... then i control YOU.


(for the record, all i need is my PBS and some internet access to foreign tv and i'm good to go. the stupid on american tv makes my brain hurt, more than the stupid from other countries.)

[deutsey]

128. "Give the people what they want. We hope everyone gets what they deserve." The Kinks n/t

[kentuck]

101. You speak the truth, Atman...

I have done it.

[Cetacea]

104. At least smoking will finally be totally banned.

[riverdeep]

107. Hasn't it always been thus?

I think dumbing has always been there, it's a question of degree. And I agree that it's increased in the last 20 years something fierce. In the late 70's, the movie Network slyly foretold of what was happening. The shows depicted in that movie as being outlandish, Sybil the Soothsayer for example, are now standard fare. If anything, the movie was too tame.

Going back to the always thus point- the 'average citizen' of any industrialized nation is fairly ignorant of the forces that shape her society. Go to Italy-is the average Milano aware of Berlusconi's controlling interest in the news they see? Do they care? If we were to step back in time in this nation, say a century, we would find a lot of yellow journalism, sensationalistic coverage of meaningless trials, and probably not a lot on the robber barons making a mint off of the toil of the average citizen.

Why? I think there are primarily three reasons. Without going too deep here, the first is just as you say, a media that is controlled by the powers that be, that have a vested interest in not reporting on it's own malfeasance. To your point, it has gotten worse as concentration of media in fewer hands has increased this sanitization of inconvenient news. Second, an education system that makes people smart enough for a life as a cog in the machine, but not smart enough to know, or want to know, how the machine operates. And third, evolution. We're set up to tend to concentrate on our own immediate affairs. Things that happen outside this circle are treated with less import. It's gotten us through, barely. Happened in my neighborhood? Of great import. Happened on the other side of the world? Not of consequence. Except we're connected now, and the other side of the world can affect you more than what happens in your own family.

[Gonnuts]

114. Welcome to the AMERO!

Don't think for a moment that this isn't by design. The New World Order is all about crashing the American dollar and forging a union with Canada, Mexico and the United States currency, much like the European Union and the EURO.

[Cerridwen]

116. And, yet, some of us manage to stay informed and to see what it going

on in the world and in "our" country.

[Warren Stupidity]

120. !Bravo!

And I forgive you for slamming Podunk New Hampshire :-)

[Historic NY]

121. When I saw signs in Pa. "rent a new home" it hit me...

lots of tract homes for the city masses going unsold. They keep building bigger and more massive homes for people who shouldn't have been able to get loans in the first place. The make the pie higher, philosophy is going to come crashing down sooner rather than later. My hope is that it comes when shrub & company are in office, if not the Dem's. will be blamed by the media. Americans have ADD (attention deficit disorder)they can't believe its all spent and taxes haven't gone up. Lets just sell them something they really don't need, to make them feel better. We are so distracted by diversions, we really can't see what coming or refuse to believe it. So keep the charge cards burning this season, the Bush administration thinks throwing more money will help, maybe he is right that is until the bills come due.

[mike_c]

123. turn OFF the TV-- permanently!

That's the best way I know to increase one's IQ instantly.

[deutsey]

127. But I LIKE hearing news stories about how skinny women have smarter kids.

:sarcasm:

I can't listen to any of the corporate morning shows without feeling like I'm going to have a stroke.

It's bad enough stomaching the local TV and print news, but at least I get a sense of what's going on where I live. Corporate "news" programs (with exceptions like Olbermann) do nothing to enlighten, inform, or serve the interests of what's ostensibly a democratic republic.