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Subject: A STUPID NATION MADE NEMESIS OUR NAME
Date: Wed, 07 Feb 2007 01:10:50 -0600

For years, my question to many and any, has been: How, when alarmingly large numbers among the population are so thoroughly stupid, might they possibly care about the declining state of their nation.  How, with such cerebral paralysis, buttressed by a myriad distractions and doped by the opiate of the non-stop bread and circuses entertainment industry, plus widespread licit and illicit drugs, might they detect the reasons for the disappearing middle class--leading to the quickening pace of the widespread impoverishment of the country.  

How might tens of millions of stupid people possibly spot or deal with, their own risks for losing their livelihood---their homes, their meagre savings, their health, even their lives, with no mental or practical tools of survival with which to persevere, in the environment of trouble and scarcity.

   How, without a clue of nations' rise and fall, could they possibly interpret the signs of the growing tyranny in their very nation--via the rigors of  statist control, misrule and oppression; the growing tyranny of rampant crime; the ominous pattern of spreading gangsterism and the meaning of the subversive wholesale degeneracy of the population.   How could such a stupid people possibly recognize or care about the progressive loss of the principles of their own Constitution and Bill of Rights.   How, without the "genuine" study of constitutional government, might they put into context the disastrous incidence of a Congress which has largely abdicated its duties for the fair representation of the people, or how to balance the power of the executive branch.  

How might such a people mentally distinguish the difference between liberty and slavery, when they don't recognize any real difference.   How might a feeble minded people who tremble with any "fear factor," who childishly rush for some false security by the nanny State, appreciate the dire risk of the loss of their own civil liberties.  How, when they have no capacity to see they live without question or sufficient indignation, by the rules of an exaggerated bureaucracy.   One run amok with tens of thousands of restrictive and expensive regulations.   All of it funded by self impoverishing progressive taxation--under the rubric of contributions, licences, registrations, fees, that have no end.   

How might they avoid these calamities, without a historical reference point; without knowing the patterns of previous records of experience and the trends that lead to existential threats.  How might a people with little recall of the not so very ancient experience of struggle in the young nation or when lacking the disciplines of their own cultural traditions, have the moral and physical strength to overcome.   How?

The Father of Progressive education, one illustrious Dr. John Dewey, would celebrate, were he alive.   His dream for the "perfected citizen," run through the mind grinder of the public indoctrination system, aka public schools, from the age of five, (now earlier)  achieved the purpose for which he was commissioned by the Rockefeller Board of Education, (or the successor) not so long ago.  Throw in the mind finisher, for good measure, the widespread brain stupefying propaganda machine, through T.V., Hollywood, the sanctioned print garbage, night and day, since WWII---and stupidity multiplied by a mega factor.  

Today, the "perfected citizen" lives in the perfected matrix of USA Inc.   A people ready for serfdom or modern high tech slavery.   A people not fit to survive, but deluded from this terrible reality by imagining themselves free and prosperous, because their political and societal icons, told them so repeatedly, until the lie was believed. 

Quite a cast!   A pathetic cast of marionettes, their strings pulled by psychotic and power mad Nemesis.   The god of war and vengeance and destruction.   In the throes of desperation and financial calamity, what else might the nation have to offer the people of Matrix USA or the people of the world, but the distractions that spawn the curse and sorrows of Nemesis.  

No wonder the planet is revolted by our stupidity, which of course guided our administrative despots' now obviously self defeating delusions of grandeur and sick naivete, while at the same time, the planet laughs at our continuing global misguidance and pretensions.

  Our former identity now obliterated in disgrace and humiliation, Nemesis is our name.   We were submerged and christened by the boundless stupidity of the crowd.

ac



"In a 2004 rant, SF Gate columnist Mark Morford complains: “Middle America is a scattershot conglomeration of the politically apathetic and the actively disenfranchised, full of people far too busy with their lives and kids and jobs and zoning out on ‘Fear Factor’ and ‘Monday Night Football’ to care about following the elitist, ever dire dramas playing out on the nation’s gilded stages.”

Morford’s explanation: “In short, as the theory goes, most Americans don’t give a damn because we’re on top and we own everything and have more nukes than anyone and we’re never the ones getting invaded. It’s our unofficial motto­America: We Don’t Have to Care.”


To: acfree@earthlink.net
Subject: What We Now Know, week of February 6, 2007
Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2007 12:47:38 -0600
From: What We Now Know <subscribers@caseyresearch.com>


Are We Really That Stupid?

By Shannara Johnson

Lately, we have started wondering if the image of the warmongering “ugly American” in the eye of the world will soon be replaced by that of the stupid American.

A recent survey, called the National Geographic-Roper Affairs 2006 Geographic Literacy Study, polled young adults (18-24) on national and world geography.

According to the study, 87% of college-aged Americans couldn’t find Iraq on a map of the Middle East; 70% couldn’t find Iran on a map of Asia; and 83% couldn’t find Afghanistan.

Asked which language is spoken by most people in the world as their primary language, only 18% knew it was Mandarin Chinese, while a whopping 74% thought it to be English.

Unfortunately, their ignorance didn’t stop at far-away countries: on a map of the United States, 50% were unable to locate the state of New York, 48% didn’t know where Mississippi and 33% where Louisiana was­despite broad news coverage during Hurricane Katrina. On a world map, 6% missed the entire country.

29% of the polled believe that the U.S. has a population of between 500 and 750 million, another third guessed 1 to 2 billion. However, 39% correctly answered that Las Vegas is the setting for the TV series “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.”

In a similar, international test conducted by National Geographic in 2002, U.S. testees came in second-to-last of nine countries; only Mexicans were less educated.

Jodi Vender, coordinator of the Pennsylvania Alliance for Geographic Education, blames the mere “emphasis on reading, writing and math” for this lack of knowledge. “There is no funding for geography in the No Child Left Behind Act, as there is for other school subjects.”

With such an emphasis on reading, writing and math, U.S. students surely excel in those subjects, then?

Not so. In a 2004 study released by the international Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, American students ranked 28th of 40 countries in math and 18th in reading.

But even the people we would expect to know the basics fall pathetically short.

In November 2006, when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld took his hat, the New York Times reported a memorable exchange between a sergeant stationed in Iraq and one of his subordinates.

“’Rumsfeld’s out,’ he said to five marines sprawled with rifles on the cold floor. Lance Cpl. James L. Davis Jr. looked up from his cigarette. ‘Who’s Rumsfeld?’ he asked.”

Along the same lines, new House Intelligence Committee chief Silvestre Reyes botched some easy questions by Congressional Quarterly editor Jeff Stein. Asked if al-Qaeda is Sunni or Shiite, Stein answered, “they have both,” and then, “Predominantly­probably Shiite.” (Al-Qaeda is profoundly Sunni and views Shiites as heretics.) Reyes was also unable to explain what kind of group Hezbollah is.

In case you’re saying that you didn’t know either, keep in mind that this is the man supposed to oversee our intelligence on the Middle-East.

If our leaders can’t get it together, who can blame the average Joe Schmo for being a bit dense? Nonetheless, we had no idea of the degree of stupidity until we watched this popular video clip on YouTube, in which an Australian journalist sets out to quiz Americans on the street on commonplace topics. Topics such as:

• Who is Tony Blair? (Answers: skater/actor/Linda Blair’s brother)
• How many sides does a triangle have? (Answers: four/none/one)
• What’s the religion of Israel? (Answers: Israeli/Muslim/Islamic/ Catholic)
• Which countries are in the Axis of Evil? (Answers: Germany/ California/New York/Jerusalem/Florida/Mississippi).

(Of course, in all fairness, we have to assume that the TV crew edited out the dozens of correct answers they received.)

In the same video, you can see unwitting prank victims stick pins into “Iran,” “North Korea” and “France” on a fake map on which Australia has been relabeled, and give expertly advice from which direction the U.S. should best attack. And Texas residents happily agree with the interviewer’s suggestion that the U.S. should invade Kyrgyzstan, a country most have never heard of, if “the president thinks it’s a threat to national security.”

In a 2004 rant, SF Gate columnist Mark Morford complains: “Middle America is a scattershot conglomeration of the politically apathetic and the actively disenfranchised, full of people far too busy with their lives and kids and jobs and zoning out on ‘Fear Factor’ and ‘Monday Night Football’ to care about following the elitist, ever dire dramas playing out on the nation’s gilded stages.”

Morford’s explanation: “In short, as the theory goes, most Americans don’t give a damn because we’re on top and we own everything and have more nukes than anyone and we’re never the ones getting invaded. It’s our unofficial motto­America: We Don’t Have to Care.”

But not only the political arena is threatened by a dumbed-down population, our ever-widening educational gap also hurts the economy.

A 2003 study by the National Center for Education Statistics revealed that 5% of Americans are illiterate and another 29% possess only basic reading and computing skills.

No wonder then, that in 2005 automobile giant Toyota announced that it would open a new $800-million plant in Ontario, Canada, rather than in America, despite U.S. offers of generous subsidies. The reason: U.S. workers are too hard to train.

Gerry Fedchun, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association, said that Canada’s “level of the workforce in general is so high that the training program you need for people, even for people who have not worked in a Toyota plant before, is minimal compared to what you have to go through in the southeastern United States.”

According to CBC News, Fedchun also commented that “Nissan and Honda have encountered difficulties getting new plants up to full production in recent years in Mississippi and Alabama due to an untrained­and often illiterate­workforce. In Alabama, trainers had to use ‘pictorials’ to teach some illiterate workers how to use high-tech plant equipment.”

“The educational level and the skill level of the people down there is so much lower than it is in Ontario.”

What does all this say about our educational system, and what should be done about it? Let’s hear your opinion at feedback@caseyresearch.com.