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www.snipr.com/TeamAmericaCom

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If it weren't so embarrassing, it would be amusing how Norwegians openly view the collective intellect of the US populous to be NEANDERTHAL. Most find it unfathomable that such a wealthy nation would permit profiteers to price gouge pharmaceuticals out of the reach of its citizens, let alone forbid seniors from reimportation of US drugs from Canada. It's incomprehensible that the same citizenry would RE-ELECT leadership who do nothing to address that dilemma, while disregarding the supermajority's will to have crumbling bridges fixed before embarking on extraterrestrial missions to weaponize space and expand "TACTICAL" nuclear bomb development.
www.youtube.com/v/UCWnBlozjmM
www.youtube.com/user/CaseyJPorter

Then they connect the dots between the SOMA distribution and the MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX IRON TRIANGLE and accept the fact that United Statesians are simply retarded, suffering from amnesia, or genetically predisposed SUCKERS!!!!!

Just How Stupid Are We?

Facing the Truth about the American Voter—you'll be wrong. And when you realize the depths of the ignorance so many Americans take into the voting booth, you may indeed wonder, as Shenkman does to great effect in his new book, where indeed the buck stops.

So here we are heading toward another July 4th, that glorious day when American independence was declared and the Liberty Bell rang out to the world—the first of which didn't happen on July 4th, the second of which was made up "out of whole cloth" in the nineteenth century in a book for children (but you knew that!). Think of today's post as a bit of counter-programming to our yearly summer celebration of history, a way to ponder what exactly, in the 8th year of the reign of our latest King George, any of us have to celebrate. Consider instead the state of our national brain, preview Shenkman's new book (which should set anyone's mind spinning), and, while you're at it, watch his recent interview with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show http://www.tomdispatch.com/p/tdvideo/shenkman06302008

How Ignorant Are We? The Voters Choose… but on the Basis of What?

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
—Thomas Jefferson

Just how stupid are we? Pretty stupid, it would seem, when we come across headlines like this: "Homer Simpson, Yes—1st Amendment 'Doh,' Survey Finds" (Associated Press 3/1/06).

"About 1 in 4 Americans can name more than one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment (freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly and petition for redress of grievances.) But more than half of Americans can name at least two members of the fictional cartoon family, according to a survey.

"The study by the new McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum found that 22 percent of Americans could name all five Simpson family members, compared with just 1 in 1,000 people who could name all five First Amendment freedoms."

But what does it mean exactly to say that American voters are stupid? About this there is unfortunately no consensus. Like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, who confessed not knowing how to define pornography, we are apt simply to throw up our hands in frustration and say: We know it when we see it. But unless we attempt a definition of some sort, we risk incoherence, dooming our investigation of stupidity from the outset. Stupidity cannot mean, as Humpty Dumpty would have it, whatever we say it means.

Five defining characteristics of stupidity, it seems to me, are readily apparent.

• First, is sheer ignorance:
  Ignorance of critical facts about important events in the news, and ignorance of how our government functions and who's in charge.
• Second, is negligence:
  The disinclination to seek reliable sources of information about important news events.
• Third, is wooden-headedness, as the historian Barbara Tuchman defined it:
  The inclination to believe what we want to believe regardless of the facts.
• Fourth, is shortsightedness:
  The support of public policies that are mutually contradictory, or contrary to the country's long-term interests.
• Fifth, and finally, is a broad category I call bone-headedness, for want of a better name:
  The susceptibility to meaningless phrases, stereotypes, irrational biases, and simplistic diagnoses and solutions that play on our hopes and fears. ...

www.snipr.com/2wzzz aka tomdispatch.com/post/174951#insidecontent