Obama demands Europe send more troops to Afghanistan

[Henk Elegeert]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

2008/7/27 Henk Elegeert <hmje at home.nl>:

Ik eerder:

> Tja, en dus loopt het hysterisch volkje nu achter een/de andere
> volksmenner Obama aan. Simpeler kan echt niet, Hein.

FYI:

http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/52625.html

"
Just How Stupid Are We?
Facing the Truth About the American People

By Rick Shenkman

Basic Books
June 2008

...

The Argument

Politicians continuously tell us how smart the American people are.
How then do we square that with all the evidence that suggests our
politics are shallow and dumb? We can't. Our politics are often dumb
because many Americans are not smart about politics. According to Rick
Shenkman, author of the new book JUST HOW STUPID ARE WE? Facing the
Truth About the American Voter (June 9, 2008; Basic Books; $25), they
don't care about the subject and they don't know much about it.
Only 2 out of 5 citizens can name the three branches of the federal government.
Only 1 in 7 can find Iraq on a map.
Only 1 in 5 know that we have 100 US senators.

It would be stupid to say that the American people are stupid—as
stupid as saying the American people are smart. It is impossible to
generalize—and silly. But our politics are often stupid. And there are
times when no other word, harsh as it is, seems to capture the essence
of the turn politics has taken in recent decades.

We have all heard the most common explanations for our broken
political system – media manipulation, disingenuous politicians,
ambitious CEOs. But in JUST HOW STUPID ARE WE? Shenkman cuts through
the Gordian knot of contemporary politics with a shatteringly simple
claim: the problem lies not in the machinations of elite business
leaders and policy-makers, but in the gross ignorance and
irrationality of millions of ordinary voters.

An Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter, bestselling author, and
historian who founded the History News Network, Shenkman argues that
politicians count on us being dumb. They spend millions on dumb TV
advertisements because they have figured out that most Americans learn
what little they know about the candidates from those ads. They play
Americans like a fiddle, exploiting voters' hopes and fears, because
they know that they can get away with it.

Although more than 50% of Americans can identify at least two members
of the Simpsons Family, only 25% can name more than one right
guaranteed by the First Amendment.
Only 20% of young Americans between the ages 18-34 read a newspaper
daily. An astonishingly low 11% report surfing Internet news sites.

A Washington Post poll in September 2003 found that 70% of Americans
believed Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11. A majority continued
to believe this even after the 9/11 Commission reported that the claim
was groundless.

If facts don't drive our politics, what does? Shenkman says it's
myths. Politicians tell people what they want to hear. They tell us
we're smart, better than others, and God's favorites. To win us over
they pretend to be just like us, belting back shots of whiskey and
playing pool, in a crude exploitation of the myth of the common man.

Decade after decade Americans have been getting more and more
schooling while our politics have been getting dumber and dumber. In
1940 6 in 10 Americans didn't get past the eighth grade. Today most
have some college experience. So what happened? Increasingly voters
have been left on their own, cut off from those hated party bosses and
labor bosses of old, who in the past offered political guidance. Cut
off, voters turned to television for political information, setting us
up for the shallow politics we currently endure.

Although Shenkman's jeremiad leaves almost no figure un-skewered, his
argument is deeply rooted in an old-fashioned political idealism – the
belief that we can and should live in a country with smart voters, and
that overthrowing the myths that have dominated our discussions will
open the door to an honest and clear-eyed analysis of our political
state.
...
"

Er is dus wel behoefte aan verandering, en daarover hoor je Obama niet ...

Het ziet er naar uit dat de democratieen de mensen zelf monddood
maken, en intussen een systeem in stand houden dat elke verantwoording
mist.

Henk Elegeert

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