So, today, the Omnipotent Poobah discusses stupidity (our own, specifically), and I started to leave a comment, but it grew huge and unwieldy, and ultimately not really on subject.
So I put the comment here instead.
To call Americans stupid is to insult and belittle stupid people. I keep wanting to use the word "bovine", but even cows have more sense of self-preservation than Americans seem to have these days. To judge by our leaders, both literal and cultural, all crises can be responded to with a combination of "mine, mine!" and "Hulk smash!". To suggest any kind of cooperative effort is to suggest Marxist thought and is strictly verboten. Never mind that civilization itself is a collectivist endeavor, and that the societies that work best are those that have learned to play together best, including sharing between those who have and those who have not.
I think that the problem may be that we are herd animals, and somehow our bellwethers have become Judas Goats instead. Somehow, since the 80's or so, we've been led away from the idea of the common good to the idea of self-reliance. This would be fine, perhaps, if everyone actually rely on themselves (though not particularly productive), but what a lucky few call "their hard work" is more like herding as they take the efforts of the many and channel it into their own pockets. Should the herd call for a greater share of the bounty they are dismissed and reviled as "socialists" and "un-American", even though our nation's leadership (in government, business and culture) resemble communist leaders and royalty far more than any of the working class could even hope for.
We need a new cultural leader who will bring us away from our current self-centered world-view and into one that is more cooperative, a kind of mental NAFTA, if you will. Otherwise, I fear that America will be doomed to the place that all nations go when their focus becomes solely on the top tier of their society - a hopelessly stagnant backwater loved by none and contributing nothing to the world, including itself.
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4 comments:
That's one hell of a comment.
I feel like I'm watching all the euphoria of November '08 unravel for no better reason than that Democrats seem to hate ordinary Americans as much as Republicans do, they just arent as honest about it. If the health care bill goes the way that the rest of the Democratic voters' agenda has, then I predict a very low turnout in 2010 and a return to power of Republicans simply because liberal voters wont bother showing up. Why should they, when the game is so obviously rigged?
This country stands poised on the edge of an explosion (or an implosion). Maybe it's that which keeps Americans off the streets; they instinctively know that once it starts it'll escalate out of control.
nah.
We're just stupid, stupid sheep, lining up for the next fleecing.
Again.
I've been a little angry lately.
I often say that the Republicans would like nothing better than to make America into Mexico (but with "white" people in charge), but the behavior of the Democrats makes me realise that the U.S. is much like Mexico already in that we too have been ruled by one party for decades. It's just that the one party has two faces.
Viva la revolucion?
Good comment.
Maybe instead of bovine we could use something like "bituminous". People, after all, show the intelligence of rocks some times.
Wait! We can't use that,the coal industry already has it sewn up.
The hunt for the perfect metaphor will have to go on.
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