Posted on 10/05/2010 12:34:47 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
In trying to understand how so many Americans adore people like Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh I have come to this critical understanding: Poorly educated, terribly informed, intellectually deficient and downright stupid people need idols. They feel angry, frustrated, ignored, cheated and disillusioned by so much going on in American society. They find the emotional, political and philosophical rants by talk show, loud mouth celebrities matching and justifying their feelings. Of course, those celebrities work hard to fan the flames of all that unhappiness and discontent, and also perpetuate ignorance. They sell stupidity to gullible dummies, teaching them who to blame for their misery.
I am no conservative or liberal and I know I sound terribly condescending and will be viewed as an elitist by those dummies, not that they read much by those they do not idolize. However, I have spent considerable time following what these demon idols say and write to seriously investigate whether I might be missing something of value. But all I see are huge quantities of totally incorrect and distorted information, absolute nonsense, outright insanity, abuse of logic, exaggerations, toxic half truths, intentional disinformation, racism and bigotry, and extreme political views that have no connection to reality and offer no workable solutions to the nation's complex problems. Slick sound-bite slogans push propaganda substitutes for verifiable facts.
How to understand how so many people can listen to such celebrities and not feel as nauseous as I and so many other Americans feel when listening to them? Clearly we must accept the disturbing fact that there are many millions of suffering Americans that are mental midgets, a sign of the dumbing-down of America. No surprise really when you remember there are millions of people wasting their money on gambling, lottery tickets, cons and scams, junk products and unhealthy foods, or unable to qualify for decent jobs because of a lack of knowledge and skills. Either they were born stupid (a harsh but true statistical reality) or the many ups and downs of life have robbed them of any critical thinking ability to see through the idiocy that these purveyors of poison peddle while making obscene millions of dollars.
Consider recent Pew Center Research poll results that showed 18 percent of Republicans do not know that the Democrats control the House of Representatives and 35 percent do not know who the Vice President is. Research has found Fox News butchers facts and its devotees are the most ignorant, and in recent years Republicans have overwhelmingly gone to Fox to get their news and information. Note: 80 percent who regularly listen to Rush Limbaugh or watch Sean Hannity are conservative. I'm not saying that "No truth, just spin" should be the Fox motto, but it sure fits.
I can easily relate to the many people treated unfairly, unjustly and even brutally by the political and economic system. But those who have drifted over to the dark side of the right-wing, conservative arena and become addicted to the rhetoric of delusion have nothing in common with those that once made the United States a noble nation worthy of respect. Their idols talk a lot about the Founders and Constitution, but share none of the fine qualities of those that created our republic. They also pick and choose what parts of the Constitution to adore, mocking the rule of law.
As an independent, I too am extremely critical of the political and economic system and how the middle class has been purposefully harmed by a rich and powerful Upper Class that has turned the nation into a plutocracy serving the greed of individuals and corporations. I want revolution and true reforms. I condemn both major political parties and see elections as useless anachronisms.
I too feel disenfranchised, full of dissent and disgust with broken government, broken educational and health care systems, crumbling inadequate infrastructure, widespread corruption and dishonesty, and an economy dispensing inequality and injustice. Yet, try as I have, I cannot see any merit in what these powerful right-wing demigods dish out, all done to pump millions of dollars into their pockets and pump up their egos. They sell themselves as the defenders of the downtrodden and abused, but this is just a con game designed to keep millions of dollars coming to them and their fellow fat cats. When their supporters vote for Republicans they vote against their own economic interests, unless they are rich.
These false populists are fundamentally no different than the evil elite forces that this fraction of the population despises. Perversely, they have become a part of the ruling class they routinely condemn. They are the worst kind of idols, manipulating and soaking their audiences and admirers. They pitch poisonous and addicting fast food rhetoric, words as pleasing as salt, sugar and fat laden foods and as eagerly gulped down. This results in mental capacity becoming as clogged as the arteries in overweight and obese Americans.
What is evil? Right-wing hypocritical hucksters pitching messages of values, morals, freedom and patriotism crafted to sucker the least informed, emotionally stressed and unintelligent Americans for the sake of power and money. These idols live like royalty (for example, Limbaugh makes $60 million a year and Beck $35 million) while their loyal fans treasure fantasy expectations and block out information that would cause too much pain by piercing the delusions they have succumbed to. By putting their faith in false idols they become unknowing victims of the media corpocracy profiting from these idols.
What a culture, where so few can take advantage of so many and make fortunes doing it. The real goal of the demon idols is to further divide the nation, not fix it and make it better. Why? Because divisiveness is what sells and makes them big money. Shame on them. Those who worship them need more worthy heroes if they really love their country and want to make it better for all its citizens. The rest of us need to ignore the false idols and their followers, showing them no respect whatsoever, condemning them at every opportunity.
Lie.
Typical class envy from a bitter leftist.
He probably does pretty well as a professor and "head of an environmental consulting firm," although that could be anything from a big corporation to a landscaping truck.
Still, no matter how much he makes, he thinks it unfair that he is soooooooo very smart (all his smart-too peers tell him so) and yet there are rubes who make much more money than he does.
He needs the government to come in and equalize the pay scales, because these disparities irk him so.
At his core, he's driven to embrace leftwing fascism by his own envy and greed. And we're all too dumb to agree with his goals.
Okay, who pooped on this guy’s breakfast?
Hirschhorn does precisely what he accuses Fox of doing.
He says:
“Consider recent Pew Center Research poll results that showed 18 percent of Republicans do not know that the Democrats control the House of Representatives and 35 percent do not know who the Vice President is. “
He fails to mention that in the same poll 29 percent of Democrats do not know that the Democrats control the House and 38% do not know that Joe Biden is the VP.
And who does Hirschhorn rely on for his assertion about Fox distorting the facts - the Soros funded, self proclainmed Progressive media watch dog, Media Matters.
Clearly the guy is self delusional. He was right in some regards. He is condescending and an elitist simpleton. Libertarians come in all shapes and sizes. The ones that think they are superior to others should check their hubris at the door. Like it or not this is a representative democracy and the people will have the last say. Without doubt and as the Founding Fathers clearly understood, populism has its dangers, but then so does elitism and all other ...isms.
Try harder! It may eventually fall within your grasp.
I think M. Medved was talking about this poll yesterday. The number for Democrats not knowing that Democrats control the House was something much larger.
Dang! That’s some rant! It took me a half-dozen paragraphs to figure out he wasn’t talking about Olbermann.
Who only attacks conservatives...
I want revolution and true reforms...
He wants someone with muscles to tell those other guys what to do...
and see elections as useless anachronisms.
Exactly. If he wants to know your opinion, he'll tell you what it is first. Don't ask to have any say in his perfect revolution.
My idols are the founders of this country. Not Mao, Stalin, Lenin et.all. His are the latter.
Only mouth-breathing conservatives need idols? I give you ...
Al Gore — brains of a hatrack, ethics of a hyena.
Joe Biden — makes Al Gore look like a Nobel Prize winner.
Michael Moore — could swallow a Buick or two Smart Cars. Creates propaganda so lopsided it tips over laying down.
Che Guevara — two-bit toady who murdered his way to the top of a third-world dungheap.
Bill Clinton — morals of a drunken frat pledge.
And then there’s the “transparent” “hope-and-change” champion of the Little Guy, Barack Obama ...
Yep. Conservatives shouldn’t be so quick to idolize the unworthy ...
In addition to his many other flaws, he's an absolutely horrible and childish writer.
I'll bet he drew sad faces and skull and crossbones around this for emphasis.
“Selling Stupidity” ?!
You mean he got PAID to write this drivel?!
;)
There was an article around here last week by that Charles Blow, someone with that last name. Some NYT lefty person.
He was quoting that Pew poll. I believe he says the opposite of this moonbat.
He ripped off the Obama pic from AP and the left one was blatantly stolen from the film They Live IIRC (OBEY)
(1988; from IMDB.com: “Nada, a down-on-his-luck construction worker, discovers a pair of special sunglasses. Wearing them, he is able to see the world as it really is: people being bombarded by media and government with messages like “Stay Asleep”, “No Imagination”, “Submit to Authority”. Even scarier is that he is able to see that some usually normal-looking people are in fact ugly aliens in charge of the massive campaign to keep humans subdued. “_
And much of Fairey’s other “artwork” is outright stolen from Nazi and Communist propagandists.
Much in line with his political ideology.
it's actually correct. What the demagogue left out is the fact that the % of clueless dems was 29%. Uber lib Charles. Recently wrote a NY times column lamenting just how damn stupid the Dem base is compared to the Republican base. He used these very numbers. (18% vs 29%) to make his point. This filthy liar seems not to have noticed the numbers about dems; and how it appears, by his own ligic, that the dem base is 61% dumber. Maybe they need Beck to educate them.
And is this fool really trying to make the point that your average Limbaugh listener is unlikely to know who controls congress? Who is it that is dumb?
"Poorly educated, terribly informed, intellectually deficient"
Why yes, I do find myself terribly informed as opposed to terribly uninformed. Now that I'm writing this, I'm doubting...I guess it could be either way.
from Wiki...Joel S. Hirschhorn (born 1939)...co-chair, Scholars for 9/11 Truth
18% seems like a fair number. How many thousands of headlines have been written, CNN banners, and radio news highlights have been done for 'Republicans block (whatever liberal dumb-donkey idea they've got today)'? Or 'Republicans fail to defeat (whatever idiotic idea the donkeys pushed through this week)'
Come to think about it, if only 18% believe that Republicans are in charge, that totally blows out of the water the entire concept built into the Democrat defense this election cycle, that 'whatever it was that you wanted us to do that we didn't bother to get around to doing is all the Republicans fault' has only reached 18% of the population, which is a horrible number for such a long and drawn out campaign that started before Obama took office.
Only 18%.. That's pretty darn good.
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