Haven't we gotten dumb enough already?

One thing I find very frustrating when I engage some people in conversation about public affairs, is a tendency for folks to deny a plain truth by attempting to focus the discussion on irrelevant particulars. I see it whenever I tune in to C-Span too. Here's what I mean: when CBS found information that demonstrated that George Bush was derelict in his duties in the National Guard, a thunderous outcry was sounded across the land regarding the medium on which the information was transmitted. This was in order to shift attention from the fact that George Bush WAS derelict in his duties in the National Guard, to evidence that documents were re-created (but still based on facts). The public bought it (or so much of the corporate media would have us believe). I saw this when Congressman Sensenbrenner stood in plain contempt of the facts, then declaring them irrelevent (before storming out of the room), when numerous credible witnesses with irrefutable evidence demonstrated beyond a doubt to anyone listening that the Patriot Act provisions that are scheduled to sunset this year pose a severe threat to the civil liberties of the people of our beloved republic. I see it whenever I hear someone (citizen, newsreader or public servant) referring to the torture of human beings simply as "abuse". Please explain to me how being attacked and bitten in the genitals by trained dogs, being "waterboarded", or beaten to death, is not torture. Then pull your head out of your butt and take a look around.

When you sense that you are wronged by a person in business, and their only reply to your claims is on the level of, "well, you signed right here...", without any consideration of the overall circumstances, you are experiencing an encounter with a corporatocrat: one of those who has given up on humanity and is resigned to merely "getting mine" in a system that values balance sheets over the lives of human beings. I will venture here to say that many of those in our federal legislative branch who call themselves republicans (but are NOT.. we would not be going broke if they were) have succumbed to this corporatocratic malady. They have lost the ability or the INCLINATION to recognize plain truths EVEN WHEN THOSE TRUTHS ARE OBVIOUS TO US ALL, and instead will focus on minute details to support their arguments.

It has gotten us into another failed war. It has drained our treasury. It is destroying the American dream of social mobility: the ability to climb higher than the hights to which ones parents may have reached. It has destined millions of Americans to never realize the independence of spirit that comes only from being a rugged individualist, and not from being on someone else's payroll.

It's as though a stupidity has seeped into the conciousness of the collective American Mind. It is frightful. Stupidity kills. It kills teenagers who drink themselves giddy, then operate automobiles. It kills innocent working people in skyscrapers when the policies of their government cause those living in third-world countries to take desperate measures. It kills centuries of educational development when certain states forbid the teaching of evolution in the schools.

Stupidity kills countries when those who resent elitist power vote to keep elitist power in office.

Stupidity kills countries when those in power run the treasury into the ground.

And now Stupidity wants to kill a public service that is devoted to reducing stupidity.

They're going after PBS and NPR! They've already put one of their lackeys in charge of it in the same manner that they've placed their other officials: put someone who opposes the entity in charge of it, who will engineer its destruction. Now they want to cut the funding.

Let your legislators know that you've had it up to HERE with the stupidity coming out of Washington. Sign the petition to save PBS and NPR here:

http://www.moveon.org/publicbroadcasting/