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Americans: Brainwashed or Ignorant?

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KaiG
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03 Aug 2010, 5:25 pm

I say it's a mixture of brainwashing and loud ignorance. There's certainly a lot of propaganda in your country, especially on your news channels. There's a tonne of partisanship in your country, with prosthelytizing and demagoguery spreading misinformation and untruth. There also seems to be a lot of patriotism, which probably encourages otherwise sensible people like your mother into willful ignorance.

Luckily, there are people like you who look at the facts and draw their own conclusions. There's an alarming trend of anti-intellectualism in the US though, as can be seen in the backlash against your professed opinions.

In the UK, I'd say our national mindset is one of ironic and sardonic mistrust of the competance of all authorities, which maybe makes us a bit more resistant to propaganda, but who knows? I'm not going to say that we've got it significantly better than you guys (lord knows we have our share of ignorance and incompetance), but here it just all seems more low-key than over there. And at least we have a pretty good, reasonably impartial news source in the BBC.


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03 Aug 2010, 5:46 pm

Well I have to say I'm not an expert when it comes to politics, which is why I sometimes feel like a hypocrite when it comes to my opinion on things like this. But I guess I at least have good common sense, which is something many of my fellow countrymen (sorry for using such a lame word) seem to lack. It reminds me of this line on the TV show Desperate Housewives where somebody said "The country is full of idiots, and everyone gets a vote". I honestly sometimes think the government keeps us stupid and uneducated just so they can manipulate us easier. I mean it's suppose to be a government where the "people" rule, but what if those people know nothing about government and the world other then what the media and leaders tell them? If the sources they rely on for information lie to them enough then they can be easily tricked into making the wrong decisions until it's too late and all power is handed to a select group of people who abuse it like the CIA does.

Maybe years from now Americans will start to realize that, or they may just continue living in their fantasy world until enough countries get pissed off enough and drop bombs on them, and then everyone will suffer because of their idiocy.



zer0netgain
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04 Aug 2010, 8:27 am

Americans are more brainwashed than ignorant, but both are the product of our culture.

Education is a joke, and vigilance to learn critical thinking and holding government accountable is something from two generations ago. Watching the evening news will make you both brainwashed and ignorant because you will only know what the gatekeepers of world events want you to see and hear about.



polarity
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04 Aug 2010, 10:06 am

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, then Satan is using the American Constitution as his front doormat (and the Magna Carta at his back door).

People in the most developed countries (not just the U.S.) are by and large ignorant of the reasons for these documents, and the forms that tyranny may take, that they were written to give the people power over.

Essentially the people have given that power back to the tyrants, thanks to their carrot and stick campaign of advertising useless junk, and sensationalising things to fear, in order to distract us from the very same things the power elite were doing at the draughting of those documents.


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Sand
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04 Aug 2010, 10:17 am

GreySun369 wrote:
Speaking of poverty, our country is developing the same mentality as Europe did during the Medieval Ages. That if you're poor and homeless you must have done something to deserve it. Everyone assumes that all homeless people are just drug-addict drunks that are too lazy to get a job and will do something horrible to you if you speak to them. It really makes me sick that for the "Richest Nation in the World", we still have a high population of homeless people who are ignored or treated like crap. We do little to help them, and the Soup Kitchens and Overcrowded Shelters are not enough.

I also hate how people tend to blame all our problems on whatever president is currently in office. People don't realize that the president can't do crap. All his job is, is to sit in the White House and take the blame for everything wrong in our country so people will look the other way at the ones causing the real problems. He may want to or even try to change our government for the better, but there's so many dicks in the other parts of our government who refuse to let him do anything to actually help the country. Plus the president usually has no idea what's going on with the rest of the government. Like with Abu Gharaid, Bush literally had no idea the US millitary was torturing Iraqi prisoners and there could possibly be other prisons doing the same thing right now but we don't know because of people like the CIA who lie to us about it and then rationalize what they do when they get caught by trying to say it was to protect the country. The president is really just a tool used by the rest of the government and nothing he says really matters.


There are documents indicating that Cheney and G.W.Bush clearly OK'd torture.

See http://www.seattlepi.com/opinion/361447_thomas02.html



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04 Aug 2010, 10:35 am

Sand wrote:
GreySun369 wrote:
Speaking of poverty, our country is developing the same mentality as Europe did during the Medieval Ages. That if you're poor and homeless you must have done something to deserve it. Everyone assumes that all homeless people are just drug-addict drunks that are too lazy to get a job and will do something horrible to you if you speak to them. It really makes me sick that for the "Richest Nation in the World", we still have a high population of homeless people who are ignored or treated like crap. We do little to help them, and the Soup Kitchens and Overcrowded Shelters are not enough.

I also hate how people tend to blame all our problems on whatever president is currently in office. People don't realize that the president can't do crap. All his job is, is to sit in the White House and take the blame for everything wrong in our country so people will look the other way at the ones causing the real problems. He may want to or even try to change our government for the better, but there's so many dicks in the other parts of our government who refuse to let him do anything to actually help the country. Plus the president usually has no idea what's going on with the rest of the government. Like with Abu Gharaid, Bush literally had no idea the US millitary was torturing Iraqi prisoners and there could possibly be other prisons doing the same thing right now but we don't know because of people like the CIA who lie to us about it and then rationalize what they do when they get caught by trying to say it was to protect the country. The president is really just a tool used by the rest of the government and nothing he says really matters.


There are documents indicating that Cheney and G.W.Bush clearly OK'd torture.

See http://www.seattlepi.com/opinion/361447_thomas02.html


Wow... I learn something new every day.

Well all I have to say is whatever cruel things other enemy countries do to our soldiers, it'll be because they brought it on themselves. I seriously have no trust in our millitary anymore, which is sad because my grandfather was a soldier in the Veitnam War. After reading about Abu Ghraid (sorry I mispelled it before) I've been feeling this undying hatred for our soldiers and I get a disgusted feeling in my stomach every time I see a soldier on the street. What really makes me mad is that if our Government can do this crap to foreign POWs and get away with it, they can start doing it to their own people too and try to convince the idiots in our country that they're doing it for the good. :roll:



Sand
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04 Aug 2010, 10:44 am

GreySun369 wrote:
Sand wrote:
GreySun369 wrote:
Speaking of poverty, our country is developing the same mentality as Europe did during the Medieval Ages. That if you're poor and homeless you must have done something to deserve it. Everyone assumes that all homeless people are just drug-addict drunks that are too lazy to get a job and will do something horrible to you if you speak to them. It really makes me sick that for the "Richest Nation in the World", we still have a high population of homeless people who are ignored or treated like crap. We do little to help them, and the Soup Kitchens and Overcrowded Shelters are not enough.

I also hate how people tend to blame all our problems on whatever president is currently in office. People don't realize that the president can't do crap. All his job is, is to sit in the White House and take the blame for everything wrong in our country so people will look the other way at the ones causing the real problems. He may want to or even try to change our government for the better, but there's so many dicks in the other parts of our government who refuse to let him do anything to actually help the country. Plus the president usually has no idea what's going on with the rest of the government. Like with Abu Gharaid, Bush literally had no idea the US millitary was torturing Iraqi prisoners and there could possibly be other prisons doing the same thing right now but we don't know because of people like the CIA who lie to us about it and then rationalize what they do when they get caught by trying to say it was to protect the country. The president is really just a tool used by the rest of the government and nothing he says really matters.


There are documents indicating that Cheney and G.W.Bush clearly OK'd torture.

See http://www.seattlepi.com/opinion/361447_thomas02.html


Wow... I learn something new every day.

Well all I have to say is whatever cruel things other enemy countries do to our soldiers, it'll be because they brought it on themselves. I seriously have no trust in our millitary anymore, which is sad because my grandfather was a soldier in the Veitnam War. After reading about Abu Ghraid (sorry I mispelled it before) I've been feeling this undying hatred for our soldiers and I get a disgusted feeling in my stomach every time I see a soldier on the street. What really makes me mad is that if our Government can do this crap to foreign POWs and get away with it, they can start doing it to their own people too and try to convince the idiots in our country that they're doing it for the good. :roll:


As much as I despise a good deal of the vicious policy now being carried out in Afghanistan and Iraq and Pakistan it's not a good idea to smear all soldiers with those actions. Soldiers are people and they must be judged individually.



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04 Aug 2010, 10:47 am

Sand wrote:
GreySun369 wrote:
Sand wrote:
GreySun369 wrote:
Speaking of poverty, our country is developing the same mentality as Europe did during the Medieval Ages. That if you're poor and homeless you must have done something to deserve it. Everyone assumes that all homeless people are just drug-addict drunks that are too lazy to get a job and will do something horrible to you if you speak to them. It really makes me sick that for the "Richest Nation in the World", we still have a high population of homeless people who are ignored or treated like crap. We do little to help them, and the Soup Kitchens and Overcrowded Shelters are not enough.

I also hate how people tend to blame all our problems on whatever president is currently in office. People don't realize that the president can't do crap. All his job is, is to sit in the White House and take the blame for everything wrong in our country so people will look the other way at the ones causing the real problems. He may want to or even try to change our government for the better, but there's so many dicks in the other parts of our government who refuse to let him do anything to actually help the country. Plus the president usually has no idea what's going on with the rest of the government. Like with Abu Gharaid, Bush literally had no idea the US millitary was torturing Iraqi prisoners and there could possibly be other prisons doing the same thing right now but we don't know because of people like the CIA who lie to us about it and then rationalize what they do when they get caught by trying to say it was to protect the country. The president is really just a tool used by the rest of the government and nothing he says really matters.


There are documents indicating that Cheney and G.W.Bush clearly OK'd torture.

See http://www.seattlepi.com/opinion/361447_thomas02.html


Wow... I learn something new every day.

Well all I have to say is whatever cruel things other enemy countries do to our soldiers, it'll be because they brought it on themselves. I seriously have no trust in our millitary anymore, which is sad because my grandfather was a soldier in the Veitnam War. After reading about Abu Ghraid (sorry I mispelled it before) I've been feeling this undying hatred for our soldiers and I get a disgusted feeling in my stomach every time I see a soldier on the street. What really makes me mad is that if our Government can do this crap to foreign POWs and get away with it, they can start doing it to their own people too and try to convince the idiots in our country that they're doing it for the good. :roll:


As much as I despise a good deal of the vicious policy now being carried out in Afghanistan and Iraq and Pakistan it's not a good idea to smear all soldiers with those actions. Soldiers are people and they must be judged individually.


I guess you're right, I'm sure not all soldiers are that bad. In fact I feel bad for the ones who join the millitary thinking they're truely helping their country, when all they're doing is harassing the Third World which has enough problems as it is.



KaiG
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04 Aug 2010, 11:46 am

Soldiers are just tools, it's the people who control them who should be held accountable.


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GreySun369
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04 Aug 2010, 11:51 am

KaiG wrote:
Soldiers are just tools, it's the people who control them who should be held accountable.


Well in the old days they used to have you shot by firing squad for disagreeing with orders, now they send you to prison for 40 years to life I think.

Makes me glad I can't be drafted into the millitary due to my Aspergers. :)



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04 Aug 2010, 1:56 pm

polarity wrote:
People in the most developed countries (not just the U.S.) are by and large ignorant of the reasons for these documents, and the forms that tyranny may take, that they were written to give the people power over.

Essentially the people have given that power back to the tyrants, thanks to their carrot and stick campaign of advertising useless junk, and sensationalising things to fear, in order to distract us from the very same things the power elite were doing at the draughting of those documents.


There is an expression that goes, "Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations."

One generation is poor and works hard to accumulate wealth. The next generation may remember starting out poor, but enjoys the prosperity largely built by the first generation...often helping it grow a little if not avoiding it being squandered. The third generation was born in wealth. Unless rigorously trained to add to it, they typically take it all for granted and squander it away...ending up as poor as the first generation was.

Nothing the Founding Fathers handed down would last if the general population was not vigilant in maintaining it. In many ways, they proved that individual man is largely incapable of self-governance...which is a pity because we see what a nation that adheres to self-governance is capable of achieving at it's best. However, sooner or later, laziness kicks in and the general population wants someone else to care for them...returning them to slavery under someone else's rulership.



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04 Aug 2010, 4:52 pm

Maybe people of the US are starting to become
not only ignorant, but this ignorance is creating shallowness in some people.


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04 Aug 2010, 4:58 pm

KaiG wrote:
I say it's a mixture of brainwashing and loud ignorance. There's certainly a lot of propaganda in your country, especially on your news channels. There's a tonne of partisanship in your country, with prosthelytizing and demagoguery spreading misinformation and untruth. There also seems to be a lot of patriotism, which probably encourages otherwise sensible people like your mother into willful ignorance.

Luckily, there are people like you who look at the facts and draw their own conclusions. There's an alarming trend of anti-intellectualism in the US though, as can be seen in the backlash against your professed opinions.

In the UK, I'd say our national mindset is one of ironic and sardonic mistrust of the competance of all authorities, which maybe makes us a bit more resistant to propaganda, but who knows? I'm not going to say that we've got it significantly better than you guys (lord knows we have our share of ignorance and incompetance), but here it just all seems more low-key than over there. And at least we have a pretty good, reasonably impartial news source in the BBC.


Perhaps the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have proven harder to sell in the UK than in the USA, but that doesn't mean we in the UK aren't bombarded with other forms of propaganda day in, day out, because we are. The BBC is very much a part of it, and I would say only a minority can see through it.



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04 Aug 2010, 7:10 pm

I'd say the BBC is a far, far cry from the likes of Fox News and the various pundits in the American media. The closest thing we have is probably Sky News, and nobody watches that. Rupert Murdoch is practically a Bond villain.


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04 Aug 2010, 7:12 pm

KaiG wrote:
I'd say the BBC is a far, far cry from the likes of Fox News and the various pundits in the American media. The closest thing we have is probably Sky News, and nobody watches that. Rupert Murdoch is practically a Bond villain.


Like the guy from Tomorrow Never Dies? :P

I hate James Bond, not even sure why I'm bringing it up as an off-topic post. But that's still funny. XD



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04 Aug 2010, 7:27 pm

As half american and half taiwanese I've got to say that America is very much behind in the school system. I see 6th graders in america doing the school work equivalent of a 4th grader in Taiwan. And yet some Americans still think that Taiwan is some 3rd world country. The truth is that America is brainwashed and ignorant. Face it the media is controlled by the government.

This is what our country is like right now and we need to put a stop to it.
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