America

[swifty's revenge]

America...my home, my nation, my heart, and burden.
what has happened to the good ole' days?

I could pose this question in any number of ways.

politically> when did politicians loose personal accountablitly? how can they be so secretive, and not have an armed and hostile populous to accout to? When did we (populous) give them all the control and submit our power as a democratic people? or was that a joke all along?

economically>why can't you make a good living by for actually working (maybe even your "O Ring" off). Now its seems as though without a 'higher education' you are pretty much screwed as far hoping to provide well for a tradtitional family.
That very same 'higher education' results is some of the lamest duesh-brained fraggles I have ever encountered whom abundandtly lack (lol) common sense and any demonstrable evidence of their 'education'. Yet these are the ppl who attain the master class.

religimously> It used to be that those who adhered to a religion would devote their lives to it....That in itself i can buy, the particular dogmas I reject, but i can respect someone who truly lives by a Creedo,and i think it is good for socitey. Now days, almost every religious person is completely secular in their acts, yets talks loudly of every divisive and damaging part of religion, and never acts on its good qualities.

socially> everything has become permissable...every imported culture/subculture who should be subservient to its host is now gaining special priveledge so that it isn;t 'offended' ....when almost everything I see in pop culture cuts down my values in some way or another...not that i take it personally, but i see that america has moved on and left us behind. It is sad.

If God gave liberty and freedom for all, indivisible, one nation under, and if we fall we be divided, how can we be united?


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i look forward to your replies.

[MrShake]

Re-Read that without the loosing attitude and rethink some of it.

To think that the "Master Class" are idiots is a falacy, while you might not like their current life style, most of the wealthiest of the US worked VERY hard to get there.

[CNF2002]

Sorry but um..who is 'us' exactly?

[Big B]

i was wondering the same thing.

[noodlenoggin]

Hm, my higher education hasn't provided me a ticket to the land of milk and honey. I still have to work my arse off -- and I can still barely support my family. My neighbors are a prison guard, a truck mechanic and an equipment-rental-store dude...and I can afford the same housing they can...or they can afford the same housing I can, however you want to look at it.

[xsyamahadg]

America... with all her faults, love her or leave her. I'm staying !!

[grymlocke]

I've been watching alot of the history channel lately, especially that series about the american presidents, revolution, civil war and WWI/II...and what I learned most...

the venomous nature of our politics isn't new to our current generation,

the 'dumbing down' of education sytems isn't just right wing rhetoric, just read some of the personal letters from common soldiers from the civil war sent to loved ones...positively poetic and dripping with emotion.

economically, the world has gotten smaller from technological development, it once took months the travel to CA. now, one can cross the globe in a day...tokyo can't sneeze with out london reaching for a hanky....tremendoous pressure, forces people to constantly play catch up, combined with the above 'dumbiing down'?

I think, the lost of the butressing nature of religon/faith/spiritual focus has allowed the social degragation...that feeling of standing alone creates phscological uncertainty...IMO

let me ask you this, when was the last time a civics class was taught? who knows the difference between a city mayor and city manager? chamber of commerce and city couoncil? how does a utility district work?...how can one choose the course of the country without some modicum of knowledge of how it works?....IMO

[noodlenoggin]

Add this to it.

At the start of the 20th Century a boy was a man somewhere in his late teens -- married, with children, head of household, responsible for a family and a farm. Totally on his own and self-sufficient. Mature, some would say.

At the start of the 21st Century you are a kid until 18, then off to college where you're still a "college kid" until your mid-20's, and it's a good bet your parents shelter you the whole time. My BIL is 20, and I'd swear he acts like he's 12 -- doesn't have enough sense to buy food instead of toys.

What'll it be at the start of the 22nd Century? College until you're 40? Move away from home at 60? Start a family at 75?

[CNF2002]

Its not uncommon anymore to find many 30 year olds living at home with mom and dad.

[TechTMW]

The "Dumbing Down" of America

It's the Stupidity, Stupid
The president's ignorance would be hilarious if it weren't so dangerous.

By Matthew Yglesias
Web Exclusive: 07.31.06

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"We discussed a lot of issues. The Prime Minister has laid out a comprehensive plan. That's what leaders do. They see problems, they address problems, and they lay out a plan to solve the problems. The Prime Minister understands he's got challenges and he's identified priorities."
-- President George W. Bush, joint press availability with Nouri al-Maliki, Prime Minister of Iraq, July 25, 2006

The truly shocking thing about that bizarre statement is that it wasn't even in response to a question. Those were Bush's opening remarks. He did, one assumes, actually meet with Maliki. And they must have talked about something. But Bush doesn't seem to have been listening. Instead, he sounds like a college kid bullshitting in section because he didn't do the assigned reading. "We talked about security in Baghdad," Bush observed, delving into specifics. "No question the terrorists and extremists are brutal."

No question.

This sort of display would be embarrassing were it not so frightening.

Two days later, with Tony Blair standing at the adjacent podium, things went from bad to worse. One is used to hearing Bush say things that aren't true. He appears, however, from the look on his face and from the baffling nature of the untruths he uttered, to have lapsed from dishonesty into confusion. (Sheer boredom may have sent him tumbling to new depths of ignorance.) "There's a lot of suffering in the Palestinian territory," Bush mused, "because militant Hamas is trying to stop the advance of democracy."

It is? Has Bush forgotten that Hamas came to power as a result of elections that he insisted the Palestinian Authority hold? I happen to think the White House made the right call on the question of Palestinian elections -- even in retrospect, even knowing that Hamas won -- though many observers think his policy has merely backfired. Rather than defend the policy, however, Bush seems to have forgotten all about it. He returned to the theme later in the press conference: "One reason why the Palestinians still suffer is because there are militants who refuse to accept a Palestinian state based upon democratic principles."

That's absurd. The president appears to be totally unfamiliar with what is perhaps the single most-discussed topic in international politics. Nothing gets people disagreeing quite like the subject of how to apportion blame for the Palestinian peoples' considerable suffering. But absolutely nobody blames Arab militants opposed to democratic principles. Terrorists opposed to Israel's very existence? Sure. Israeli intransigence? Why not. But only someone paying no attention whatsoever would subscribe to Bush's theory.

We have, meanwhile, policies that match the intellectual cesspool of the president's rhetoric. In its statements, the White House has consistently adhered to the view that the root cause of the troubles between Israel and Lebanon is Syrian and Iranian support for Hezbollah. Thanks to the dinner roll incident at the G-8 meeting, we know this is Bush's sincere view. "You see," Bush famously explained to Blair, "the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this "poo poo" and it's all over." He further elaborated: "I felt like telling Kofi to call, to get on the phone to Assad and make something happen."

There's something of a cliché going around about Bush talking loudly while failing to brandish a stick, but in truth he's mumbling indistinctly while Israeli bombs pummel Lebanon.

If Syria is the real problem here, then, not to put too fine a point on it, someone needs to take some action of some kind related to Syria. After all, why would Syria tell Hezbollah to stop doing this "poo poo"? What combination of threats and inducements is Syria supposed to offer Hezbollah to get it to stop? And why would Syria offer them anyway? What's Kofi Annan supposed to do about this? If Bush wants to make Syria do something, he needs to do something to make it happen. Either offer Syria something, or threaten Syria somehow, or some combination of the two. The same goes for Iran. In case Bush hasn't noticed, the regimes in Damascus and Tehran aren't run by kind people looking to help the world out of the goodness of their hearts. Nor has the administration's habit of vaguely suggesting we'd like to overthrow their governments rendered either nation more likely to help us or our Israeli friends out of a jam.

There's a temptation to call this combination of inflammatory tough-guy rhetoric and feckless inaction "the worst of both worlds," but in truth the war policy being advocated by the right's more fevered voices would actually be worse than Bush's embarrassing, illogical paralysis. The real problem is that the risk of a wider regional war involving the United States remains. And if that risk becomes a reality, our country will be led into it by a president who doesn't seem to grasp what's happening.

Matthew Yglesias is a Prospect staff writer.