Self hating je-- errrr. Self hating American. This video lol

[Stephen Colbert]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE&feature=related

[FreeFocus]

Even worse, how about basic American history - what is the 4th of July? This is a Jaywalking segment from the Jay Leno Show (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkQ6XgXeNuY).

Yeah, you know, these are ordinary people. We interact with them everyday. I don't think it's elitist (I'm working class, I live in a relatively poor area) to say that most people - or a ton of people, if you don't want to admit most - are fucking stupid. I don't there's much out there that can justify, especially since we have universal childhood education (generally speaking), not knowing what the 4th of July represents, even at a base, mythological/propagandistic level (that is, yay America, fighting British tyranny). I mean, propaganda even reinforces all the myths! We're not talking about people not knowing that the Mossadegh was overthrown in Iran in 1953 thanks to a US-sponsored coup - we're talking about propaganda that gets reinforced every day, constantly, and basic facts that are simply difficult not to know. You almost have to try to not know that the US fought the British in the "Revolutionary" War (people did not know this in the Jaywalking segment).

Yeah, the people in the videos are just a small number of people relative to the overall population, clearly. But interacting with people on a daily basis (i.e., if you actually go outside), I think there's a lot of completely clueless people. And we're not even talking about a lack of knowledge about revolutionary theory or seeing through propaganda here.

[Stephen Colbert]

It's sad really. How can we communicate topics like humanism, altruism, communism etc when they don't know where France is

[Blackscare]

This is why fascism is 1,000 times more likely to overtake this country than socialism.

People want a simple, straightforward ideology that scapegoats brown people and makes people feel safe and swaddled by the state, because they're too fucking stupid to open their eyes and think critically. I hope that swine flu shit mutates and knocks off some of these people.

[Comrade Awesome]

lol at putting the wrong names on the map.
I seriously hope they had to ask a shitload of people to get enough of those responses for the video.

[AK]

This is why fascism is 1,000 times more likely to overtake this country than socialism.

People want a simple, straightforward ideology that scapegoats brown people and makes people feel safe and swaddled by the state, because they're too fucking stupid to open their eyes and think critically. I hope that swine flu shit mutates and knocks off some of these people.
The thing is, many fascists claim "democracy" has failed and most people are too stupid to run a country. This video is just a testament to that idea. Sad, really. But I'm pretty fucking sure they had to go through a lot of people to get those 7 or so individuals, as Awesome said.

lol at putting the wrong names on the map.
I seriously hope they had to ask a shitload of people to get enough of those responses for the video.
I live in the DPRK and Iran?

[Tablo]

I live in the DPRK and Iran?
Damn, are you the head chairperson for the axis of evil or something?

[ZeroNowhere]

This is why fascism is 1,000 times more likely to overtake this country than socialism.

People want a simple, straightforward ideology that scapegoats brown people and makes people feel safe and swaddled by the state, because they're too fucking stupid to open their eyes and think critically. I hope that swine flu shit mutates and knocks off some of these people.I'm fairly sure that it actually has more to do with the stupidity of socialists than that of anybody else.

[Blackscare]

I'm fairly sure that it actually has more to do with the stupidity of socialists than that of anybody else.


I don't know zero, if I recall you live in India or something. Here, at least, people have an attitude of willful ignorance. They actively avoid ideas and arguments that they don't already agree with.

There's a delightful little phrase right wingers use sometimes: "If your mind is too open, anything can fall in".


I see this in my family, friends, strangers. They all either just avoid any intelligent discussion of socialism or listen but fail to take the implications of what you're saying saying because they don't like what it entails.

How do you argue with someone with that kind of mindset?

[The Red Next Door]

This is the case for the need of Free Education with no bs filter.

[IllicitPopsicle]

This is the case for the need of Free Education with no bs filter.

I agree, but how do you go about doing so?

We know that the public education system, as it stands, fails. Inner city schools get the crap teachers, crap admins, crap everything, while the suburbs and charter schools get the cream of the crop. There is a disparity in education quality.

Fully private education doesn't work, because while the kids are going to get a great education, it might come at a crippling cost for the parent.

My thought has always been to put education back into the parents' hands - a sort of intellectual common pool resource system. Mandate a certain curriculum, but allow the parents to dictate how the teachers teach it.

Even that is filled with fatal flaws.

So what is there to do?

[Glenn Beck]

I'm fairly sure that it actually has more to do with the stupidity of socialists than that of anybody else.

Funny that the people who come out with this narrative of leftist failure being responsible for the current political climate are always the ones with the most historically marginal and sectarian positions on the left: the failures out of a pack of failures.

[ZeroNowhere]

Technically speaking, the failures out of the pack of failures would be those who weren't at all historically marginal, but still didn't accomplish any more; in fact, taking into account the SLP before it chased out members based on authoritarianism and what not, probably less. Nonetheless, it is certainly true that us De Leonites have done a fairly shoddy job over most of the last century, although generally this was more to do with structure, an abstentionist policy adopted for a while in the post-WWII era, and awful money management, than sectarianism, which was only really a problem in relation to the WSPUS and SPGB. However, perhaps you are correct in a different sense, and we do in fact deserve the most blame for the current dismal situation in the US due to our allowing ourselves to be marginalized among the left.

[RedRise]

This is absolutely unbelievable! I live in Australia and I know most of the answers to the 4th July questions! As iRevolt said, how can we hope to teach these people anything about the political and economic state of the world if people have this little idea of the world around them. And man or man has education (public I'm assuming) clearly gone down the drains.I mean, the guy that put his marker for South Korea on Australia! Are we all gonna get bombed into oblivion down under because this lot don't know what they're talking about?:blink: Not to say that's a true representation of all Americans but if those people aren't an extremely small minority we're in serious trouble.

[Tablo]

This is absolutely unbelievable! I live in Australia and I know most of the answers to the 4th July questions! As iRevolt said, how can we hope to teach these people anything about the political and economic state of the world if people have this little idea of the world around them. And man or man has education (public I'm assuming) clearly gone down the drains.I mean, the guy that put his marker for South Korea on Australia! Are we all gonna get bombed into oblivion down under because this lot don't know what they're talking about?:blink: Not to say that's a true representation of all Americans but if those people aren't an extremely small minority we're in serious trouble.
No worries, those people are a small minority. Not that most Americans(or even people around the world) are smart. Most Americans have the sense to know basic questions pertaining to the location of countries like North Korea or Iran. Even if they do not know this it is probably due to the mind numbing nature of working class labor combined with literally brainwashing television programs.