First, I want to compliment good Dr. Magoo for finding and posting Charles Pierce's fine, but fatally flawed Esquire piece. Yes, I typed fatally flawed. Go ahead and read it. Just scroll down and take it in - I can wait......
OK, are you back with me? Great read, No? He really nails "Idiot America" doesn't he?
Well, yes and no.
I have read that the current president NEVER reads more than a one or two page precis/summary on any topic, never engages in actual discussion on any issue - and he is unapologetic about it. He knows what he knows, and he doesn't need lots of extraneous information (such as policy discussions) getting in the way of his decision-making.
We are told that our nation's president is merely a reflection of those who voted for him. If this is true, then Idiot America knows what it knows because it relies on easily digestible, sound-bite-driven images and synopses that reinforce a predisposed belief system. This belief system is grounded in the notion that minorities are, by and large, responsible for America's problems. Idiot America *knows* that minorities commit the overwhelming majority of violent crime, and that the prison population is black and brown (the truth be damned), and that these people represent the biggest drain on the American economy, with all those awful welfare and medicaid payments (even though census data says otherwise). They know that Barbara Bush meant no harm when she spoke of how nicely the poor were doing in the Astrodome. They know that it was the poor black and brown people's fault that they didn't heed the warnings and leave New Orleans - because Bill O'Reilly said so! Now they are aghast at the notion of spending a couple hundred billion dollars to rebuild New Orleans and the gulfcoast.
They **still** believe that Iraq was connected to the 9-11 attacks.
Esquire is not on Idiot America's subscription list, but Reader's Digest and TV Guide are.
And that is the fatal flaw. Pierce spends tens of thousands of key strokes to form 6,511 words. That is about 6,000 words too many. Real, thoughtful analysis takes time, and effort, and research, and so does reading that analysis.
Idiot America doesn't read.
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4 comments:
I'm not entirely sure what you're saying - is the piece flawed because it's posted in a place where the idiots being discussed will never read it?
Yes that is precisely what I was driving at
What's the author supposed to do? There isn't anywhere that the idiots would read it, expect maybe if there's a new version of the Bible - I think there's value in documenting what's going on anyway, if only for the historical record. Maybe if enough people keep saying these things, the So-called liberal media will pick up on them, and stop giving politicians who practics idiocy a pass.
Of course you're right Magoo when you say that there is an intrinsic importance in exposing the idiocy to the light of day. I guess that my tongue was a bit too firmly planted in my cheek when I said that the article was fatally flawed.
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