by Scott77 44 Replies latest social current
Here's a quote from a healthcare reform article in this morning's LA Times:
Jonathan Gruber, a health economist at MIT who helped fashion the pioneering healthcare reform act in Massachusetts says, "In today's political climate, once you have an explanation that takes more than two sentences, you're screwed, because someone else will have a one-sentence lie. This is about getting people to understand the law. We've just got to get it in place, let Americans feel the benefits, then they'll like it."
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20120322,0,901197.column
And a few choice quotes from the NYTRB that brings it full circle:
"The ideal citizen of a politically corrupt state, such as the one we now have, is a gullible dolt unable to tell truth from bullshit."
"It took years of indifference and stupidity to make us as ignorant as we are today..."
"I recall being stunned some years back when I read that a majority of Americans told pollsters that Saddam Hussein was behind September 11 terrorist attacks. It struck me as a propaganda feat unsurpassed by the worst authoritarian regimes of the past—many of which had to resort to labor camps and firing squads to force their people to believe some untruth, without comparable success."
"No doubt, the Internet and cable television have allowed various political and corporate interests to spread disinformation on a scale that was not possible before, but to have it believed requires a badly educated population unaccustomed to verifying things they are being told."
"To the ignorant and the bigoted, lies always sound better than truth:
Despite their bravado, these fools can always be counted on to vote against their self-interest. And that, as far as I’m concerned, is why millions are being spent to keep my fellow citizens ignorant.Christians are persecuted in this country.
The government is coming to get your guns.
Obama is a Muslim.
Global Warming is a hoax.
The president is forcing open homosexuality on the military.
Schools push a left-wing agenda.
Social Security is an entitlement, no different from welfare.
Obama hates white people.
The life on earth is 10,000 years old and so is the universe.
The safety net contributes to poverty.
The government is taking money from you and giving it to sex-crazed college women to pay for their birth control."http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/mar/20/age-of-ignorance/
The pervasive ignorance of our citizenry is going to bring us down.
Average life expectancy:
US: 78
Italy: 82
Percentage of adult population with diabetes:
US: 10%
UK: 4%
Are you actually saying that the Obama Health Care plan will increase the average American life span, and also reduce the American incidence of diabetes?
That should be considered an insane projection even by the most progressive Democrat.