Idiocracy on your AM dial

I was still picking myself up off the floor over Mr. Bush's Valentine's Day attempt to make "American intelligence" an enduring oxymoron of lasting anxiety. Evidence? Hell, we're pretty sure what's going on with those pesky but wonderfully distractive Iranians, and since our hunches have played out so well, so far, we're going to stick with that boffo strategy. Solid intelligence is for amateurs.

Still, I could hardly wait to flip on talk radio the next morning to hear the stirrings, which, quite masochistically, I did -- only to hear the local host waxing proudly about Mr. Bush's admirable performance before the White House gaggle. Even though David Gregory of ultraliberal NBC News was loathsomely disrespectful, said the host, the president fielded his hostilities with grace, style and aplomb. What a guy.

The one rather disquieting omission in the AM host's press-conference review, however, was that of Mr. Bush's virtual declaration of WWIII's kickoff -- a needless distraction, no doubt, from swelling our hearts with pride at the president's deft handling of the loathsomely disrespectful Mr. Gregory. But I thought global ruination somewhat important. You know, for the children. So I called.

"Did we listen to different press conferences?" I asked. "Wasn't POTUS' casual introduction of the apocalypse a bit disturbing, perhaps even a trifle more important than the impressively stylish manner in which he introduced it?"

I was soon blasted with a swirling vortex of on-air irrelevancies. The host first launched a 9/11 binge; how we couldn't wait around for solid intelligence these days, how Saddam "could have had" links to al Qaeda -- just you wait, it'll all come out eventually -- followed by more breathtaking drivel, and so on and so on.

He erected such a solid wall of astoundingly stupid non sequiturs that I, in effect, wished him well in the hereafter -- a fate, I further noted, that his president was busily accelerating.

That fruitless exchange was then followed by a torrent of calls from the station's micro-dittoheads, who were lined up, waiting in the dark wings of chest-pounding machismo to salute the folly of military firepower happily crushing anyone we don't like, or just suspect. Simple as that. Blow 'em away, all of 'em.

A more depressing two hours is unimaginable. These people vote.

Someone -- I don't recall who or where -- recently wrote online about the declining need to worry about American democracy's health and the substitute need to worry about the developing ascendance of an "idiocracy." How true, and there's proof on your AM dial.

We are becoming a nation of idiots. It's not necessarily a matter of a majoritarian idiocracy, but it does seem that the idiots are disproportionately in charge of our collective future.  While not nervously engrossed in the latest vicissitudes of "American Idol" or whereabouts of Anna Nicole's corpse, they pause just long enough to subtract from the sum of human decency by going to vote for our burgeoning idiocracy's protagonists.

Is ours a permanent disability leading to the bitter end? I don't know. Such profound and predictive insight into the future is beyond my mortal powers. But I'll keep calling the talk-radio crowd, doing at least my part to impede as best I can its determined advance to our certain destruction.

Comments

[American Dolt]

The American DOLT. The only way you "HURT" the DOLT is to take away his capacity to consume beer, sports and american idol. This is how I believe there will NEVER be another Depression as the PTB know this. They can achieve more with access to these things intact than without them.

[Nina]

It's bad when you watch the House debating Iraq. The repugnicans are still spouting the same trite rhetoric and the Dems just have no backbone to do something to stop this madman and his cabal. I always knew how the extreme East & West coasts would vote, it was the rest of the country I was worried about. I was right. It is so plain to me that there is such a plethora of ignorance in this country that it's frightening. This country is so deeply divided that unless someone comes along to unite us, I feel more is coming to further take away what little rights we still have. I wouldn't put it past this idiot and his cohorts to start something catastrophic. I e-mail my representatives at least once a week. Claire McKaskill was right when on Washington Journal she said "keep contacting your representatives." "Once we get to Congress we become isolated." I urge everyone to e-mail, write, call your representatives to express the outrage we of sane minds feel. My 5 cents..

[Mooser]

Oh, they vote, all right, it's just the registration part that throws 'em.

[Mary Ann]

The power elite - those who control the radio and the TV programs- herd us into idiocy because we are not dangerous to the status quo when we are being idiots. As long as we parrot back what we hear, we are not dangerous. Time spent on celebrities is time not spent thinking and questioning the status quo. It's been this way since radio and TV were introduced.

[Tim]

I loathe alleged conservative talk radio, and the socialists, another name for the progressives, are not doing that much better making excuse after excuse after excuse for the new Democrats. This further fuels alternate media that is good.

There only problem is that the elected will always think that they are not answerable to the people thus represent them, hence over 200 years ago an echoed voice calls out ... "No taxation without representation."

And again over 200 years ago the executive monarchy will send out hither swarms of their agents to eat out your substance and steal outright from you.

Oh ye that have little vision.

[Steve]

Those people (I use the term lightly) not only vote, they breed. Scary.

[The End]

Western culture must have taken a wrong turn somewhere far back. So far back that there's no fixing our current mess. For humanity to survive in any meaningful sense, it'll have to be torn down and rebuilt in light of historical lessons. Competition destroys society, cooperation helps it. American capitalism is an evil scourge on the face of this planet. Don't expect Congress or the American populace to fix anything. The very foundations of our culture are faulty, so don't expect any quick fixes. I just hope humanity can survive long enough to build a more sane civilization some day. But don't count on it. Plenty of species die out every day, on this planet and on many others. Humanity probably doesn't even deserve to survive. We're greedy, stupid, violent, selfish apes. No big loss to the galaxy if we wipe ourselves out.

[The End]

Western culture must have taken a wrong turn somewhere far back. So far back that there's no fixing our current mess. For humanity to survive in any meaningful sense, it'll have to be torn down and rebuilt in light of historical lessons. Competition destroys society, cooperation helps it. American capitalism is an evil scourge on the face of this planet. Don't expect Congress or the American populace to fix anything. The very foundations of our culture are faulty, so don't expect any quick fixes. I just hope humanity can survive long enough to build a more sane civilization some day. But don't count on it. Plenty of species die out every day, on this planet and on many others. Humanity probably doesn't even deserve to survive. We're greedy, stupid, violent, selfish apes. No big loss to the galaxy if we wipe ourselves out.

[marlow]

Welcome to the collapse of American civilization. It's been going on for a while now, Boosh and the far right are just the final coup de gras, an incompetent, inflexible and suitable only for flying our collective national airplane straight into the ground (after JFK sent it to the moon and back and after Nixon stole the seat covers). With tons of luck, the whole thing won't go nuclear. My advice? Go on as best you can, but start studying how to survive in the wilderness, how to love and live on the land, as poisoned as it may be, when things get much much worse.

[Vic Anderson]

For once the Obamanation was right; like those lives blown away in Iraq, these of US have been wasted.

[Steve Savage]

Like it or not, America has ALWAYS been conservative and puritan. The majority of conservatives used to fly the flag of the democrats, at least until the 1970's and the Reagan Revolution where the conservatives switched sides and took over the Republican party.

The only way progressive values ever took hold in the USA was after massive abuses of power that forced the public to accept that...yes conservative tenets such as the unregulated free market and prohibition were not only dangerous, but plain stupid.
The new conservativism has a christian streak to it. Its a new holy war against all percieved religious enemies (it was communism, now its islam), and they will take us down that dark path to destruction.
Its funny though, that they hold Jesus up as their messiah, who was basically a long hair sandal-shod socialist anti-establishment type.