The collective American mind is the problem, not American stupidity
2. Americans simply won't travel abroad anymore. But, what with anti-Americanism so high abroad, who can blame them? What American really wants to go to a third-world country and be kidnapped for ransom, or go to Europe, with its self-righteousness--as if they never traveled the road the US travels now-- or even to Canada, which was called "America Junior" on The Simpsons, but could more rightfully be called "America wanna-be", which, if folks like Eric Margolis represent Canadian public opinion, makes Canada even more self-righteous than Europe, but without imperialist intentions (because Canada---good for them--doesn't have what it takes to be an empire).
3. Most Americans are tired of wanton legal and illegal immigration. This is always the case in nations that are empire but really deep down inside don't want to be empires OR are waning or has-been empires (there is some case to say that the US is already a waning empire, or in the last stages of empire). But, though most Americans want staunch curbs on immigration, their elected (and unelected) rulers simply don't listen. And is anyone really dumb enough to think the reason Dubya Bush is so hell-bent on illegal immigration from Latin America is because he really sees these folks voting Republican in the not too distant future?
4. Americans are not "stupider" than Europeans or Canadians or anyone else. Our technology proves it--even if you grant the fact that much of Americas technology now was created by non-natives, but even more so our entreprenuership, much of which is native. So why does it appear to outsiders that Americans are stupid?
First of all, though few Americans will admit it, most Americans believe what the media tells them (ie. Americans are brainwashed), and the media post-911 is not about to tell us the truth, which for now must be ferreted out over the Internet.
Second of all--and this is the case because most Americans are still educated in public schools--most Americans are either ignorant of or deliberately dumbed-down in the subjects that Americans must learn if they are to be bequeathed an empire, history and its sister, geography. This goes beyond the fact that geography bees tend to be won by homeschoolers. When less than 30% of public schooled students can't find Iraq on a map, and when so many fewer than that know that places like Iraq have never been totally conquered by imperialist powers, that can be put
Latest Articles