The Dumbing Down of America

By far the biggest story, the defining one in fact, of the last 40 or so years is the Republican (A.L.E.C.) orchestrated “dumbing down of America,” and the American "mainstream media" has not only not investigated or reported on this monumental American disaster, it has colluded in it.

None of the mainstreamers has ever undertaken in any of these ongoing decades to investigate the decline in funding for public education - terrible teacher salaries, no investment in school buildings and supplies except the replacing of good textbooks with disinforming ones and at the same time the huge amounts of money spent in endless attacks: on public education in general and on teachers' unions, and on course content in particular (e.g., on government / Democracy / THE URGENT NECESSITY THAT EVERY ONE VOTE AND BE INFORMED); on universities, in which attacks they have largely succeeded by making American college and graduate education the most expensive on Earth; on real research and real research institutions; on grants; and, of course, on broadcast and print media, including Public Television which though under right wing attack is nonetheless, like the Mainstreamers, not observing these degradations. Then there is the ever rising cost of college education and the CONCOMITANT LACK of available, affordable money to pay for it, one of our Nation's biggest scandals that has, until Elizabeth Warren's campaign to help, been ignored by the Mainstreamers.

The mainstreamers have not brought before the public the decline in U.S. world educational ranking (3rd in 1979; nearing 38th now, a change which could not possibly be accidental) or that there are no longer enough qualified American students who can afford it to fill our graduate schools thus reducing the quality of the education - for lack of revenue. Nor has the media ever even mentioned - let alone investigated - the rightwing's own massive investment and involvement in disinformation: their pretend news; the ugly, anti-scientific, falsified research; phony research organizations and grants; their anti-democracy activities; and their endless hate-, fear-, and WAR-mongering. The MM has until the Trump era virtually ignored the massive scandal of the Rupert Murdoch enterprises' malpractices both in Great Britain and here. However they are finally dealing with it appropriately - calling lies lies and liars liars.

And not only have they not been following all these huge stories, the mainstreamers have themselves: quit telling the whole truth; been reporting rumors as truth; increasingly given voice to their own rightwing liars; ignored the grotesque and even dangerous fabrications of the right, or pretended that the rightwing lies were somehow balanced by what was said on the left (...What left? ...What fabrications? ..."Justifiable" lies? ...Dangerous lies that can be ignored???). And then there is the incredible malfeasance of the New York Times with regard to the crimes being committed by Israel against the Palestinians.

This collusion of the mainstream media in this attack on America is stunning given their supposed "free media" ethic, their supposed commitment to real news, their supposed mastery of business and the importance of an educated labor force for America's competitiveness, the need for well educated police, the need for well-informed, believing people to defend Democracy, the still fresh infamy of their complicity in the run-up to the Iraq War (re-invented for each new military excursion) and PREEMINENTLY that these organizations will be the first to go once our Democracy is lost. Even their dominant "corporate" (read rightwing/immoral) point of view, won't convince America's now thoroughly, aggressively ignorant that any but the most rightwing media aren’t “LIBERAL” because this has been a staple of the dumb-down campaign.

At least with the advent of the Trump era attack on our Democracy, the MM with the NOTABLE EXCEPTION OF Facetime and Twitter> has started investigating and printing the truth about what the pro-Russia Republican teams are involved in. But the Mainstream Media has to study in depth this Dumbing Down campaign and then demand National solutions in order to join with Thomas Jefferson -- BTW America's number one anti-big-government patriot -- who nonetheless reminded all of us that "The Nation that expects to be ignorant and free expects what never was and never will be."

I Could Be George W. Bush ...if...

If I would deliberately and repeatedly ignore real terrorist threats so that something bad enough would happen (like my biggest buildings being bombed and nearly 3,000 deaths and even though the actual event would render me almost comatose with fear for many minutes on TV in front of a class full of children) to justify the war I had planned for since being elected because this war would give me and my friends access to vast amounts of oil and huge defense contracts and would give me an excuse to spy on my own people and otherwise violate their civil rights and be a way to keep them afraid …

If I would always accuse the Democrats of being lax on security even as my administration routinely violated America's security laws - the most outrageous example of which was when Dick Cheney's wife, without any authority to do so, was allowed to be present in the command room right after the 9/11 bombings and actually turned off the connection to the Pentagon so she could use it instead to watch public TV coverage of the event...

If I would immediately violate my own post 9-11 Total Flight Embargo on behalf of the Bush family's important Saudi friends to fly them home before there could be any repercussions to them from the knowledge of the 9/11 bombers' Saudi origins...

If I would have everyone in my administration falsify Intel threats in order to blame the country with the oil so as to excuse going to war with it while ignoring the really threatening country (North Korea) because it had no oil and which, though considerably smaller than us, given that Rumsfeld was SecDef, might even have beaten us...

If I would try first to prevent the 9/11 Commission's being started and then try in every way I could to interfere with its investigation of 9/11...

If I would put America at risk by halting and then removing all trace of the urgently needed project begun under Clinton at the urging of the DoD to build a real Intel data warehouse so that I could tell my lies without certain contradiction...

If I would commute the sentence of the convicted subordinate whom my Vice President made illegally expose an American secret agent’s identity irrespective of the danger to her or her colleagues or to our country soley because her spouse refuted one of my fake war lies...

If I would do anything to keep Americans afraid so they would support my wars – anything including letting the man responsible for 9/11, Bin Ladin, get away after vowing that it was "job number one" to capture him and instead regularly invoke his name and release a doctored Bin Ladin scare video during the 2004 elections...

If I would impoverish enough of my people that they would be grateful to be my soldiers and then teach them no useful skills so they would have to re-enlist or be jobless and homeless and never taken care of by me or mine…

If I would prevent the pictures of the body bags from being shown so the nation would not turn against my falsified war and so my Mother would not have to bother her "beautiful mind" about her son's war dead - the legacy of his lies and greed…

If I would see to it that all the war contracts went exclusively and maximally-expensively to my friends' or my Vice President’s companies and make the government look the other way when these companies violated their contracts or otherwise behaved immorally…

If I would allow these falsified wars to be fought so badly, including not sending enough soldiers and not providing remotely adequate armor or armored vehicles for them (unlike the well-armored Haliburton contractors), so that the wars would go on and on no matter who suffered or died, or what treasures were lost, or what the cost…

If I would always play up the 9/11 bombings but resolutely ignore the damage to and suffering of those who worked to rescue the wounded and dead from those buildings just as I consistently ignored the suffering of America's veterans…

If I would deeply undermine not only the Rule of Law but the safety of all Americans by building secret prisons and hiring contractors to abuse their prisoners for years thereby giving the terrorists the greatest recruiting tool they ever had, and If I would manage at the same time to release hundreds of very dangerous prisoners...

If I would loudly claim to be a great American patriot even though I went AWOL during my own military service, started a war by means of lies in which thousands of Americans died and many more were wounded and which was extra expensively and riskily paid for on America's credit card because of the tax breaks for the rich which I had managed to get through the Republican Congress, and even though I allowed torture - which is not only unsuccessful, but dangerous, immoral, and illegal - in my "black" prisons thus making fanatical enemies for America, and although I never in any way supported America's 9/11 heroes or its veterans…

If I would - after promising to fix them - ignore the warnings about the inadequate and endangered levees around New Orleans and not send any help during the flooding that resulted from their failure while thousands died but still praise my people who did nothing and then fly over the floods but not visit actual victims and not ever send adequate aid…

If I would corrupt or (defund those I couldn't corrupt) all of the Governmental regulatory agencies in order to prevent their doing their jobs, especially the Dept. of Justice by illegally firing honest prosecutors and in their place appointing political operatives who would spuriously harass Democrats and look the other way when Republicans violated the law...and thereby allow the corruption which led to the second biggest financial disaster in American history - the Great Recession of 1907.

If I would favor insurance and drug companies over the well-being of my people and seek only legislation which benefitted the rich and make America borrow to pay for it...

If I would allow any company to drill for oil or dig for coal any way they chose on any National land or in any water without official supervision no matter what the potential danger or desecration...

If I by inhibiting regulation of any kind and allowing any business or financial maneuver, however illegal and/or reckless, and by promoting false wars make it necessary for America to borrow huge amounts of money, effectively selling America to China and the Arab nations and by giving tax breaks to the wealthy and supporting industries with tax breaks so they would send American jobs abroad, and thus cause the Great American Recession...

If I would aid and abet the NRA in getting Congress to remove virtually all restraints on gun sales so that terrorists could buy them in America and send them abroad to be used on Americans and gun-runners and drug dealers and gang members and crazy people could buy any kind of gun and any amount of ammunition.

If I would let someone as evil and cowardly and unbalanced as Dick Cheney be my Vice President and allow him to corrupt the American Presidency and government in every possible venue without controlling him in any way until almost the very end of my Presidency but never accept responsibility for his massive evils that I made possible...

If I could go on television after leaving office and claim to have been a powerful, important person, when I was actually famous mostly for being comically dumb and immoral - an inept, embarrassing disaster for my country.

Then I could be GEORGE W. BUSH !!