Intro

It's time for a reality check ...

Maybe we’ve reached the point of diminishing astonishment.

But I suspect that much of what we’re hammered with every day really doesn’t make much of an impact on most of us anymore. We’ve heard the same stories too often. We’ve been exposed to the same issues for so long without any meaningful resolution. We recognize that reality is rapidly becoming malleable, primarily in the hands of whoever has the biggest microphone. How else can we explain a society where myth asserts itself as reality, based entirely how many hits it gets online?

We know that many of the “issues” as defined are pure crapola, hyped by politicians on both sides pandering to “the will of the people,” which is still more crapola. Inevitably, it’s not the will of all the people they reflect, but the will of relatively small groups of people with disproportionate political influence.

Nobody wants to face up to the realities of the issues. Nobody wants to say what’s right or wrong – even when it’s obvious and there are numbers to back it up. Most of us are afraid to bring up the realities for fear of being accused of being insensitive or downright mean.

So we say nothing. Until now.

It’s time for a reality check on the fundamentals – much of which is common knowledge to many of us, already. But it might be comforting to know you are not alone …

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

The American idiocracy …

Some years ago (2006) there was a movie titled “Idiocracy.”

The razor-thin plot centered on the Pentagon selecting an average guy (actually a somewhat dim slacker) for a hibernation project.  After a few years everybody forgot about the project.  Centuries pass. When he awakens in the future he’s instantly the smartest guy in the country.   

That’s because by then the country was incredibly, breathtakingly dumb.

The dumbing down of “Uhmerica” happened because the stupid simply out reproduced the more intelligent.  A narrator explains that the more intelligent and better educated kept postponing or limiting the number of children they had for career or financial reasons. Meanwhile, the less intelligent and less educated just had baby after baby. 

Since evolution favors the most adaptable and most prolific breeders – not the strongest or most intelligent – in a few centuries the population was overwhelmingly ignorant. 

The culture adapted to the desires and abilities of this dumbed down Uhmerica. People who read books were ridiculed.  The top rated show was “Ow, my balls!” which featured – you guessed it – clips of guys getting hit in the balls (the logical extension of today’s America’s Favorite Videos?).

American English had devolved into mix of street slang, profanity, and pidgin.  Ad slogans were crass.  Carl’s Jr’s slogan was “Fuck you, I’m eating’” and its self-service kiosks offered BIG ASS FRIES or EXTRA BIG ASS FRIES. (Think of Kmart’s “big gas savings” campaign, or its “ship my pants” campaign not long ago – see anything similar?)    

When our average guy arrives the President is a popular championship wrestler by the name of Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho. Instead of Air Force One, he has a Presidential RV.  When his opponents talk about the need for more jobs, he belittles them and proposes a counter plan:  printing lots and lots more currency so he can give every citizen a million dollars, because, as he says: People don’t need JOBS; they need MONEY! Plus, if everybody is a millionaire, they don’t need to worry about healthcare or anything else – everybody will be rich.    

Oh, and his campaign poster has one word:  HOAP. 

Here we are 10 years after the movie came out – in the midst of a campaign for President of the United States – and I have to tell you it’s not going to take centuries to get to that future. 

In some ways we’re already there. 

Trump – a popular reality TV star – is leading in almost every poll except in head-to-heads against Hillary or Sanders.  Trump is running on a platform of building a wall Mexico will pay for, deporting 11 million people, and making America great again without any details.  Trump trash talks his opponents like a WWE professional wrestler.  And he claims he “loves” the poorly educated. 

Sanders is promising essentially what President Camacho offers, and Hillary’s not too far from that either.  Both want to spend more money than we have, and both are appealing to an obviously economics-challenged target audience, as well as aggressively courting lower income groups with high-reproductive rates. 

Then there’s our popular culture. 

Need I say more?   
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