It seems that some politicians now want to take away the bread and leave the circus. I don't know if that will work?

The ruling class has always been one of the most persuasive arguments against human intellect.

Don't realize the support progressive ideas

educate the masses on current events in an unbiased way seriously any more.

When I was growing up in the forties and fifties, if you read a newspaper everyday and one of the weekly news mags that you found on the stands, and listened to the news on the radio or TV you were pretty well informed. Today to get that kind of thorough and unbiased journalistic stories of what is going on in the world, you have to wade through the miasma of alternative media that is hidden on blogs, websites like this and obscure cable TV news channels. Liberal radio shows are another challenge. In many areas like mine only one low frequency station carries shows like Thom Hartmann and those shows are often pre-empted for games.

What is out there and accessible to the public is all the propaganda dribble put out by various right wing think tanks. This is why the average person is so misinformed because they don't have time to do the dredging through the trash to get to the gold.

This morning, some official was on C-SPAN from Liberty University and he was just chilling. His self presentation was that of a serious academic and everything he said was laced in code and in itself specious. Even worse, there sat Peter Sven, interviewing him as if he was the president of Harvard and lending legitimacy to this horrible, destructive man.

Schools, thanks to a combination of dumbing down the curriculum and corporate interference, no longer teach students critical thinking, i.e., telling truth from media hype and opinion. The average person has been taught from the cradle the fallacy that the media and press are leading authorities on the truth, when in fact that this is not necessarily so.

I'm reminded more and more often of Adlai Stevenson's quip when told by a woman he had the vote of every thinking person..

"Madam, that is not enough, we need a majority."

They flood the airwaves with misinformation, exaggerations and outright lies non-stop 7x24x365. Its no wonder so many are ignorant.

the information their base gets. Schools, churches, media outlets. You could live your whole life in that bubble and never know it.

His administration did so much to destroy our nation's education system - and his horrific economic theory destroyed our economy - what happened then is still having an effect on us now.

I just spent some time visiting an ex-coworker ( retired ) and I can tell he's turning rightward for sure. He was watching CNN/Headline News ( Fox-Lite as far as I can tell ) and I could see the spoon-fed, vapid, annoyingly rapid-fire delivery by talking heads spewing sound bites absolutely resonating with him and that he was taking it all at face value.

I suffered through it trying to keep quiet and then I could remain silent no more: I openly scoffed and asked how he could watch such pre-packaged bullshit and asked if he really believed this stuff. He said how else was he going to know what's going on? I suggested newspapers or books: "I don't have time to read". I said the internet is a gold mine of various and disparate sources of news and info: He said that he "has better things to do on the computer" and that "you can't believe everything that's online"!!! I said you sure as hell can't believe everything on TV news either and that there are tons of news or political sites, blogs in an ever expanding web of this piece with links to others and so on and that not only will he be better informed, but you'll learn what's what in a much more interesting way.

He grunted and shrugged and I could tell he knew I had a good point but that being the competitive type he didn't want to "lose" and argument. Never tell and ignorant person who thinks they're smarter than you that they're ignorant. I knew right then and there the MSM has him hook, line, and sinker. It's too readily available and slickly packaged and appeals to the lazy. We're just going to have to wait till that demographic expires due to age.

...but are willing to believe that other people are.

It serves no purpose to call them stupid or ignorant. It is better to destroy their pre-conceived notions with factual stories. For example, most conservatives think very highly of Ted Nugent.

When you say, "Did you hear the story about how Ted Nugent got out of going to Vietnam?" Most have not.

But when you say that you read a reputable source that said he did not take a bath for a month and only drank Pepsi and ate junk food to survive, hoping he would fail the physical, then they are inclined to listen. Then when you tell them that for the last 8-10 days before going to the draft board, he did not go to any bathroom. He shit and peed in his pants and smelled to high heaven when he went to be examined. Naturally, he failed. He was scared to death of going to Vietnam. He said he thought he would die or he would kill everyone around him.

These types of stories are about the only ones that will pierce their bubbles and get them to thinking about other issues also...

Interesting you used Ted Nugent as an example. The 2 most right wing people I know are the person I mentioned above and my father. Big time cognitive dissonance going on about Nugent: They really like his brash conservatism, but they Hate hate hate rock music, especially hard rock. I enjoy seeing them seethe because of this.

Someone who gets all their news from Fox is stupid in my book.

All of us are bombarded with a propaganda network of TV, radio, internet and print that comprises a good 99% of all media. Usually there is no source for valid information, we're a corrupt country. RT is a great source of news but even they still play the stupid game of left vs. right as if the right has anything valid to add to anything -- they don't and haven't for years.

We're all now useless consumers in a failed and predatory capitalism model of deregulation.

Thinks Obama is the anti-christ? among other things such as a liar/socialist/fascist/commie...and I just can't see it because I am not a true believer.

These are faux nooze watchers and glen beck listeners.