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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTHE GUARDIAN: Let the record reflect: the American people are a bunch of suckers.
Weapons of mass destruction. I did not have sexual relations with that woman. Read my lips. I am not a crook. We still seek no wider war. And these whoppers are merely a sampling from a handful of recent presidents. To strike the broad pure vein of American credulity one need dig only a bit to turn up such gems as Wilbert Lee Pappy ODaniel of Fort Worth, Texas, a Depression-era salesman for the Burrus Mill and Elevator Company, producer of Light Crust Flour. In the early 30s, ODaniel began hosting a radio show featuring the soon-to-be famous Bob Wills and the Light Crust Doughboys, though ODaniels soothing, fatherly voice and easily digestible patter quickly became the real draw of the show. At 12.30 each weekday the broadcast opened with a country matrons request to please pass the biscuits, Pappy. For the next 15 minutes, listeners many of them housewives taking a midday break were treated to twangy renditions of gospel and hillbilly tunes, interspersed with Pappy reading scripture, ad copy for Light Crust Flour, sentimental poems, and tributes to motherhood, Texas heroes, and good Christian living. His popularity grew to the point that he left Burrus Mill and started his own company, Hillbilly Flour, and began blasting his show over the 100,000 watts of XEPN, a pirate radio station across the border in Mexico.
.................
The effect was electric. ODaniel had what would later be known as name recognition; everyone had heard, or at least heard of, Pappy. Crowds of 20,000 or more turned out for his rallies, and more than once mobs of fans forced his caravan to an unscheduled stop so they could hear the common citizens candidate rail on professional politicians, recite scripture, and plug Hillbilly Flour. An evangelical fervor was present from the start, fanned by the candidates Christian oratory and old-timey gospel music. The prominent Baptist minister J Frank Norris compared Pappy to Moses, predicting he would lead the country back to its Christian roots. As one historian wrote:
The ODaniel rallies appealed to the same deep human instinct and provided the same emotional outlets which the camp meeting formerly offered. Here again was the chance to enjoy the thrill and glory of a martial movement without risking any physical bloodshed. Christ was still the hero and Satan still the enemy, but Christs good, which had previously radiated from the camp-meeting preacher, was now represented by the flour-salesman. Satans evil, previously attached to that abhorred aristocracy which had been the pioneers European superior, was now found to reside in the professional politician.
..............
In the arsenal of the phony, the politics of God is one of the deadliest punches to the sweet spot of the American mind. Citizens capable of the most acute analysis in other areas of their lives regarding finance, say, or electronics, or the infinitely complex variables of fantasy sports leagues are reduced to blithering dupes when exposed to the Christian pitch. Something spooky happens to that excellent American mind that brought us moon landings and the silicon chip and the wonderful stuff that saves our kids from polio. No matter if the candidate has had three or four wives or fired thousands of workers or dropped biblical plagues of bombs on rice farmers and sheep herders, merely saying the magic words makes it so. Christian values. Strong for Jesus. In God we trust, and all the rest. Incantations that render large chunks of the electorate as dazed and vulnerable as pre-contact tribesmen from the deepest Amazon hearing a transistor radio for the first time.
oh yes, there is more:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/13/american-politics-election-voters-suckers?CMP=twt_gu
fredamae
(4,458 posts)to disenfranchise about 8% of the electorate.
While the rest of us are still allowed to Vote-Please educate/inform yourselves and Vote.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)valerief
(53,235 posts)they do in the Middle East also.
My brother in law...my niece's husband...the list goes on.
Duval
(4,280 posts)with people like that.
valerief
(53,235 posts)Gregorian
(23,867 posts)What a bunch of dipshits many of our voters are.
Here's one example of how it all started. People believed the hype:
SoapBox
(18,791 posts)I got about a minute and had to stop...ya know, to me it's like the "weirdos" (for lack of a description) were the ones that produced this kind of stuff.
It's just creepy that shit like this was made as propoganda.
japple
(9,833 posts)airwaves by Fox news and other rightwing media outlets.
colsohlibgal
(5,275 posts)I sense a kind of absurdity about all religion. I watched this week's "Vice" about the Syrian refugee crisis and along with empathy for the plight of those people...it struck me how weird religions can be. Women going along with covering up their face, a Catholic Priest discussing the crisis with a funny looking red semi hat on the top of his head.
As someone not brought up by religious parents I was not brainwashed to buy into any of it at an early, impressionable age. I am grateful for that.
We need to be a secular nation more than ever but to get there yes, people need to quit being sheep and use their brains.
Also even republicans need to acknowledge the incalcuble damage caused by Bush and the Supreme Court who installed him.
AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)People should be able to worship whatever baloney they want (as long as it doesn't break any secular laws)... that's correct.
But people who think their religion trumps the laws of the land need to rethink...if they can. The laws of the land are (in theory) for EVERYONE. Your religious laws and whatever are just for you and your fellow believers.... not EVERYONE. Salvation religions (like Xianity and Islam) are the worst because they think the whole world will be all whatever ancient mish-mash they believe....something that will never happen. It is profoundly sad seeing people suffer for these stupid pipe dreams.
The best thing is to just free yourself from ancient superstition.
Also, religions are simply ancient government. Trying to run 2 governments at the same time seems pretty dumb.
And if religion is gonna get supplemented with perks and exemptions, I wish the arts would get equal treatment. They are just as important to culture as any Bronze Age superstition.
AllyCat
(16,189 posts)They elected Thatcher, and supported Tony Blair's little war with W.
LittleBlue
(10,362 posts)Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)Last edited Sat Feb 13, 2016, 05:46 PM - Edit history (1)
and the UK isn't monolithic; Thatcher's Tories never got more than 43% of the vote, and Cameron couldn't get above 36%. And support for the war in Iraq was never above 54% among the UK public (it was 72% in the US).
LeftishBrit
(41,208 posts)And after the very beginning, the majority were against the Iraq war.
Our electoral system was designed for two parties, but we have more than two parties. The results can be quite bizarre.
One of the Tories' greatest debacle was at the hands of Attlee in 1945, when they got only 36% of the vte. Well, they got exactly the same percentage of the vote in 2010, and less than 1 percent more in 2015, yet they supposedly won a great victory! Due to a split between several parties of the opposition vote, and our weird electoral system.
AllyCat
(16,189 posts)oberliner
(58,724 posts)Grew up in North Carolina, currently lives in Dallas.
LeftishBrit
(41,208 posts)Still, we in the UK can also sigh over our many mistakes.
Though even Cameron is not as bad as Trump or Cruz IMO.
pa28
(6,145 posts)While completely ignoring their own.
LeftishBrit
(41,208 posts)I agree we mostly don't make great electoral choices ourselves.
retrowire
(10,345 posts)I really do disapprove of Religion in politics.
Wanna hear something funny? My mom was raised Baptist Christian, as was I. But though she's liberal minded and voted for Obama twice and is voting for Bernie this time, she doesn't detect the Christian radicalism in the posts she shares on Facebook.
That's how weak the mind becomes when Christianity is presented to it.
There was a post that went something like this.
So basically, my mom shared this post, got plenty of likes. It was her Christian upbringing that taught her that God is always good, and never to question it. God brings everyone together! God is love!
But she doesn't stop to think about Westboro Baptist Church. Or stop to think about all the ways that Man uses God as a weapon to corrupt and poison others.
So the message of Christian radicalism just gets shared around, tongue in cheek (Oh, we're just loving God is all!). And no one stops to think, that maybe, JUST MAYBE, everyone is loving God for VASTLY different reasons.
If I had a Facebook, you know how I would have responded to my mom's post? "So the little girl cheated by putting together a picture on the back? She needs more school. Praise the lord for truth!"
But that's just me. lol
NoMoreRepugs
(9,435 posts)We are on average not a very bright populace, I for one say a large part of the cause is the
tremendous role religion plays as a significant force in so many people's lives. If religion
isn't perception aka 'belief based on nothing' I don't know what is.
IDemo
(16,926 posts)I would argue that the mindset required to embrace any religion makes for an easy pathway for followers to 'believe' in poppycock such as Supply Side economics, even if empirical evidence disproves it.
MisterP
(23,730 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,366 posts)Thanks for the thread, kpete.
Moostache
(9,895 posts)Fuck you asshole?
Eat my shit?
Die motherfucker die?
Nope....all distant runners up.
In
Jesus'
Name
Any time some nitwit fundie waste of resources spews that little 3 word gem out you can be sure of two things:
1) they have just finished telling you why some out-group persecution is 100% legit
2) they have glazed over eyes that are unsettlingly creepy to look at
These people are lunatics. There is no 2 ways about it. They believe in things with no proof, make up other things on the fly and add it to their evolving fantasy land and they have an incredibly sensitive pleasure center that allows anyone craven enough to desire to completely control their minds with insane tripe as long as the little 3 words above are included.
But, do not believe me. Don't think for 1 second that I have come across secret knowledge that I am trying to impart here.
Listen to them.
Watch them.
They are on TV a lot right now. One of them - Ted Cruz - is vying for the highest office in the land right now.
Watch HIM. Watch the sheeple in his crowds. Listen to their words. Listen for the 3 most evil words in the world right now.
You can draw your own conclusions after that.
tabasco
(22,974 posts)Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)kairos12
(12,862 posts)longship
(40,416 posts)With details and a short commentary. I got two kicks and three DUrecs using the Guardian title as my title.
One of the kicks was critical of the post.
Here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027605628
What in the Sam Hell?
The vagaries of a political forum?
No wonder I don't post too many OPs.
There's almost no point if folks just ignore them.
LeftishBrit
(41,208 posts)There are few countries where the electorate are not frequently 'suckers'.
I think it was Winston Churchill, who said that democracy is the worst possible system - except for all the others.