Is it any wonder that Americans are so stupid? For me, Will Rogers Jr (1911-1993), epitomized America and Americans. The Cherokee-American cowboy was a well-known actor, humorist, and especially keen social commentator. Growing up with a crackly radio and a flickering, sometimes rolling, black and white television, I especially enjoyed his monologues focused on current events at the start of which he would slowly drawl out "Well, what shall I talk about? I ain't got anything funny to say. All I know is what I read in the papers." He then would intelligently vivisect one politician, issue, or incident causing millions to nervously laugh at their own expense. Americans had to be well-informed then because you couldn’t get the joke unless you knew what was going on in the world. Otherwise the joke was on you.Today it seems that “All I know is what I read in the papers.” has been replaced with “All I know is what I see on television” and the joke really is on the viewer.
To understand why Americans were so easily taken by the likes of world champion Ponzi schemers Bernie Madoff, and Citigroup, one need only watch the founts of ignorance such as CNBC’s financial “news” and “information” programming. For example, CNBC’s “dough-eyed” financial analyst Maria Bartiromo had to be defended by her employer about her relationship with a former Citigroup boss. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16830375/) . Then there is the lunacy of taking Jim Cramer’s investment advice on his “Mad Money” Chttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWksEJQEYVU) that can only be matched by another CNBC stalwart, Rick Santelli’s, foaming at the mouth about Obama’s plan to bail out what amounts to CNBC’s Fan Club members (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEZB4taSEoA)
One can’t help but believe that cable television’s vast array of financial news and information programs amounts to 24/7 infomercials.
As to the reliability of other venerable television news sources, I note that after leaving CNN, Glen Beck was found crying about his passion to save America on his Fox News “The Glen Beck Show” where it is alleged viewers can find “The Fusion of entertainment and enlightenment.” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HWKzobeya4)
Millions of viewers, are attracted to Glen’s homey, self-deprecating dis- and mis-information leaving the likes of Sean Hannity, and, ditto I assume, Rush Limbaugh who are the other studs in the Fox stable of horse’s ….s, to wonder if they should start showing more of their mare sides. It’s not what you say but how you say it that convinces audiences of the reliability and validity of television “news and information.”
Speaking of the news, on both the Left and the Right and everywhere in between the Mass Media are scrutinizing every one of Barack Hussein Obama’s utterances (not to mention Michelle’s uncovered arms) as if they were the difference between life and death for America and the rest of the world. Obama goes to the G-20 in London and everyone (except Hillary Clinton) holds their breath. So much seems to depend on him. It may make good copy but little sense.
For my friends on the post-Modern Left, allow me to deconstruct this Obama fascination which afflicts everyone including the Right. Post-George “W,” I think there has been too much intellectual, emotional, and other investment in the idea of "Obama-ism" which is a logical outcome of Obamania. Obamaism is a belief that Barack H. has, as an individual, some special qualities that are more powerful then even Pre-Post-Modern structures such as International Capitalism and International Socialism. A case in point is that the current version of "the” Global Financial Crisis is herded over by 20 instead of the previous 8 masters (and mistresses) of the universe. And, at least one of them (maitre de l’univers French President Nicolas Sarkozy) is threatening to make it 19 if Obama has his way with the rest.
Then there are the closely related international conclaves that are simultaneously divining solutions to “the” Global Terrorism Crisis and “the” Global Poverty Crisis.
Frankly speaking, as was true of the "expert" analyses leading up to the current Great Depression that served little purpose other than postpone the today of reckoning, no one (not even Richard Holbrooke Obama’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan) really has a clue as to how to effectively deal with the organized and disorganized violence that is the result of ignoring the legitimate aspirations of ordinary people all around the globe. For them social “justice” is, like a “derivative” something about which you speak without knowing what it is.
In my opinion it is not that there are no answers to vexing problems but that we still are asking the wrong questions about them. Most of the questions experts ask are centered on how to maintain the status quo (status quo ante perhaps) in which we (the wealthy, powerful, superior, etc) are comfortable in our sense of entitlement.
To be fair, I really should offer at least one or two concrete (more or less) examples of this approach to problem-solving-by-better-question-asking. Europe is faced with a "crisis" because thousands of Africans who are seeking work and minimal comfort are washing up on their enticing shores. What makes them want to come is not what they will find in Europe but what they can’t find at home. If Europe returned to Africa only a tiny proportion of the wealth that they harvested from Africa and Africans thereby impoverishing them, Africans would have little reason, or incentive, to risk their lives in rickety boats such as the two-hundred who recently drowned off the coast of Libya. (http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/03/31/libya.boat.sinks/index.html)
In the United States of America, it is the swarming of Latinos across the borders in search of work and economic opportunity that sets off the alarms and raises the barriers to “free movement of capital and labor.”
In all these cases of allegedly “unwanted” but necessary migrations, it would make better sense for the invaded countries to guarantee decent wages for their global migrant workforce. This would not only help increase the remittances to home countries (indirect foreign aid) it would also eventually reduce reliance on exploitive labor importation by increasing the influence of local workers and unions whose labor would be more in demand as a consequence.
Asking and answering better questions about the plethora of Global Crises we have today might not keep Glen Beck from prime time crying, or Karl Rove from drooling on the editorial pages of the Fox News version of The Wall Street Journal for that matter. But Will Rogers Jr. would’ve loved it, and not inconsequentially the joke would stop being on us all the time.