10-14-2016, 09:16 PM
We live in ignorance because we have blinders. Life is all about survival based on kissing up to elites out solely for themselves. The K-12 educational system remains dedicated to churning out people to be assembly-line workers, warehouse workers, domestic workers, and salesclerks -- people damned to a lack of job security, to low pay, and to few chances for their children.
People with some ability to do critical thinking can recognize Donald Trump as the demagogue that he is and that a vote for him is an unacceptable risk. People without such ability have little but fear. People who have fear as their driver go for extremists, Left or Right. Critical thinking also causes people to recognize the superficiality and irrelevance of the 'celebrity' culture.
We need culture -- not mindless entertainment -- to define us. Culture connects Humanity across national borders and to the greatness of the past. Entertainment is the contemporary opiate of the masses. (If the entertainment is truly good it is culture. Shakespeare and Mozart really were entertainment in their times).
I can see the likes of such right-wing pols as Governors Paul LePage, Rick Scott, and Scott Walker trying to crush any thought inconsistent with their right-wing, corporatist agenda of low wages, underinvestment in education, and concentration of economic power. Those go together. A plutocrat playing the game of politician can win only with a cowed and foolish population. Even if the supporters of Trump are honorable on matters other than politics, their political beliefs are quite deplorable.
People with some ability to do critical thinking can recognize Donald Trump as the demagogue that he is and that a vote for him is an unacceptable risk. People without such ability have little but fear. People who have fear as their driver go for extremists, Left or Right. Critical thinking also causes people to recognize the superficiality and irrelevance of the 'celebrity' culture.
We need culture -- not mindless entertainment -- to define us. Culture connects Humanity across national borders and to the greatness of the past. Entertainment is the contemporary opiate of the masses. (If the entertainment is truly good it is culture. Shakespeare and Mozart really were entertainment in their times).
I can see the likes of such right-wing pols as Governors Paul LePage, Rick Scott, and Scott Walker trying to crush any thought inconsistent with their right-wing, corporatist agenda of low wages, underinvestment in education, and concentration of economic power. Those go together. A plutocrat playing the game of politician can win only with a cowed and foolish population. Even if the supporters of Trump are honorable on matters other than politics, their political beliefs are quite deplorable.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.