In poll after poll, we find the Americans no nothing. They don't know when the Civil War was fought. They don't know whether we should bomb Agrabah. They can't name the three branches of government. They're always stumped to name a single Cabinet member. They can never
remember when or why we fought the first or second world wars. Barely half of adults know how long it takes for the Earth to revolve around the Sun. 40 percent believe the earliest humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time.
73% of Americans can't distinguish between astronomy and astrology. 60 percent don't know how many justices serve on the Supreme Court. Only 13 percent know when the Constitution was written.Asked to name the United States’ largest trading partner, most get it wrong.
1 In 4 Americans ascribes to the pre-Copernican view of the solar system 63% of young Americans can't find Iraq on a map. 95 percent of the a newly enrolled freshmen class could not point out Vietnam on a map.
50% can't find New York!
This is way beyond, "A practical people without much use for book-learning." This is stupidity. A culture that revels in being pig-stupid and knowing nothing, and not one that can expect any of the blessings of education to obtain to it.
It's a culture that winds up putting Trump in office. And we have to speak frankly about this, not delicately for fear of hurting people' feelings. We've regressed, somehow. With every pound we've packed on since the 1970s, we've lost a point off our collective IQ.
We're obese and we're borderline retarded, and we want Trump to tell us he's going to make us great again.
Yes. I have no evidence that this was the deeper source of the tensions, but I sure hope this factors into NATO's thinking and that they're making plans in the full understanding that this could happen. I worry that they may be in some kind of total denial:
Maybe they're not. Maybe this is discussed at every step, but privately. But it's not beyond imagination that some kind of superstition, or fear of causing offense, prevents people from saying to Biden, "Whatever we do has to be Trump-proof."
e.g., "We need to get Ukraine what it needs *now,* because we don't necessarily have "as much time as it takes." And "we need to pass key treaties *now,* because we may not have the chance later."
You will never convince me that these kids are on the street because they’re sincerely worried that they’ll be forced to toil until the age of 64. When you’re that young, you can’t even truly conceive that one day you’ll be 64.
And the idea that *this* is the worry that keeps them up at night these days is risible. Have they not noticed that Vladimir Putin regularly threatens to nuke them?
That recent advances in artificial intelligence are so revolutionary that we can’t even imagine what work, retirement, or human life will be like by the time they’re old enough to retire?
On invading Mexico: open.substack.com/pub/claireberl… I wrote this because I find the lack of debate about this spooky. I think the GOP is *seriously* talking about invading Mexico!
I sometimes think I’ve been away from the US for so long that I’ve lost my feeling for US culture, because I just don’t get why some perfectly trivial controversies become absolute firestorms, with no one talking about anything else for days, whereas much more serious things--
--like the GOP seriously proposing to invade Mexico, and trying to pass an AUMF to do it--don’t even warrant an opinion piece in the NYT.
Are we just taking it for granted that these proposals aren't serious?
But why? Once you pass that AUMF, it can be used by *any* president.
Tucker Carlson's Ukraine war anniversary episode is obscene-an unrelenting firehose of anti-Americanism, Russian propaganda, and grotesque lies about Ukraine. It leaves me slack-jawed that this was aired in America.
Why is the most-viewed host on American cable television serving an unremittingly hostile and genocidal foe of the United States?
This isn't subtle; it's Baghdad Bob level insane.
We know from the Dominion filing that he knows perfectly well these are lies. But we also know he'd cut out his own tongue before saying anything that would displease his viewers. So he must know that this is what they want to hear--but *why* would they want to hear this?
It's deeply sinister that the West's central platform for sharing news and information is owned by a Putin apologist. Even Father Coughlin (or more aptly, Henry Ford) didn't have this kind of control over the arterials of public debate.
This can't be trivialized. He and Tucker Carlson are overtly on the side of the most dangerous enemy of the West and of humanity since Hitler. Given the influence they have on public debate, this is *deeply* sinister.
Together, they're capable of severely undermining Western unity, morale, and support for Ukraine. Despite the happy rhetoric about supporting Ukraine "as long as it takes," we all know we're only one election away from leaving Ukraine and Europe to Putin's mercy--
If you missed it in the newsletter, I want to point out a very good place to donate for earthquake victims in Syria. My friend @esi_zey is organizing it and I trust her implicitly: crowdfunding.copalana.org/mycampaign/109…
She writes: "The difference between this and donating to Kızılay or Support to Life for example is that this is a relatively small project and we know exactly where the money is going ... so this might give people a bit more sense of having helped.
"It’s a specific shelter. In Sheikh Bahar. And God knows the Syrians were already miserable, are at the mercy of the Syrian regime and Turkey, therefore largely cut off from the world and receiving aid.