16 of the Dumbest Things Americans Believe -- And the Right-Wing Lies Behind Them

[BrklynLiberal]

http://www.alternet.org/story/148826/16_of_the_dumbest_things_americans_believe_--_and_the_right-wing_lies_behind_them

We’ve gone beyond Stephen Colbert's "truthiness" into a "truth-be-damned" environment.
November 13, 2010 |
Americans are often misinformed, occasionally downright dumb, and easily misled by juicy-sounding rumors. But while the right wing is taking full advantage of this reality, the left worries that calling out lies is "rude."

<snip>

The scary thing is, these kinds of rumors have a way of taking root in the popular consciousness. Just as the election season began heating up earlier this year, Newsweek published a list of “Dumb Things Americans Believe.” While some of them are garden-variety lunacy, a surprising number are lies that were fed to Americans by our leaders on the far Right. This demonstrates that media-fed lies can easily become ingrained in the collective memory if they’re not countered quickly and surely. Newsweek’s list included the following twelve statistics taken from very recent and semi-recent polls and surveys. The first half are directly related to right-wing rumormongering.

* Nearly one-fifth of Americans think Obama is a Muslim (or is that Muslin?). Thanks, Fox news, for acting like this was a matter of opinion, not fact.

* 25% of Americans don’t believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution while less than 40% do. Consider the fact that several of our newly elected officials, specifically newly-elected Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, share that belief.

* Earlier this year, nearly 40% of Americans still believed the Sarah Palin-supported lie about “Death Panels” being included in health care reform.

* As of just a few years ago, about half of Americans still suspected a connection between Saddam Hussein and the attacks of September 11th, a lie that was reinforced by none other than Dick Cheney.

* While a hefty amount of this demonstrable cluelessness gets better as the respondents get younger, all is not well in the below-30 demographic. A majority of “young Americans” cannot identify Iraq or Afghanistan--the places their peers are fighting and dying--on a map.

* Two out of five Americans, despite the whole separation of church and state being a foundation of our democracy thing, think teachers should be able to lead prayer in classrooms. So it seems that those right-wingers clamoring to tear down the wall between church and state aren’t the only ones who don’t know their constitutional principles.

* Many Americans still believe in Witchcraft, ESP and other supernatural phenomena. Does that explain why Christine O’Donnell was so quick to deny her “dabbling”?

* Speaking of antiquated religious beliefs, about a decade ago, 20% of Americans still believed that the sun revolves around the earth. That's just sad, considering that even the Vatican has let Galileo off the hook for being right.

* Only about half of Americans realize that Judaism is the oldest of the three monotheistic religions. Other examples of wild misunderstanding about religion and the separation of church and state can be found in this fall’s Pew survey on Americans’ religious knowledge.

* This one made a huge splash when it appeared. In 2006 more Americans were able to name two of the “seven dwarves” than two of the Supreme Court justices. And that was before Kagan and Sotomayor showed up. To be fair, “happy and sleepy” are easy to remember.

* More Americans can identify the Three Stooges than the three branches of government--you know, the ones who are jockeying over our welfare..

<snip>

more at link...

[Initech]

1. The three stooges? SCOTUS, Congress, and the White House?

[CrispyQ]

2. Nice!

:applause:

[leftstreet]

3. And none of these 'beliefs' should have anything to do with economic justice

The person who can name the three stooges and believes in ESP should be given full economic justice and human rights protection

These blame-the-working class articles annoy the piss out of me

[silver10]

5. yes, but it is difficult

When ignorant lower and middle-class people keep voting against themselves while taking me along for the ride.

[leftstreet]

7. Are you saying it's the intelligent people who don't vote?

[silver10]

9. I don't think it is as much intelligence as education

And as a whole, as far as government budget allocation to education as well as standardized test results, Americans lag far behind other developed nations. Today's average American is not educationally armed enough to vote to protect their own interests - that is why it is so easy for them to be manipulated and believe tag lines, emotional images and facades, etc. rather than look any deeper.

[silver10]

4. Absolutely chilling.

It is all playing into the repukes and teabaggers hands (big money that is)- the ability to own the media and to now purchase election campaigns; and decreasing money towards public primary education and making secondary education less attainable to average people. The majority is ignorantly believing the lies...

[RZM]

6. There are a few more that aren't necessarily right-wing but have always bothered me

1) AIDS was created in a lab to kill gays and/or black/brown people
2) The CIA was behind the crack epidemic in the 1980s
3) LIHOP and/or MIHOP
4) The US government has covered up alien visits to the United States (I'll bet this one is VERY popular)

I was annoyed when that poll came out back in August that said that 1/5 of Americans believe Obama is a Muslim. I'm glad that there was some focus on it, but I was irritated that media figures stopped there and didn't take the issue further and point out some of the other ridiculous stuff that people believe. What's even sadder is that many of these are even more popular in other parts of the world, particularly AIDS and 9/11 conspiracy theories.

[Swede]

8. Where have you been?

[Urban Prairie]

10. "A majority of “young Americans” cannot identify Iraq or Afghanistan"

"the places their peers are fighting and dying--on a map


One would think that the internet era, which makes it soooo MUCH easier to educate yourself about world history, current events, and science/astronomy, than having to read newspapers, and having to crack open THICK books (encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauruses, ect...like I had to do when I was young, would help to reduce at least SOME of the stupid that pervades our nation..but NOOOOOO!!!!


"I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some . . . people out there in our nation don't have maps and, uh, I believe that our, uh, education like such as in South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and, I believe that they should, our education over HERE in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, or, uh....should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future, for our children.

sigh...

:banghead:

[GoCubsGo]

15. But, they know all the really important stuff.

Like who got voted off "Dancing With the Stars" this week.

[Swede Atlanta]

11. Americans are for the most part uneducated.......

But this is a result of a culture that does not value a basic "liberal" education. Contemporary heroes are sports figures, movie stars and pop music. There is no emphasis placed on having a solid knowledge of the world around us, knowledge of our history and culture including literature.

Most American children could care less about history or current events. They are programmed by corporate interests to be interested in the next MTV video, the next movie, the next version of software and the sports cycle.

We are doomed unless we refocus the interests of young people on things that really matter. I am not opposed to sports figures, movie stars or musicians but think they need to be appropriately valued in our culture. This will not likely happen in my lifetime so I see a trajectory of ignorance and down-right stupidity among the average American.

[exboyfil]

12. My daughters live in kind of a cultural bubble

We have one television that is off most of the time. Some popular music gets in through their friends, XMRadio etc but my wife is pretty good about pointing out the garbage in it. My girls are mostly into reading, dog agility, writing, and video editing.

Growing up we took our daughters to lots of museums, zoos, aquariums, etc.

We try on the higher arts, but still working on developing interest. I plan to take my youngest who is being Homeschooled in English and Social Studies to Antigone in March since she is studying classical Greece in her Social Studies unit. Took her to see the traveling DaVinci exhibit (which is great by the way) last month.

Our house is full of books on different subjects in particular History, Science, English, Math, and Theology/Philosophy.

Never go to sporting events unless school related (my daughters used to do half-time shows for dance/cheerleader classes). I do watch some sports at home, but try to keep it down to 2-4 hrs/week, and I usually have a book in my nose between plays and commercials.

The biggest problem is that most kids have absolutely no interest in learning about the world around them. My oldest daughter was so excited by her 7th grade Social Studies (classical History) until the disruptions in the class drained all desire from her. One reason that I am Homeschooling the youngest in the same subject (the biggest reason is that I had to do two subjects, and I was not going to put her in a 7th grade English class when she does 9th grade work). My oldest thought the teacher did a good job in Social Studies, but the class was unmanageable.

[old mark]

13. People in the USA - "real" Americans - seem not to value education or anything

above average intelligence or culture. Many "real" Americans fear and hate these qualities in others, and encourage this hatred in their kids. I see this becoming worse with time - people cling to their belief in magic and "religious" nonsense while condemning science and knowledge people in other cultures take for granted. Sometimes it amazes me we can function as a country at all, and I believe the decline of the USA as any sort of economic power under way, thanks in part to the refusal of so many people here to accept reality as they embrace their delusional thinking and hate those who would teach them otherwise.

mark

[BrklynLiberal]

17. ...

:thumbsup:

[KillCapitalism]

14. They forgot one.

Here's one they left out:

The rich are better than you and everyone else. They deserve those tax cuts because they just aren't getting a big enough piece of the pie.

[BrklynLiberal]

18. and its corollary. "I have to protect the rich because soon, I will be rich!"

[GoCubsGo]

16. Damn, that was depressing.

And, the people in my town/state are what is helping boost those disgusting numbers. I read this sort of cluelessness every day when I open up my local paper. It's to where I can't bear to read it any longer.

[Poboy]

19. K&R