INSIGHTS INTO THE DUMBING DOWN OF AMERICA

For many of us, voting for Obama & Biden is based on basic common sense and at least average intelligence. A British observer, George Monbiot, who clearly has a lot of these virtues, finds that Susan Jacoby offers many reasons for the lack of common sense and intelligence now on display which leads many Americans to vote for politicians such as George W. Bush and Dan Quayle and now Sarah Palin.

Common Dreams offers "How These Gibbering Numbskulls Came to Dominate Washington: The degradation of intelligence and learning in American politics results from a series of interlocking tragedies" by George Monbiot. Excerpt: "Ignorant politicians are elected by ignorant people. US education, like the US health system, is notorious for its failures. In the most powerful nation on earth, one adult in five believes the sun revolves round the earth; only 26% accept that evolution takes place by means of natural selection; two-thirds of young adults are unable to find Iraq on a map; two-thirds of US voters cannot name the three branches of government; the maths skills of 15-year-olds in the US are ranked 24th out of the 29 countries of the OECD. But this merely extends the mystery: how did so many US citizens become so stupid, and so suspicious of intelligence? Susan Jacoby's book The Age of American Unreason provides the fullest explanation I have read so far. She shows that the degradation of US politics results from a series of interlocking tragedies."