conservative is now counterculture? wtf?

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banner ad on another site i visit, for DailyWire, here's their leadin: "Sports without the woke... We’re one of America’s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. We’re opinionated, noisy, and having a good time."
oh, the irony. "conservative" and "counterculture" in the same sentence, without a negator. i suspect they've been getting into the brown acid.

psst! hey, hey you! yeah, you. eating shit makes you immune to liberal hoaxes, here, try some! first hit is free.
i'm retired. what's your excuse?

Re: conservative is now counterculture? wtf?

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They live in an imagination land where they are attacked by a angry mobs for saying "merry Christmas." In their makebelieve world, straight white christian men are the most persecuted group in history. So yeah, they totally see themselves as counter culture revolutionaries.
Whatever I said above, just pretend I included the obligatory “both sides,” especially if I said something mean about Trump (don’t want to hurt any feelings).

www.schayden.com

Re: conservative is now counterculture? wtf?

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Here's an explanation of the new Conservative Counterculture.
Here is the startling truth about America's biggest national security problem

With apologies to Paul Simon, and despite all of the information available to the mortal man, there are still millions of Americans who currently believe they're gliding down the highway when in fact they're slip slidin' away.

As President Biden prepares to travel to Europe to meet with the Pope and our NATO allies next week, there remains a huge national security problem for him to grapple with, one that hasn't been addressed in any meaningful fashion for many years.

It is the root cause of our problems with China. It's why some people don't want to get vaccinated. It's why some people still gleefully follow Donald Trump. It explains why Congress can't get together in a bipartisan fashion to deal with infrastructure, health care and gun control. It's why we have problems understanding climate change. It explains voter suppression. It's why "critical race theory" has become controversial, why elements of our population on the left and right are at war with each other and why some believe the earth is flat and the Holocaust didn't occur. It's why some of us believe we're still the "No. 1" nation in the world when — other than having the largest military — we clearly lag behind other major nations in many critical factors. More than anything else it explains why we fail.

The United States is a nation of militantly ignorant people, arrogant in their beliefs, unable to change their minds and unwilling to try. We lack education.

And the lack of education in this country is such a problem that national security adviser Jake Sullivan described it this week as a critical issue for our national security. "I do consider it a national security problem," he told me during a White House briefing on Tuesday. "In fact, it's Dr. [Jill] Biden who has repeatedly said — and the president frequently quotes her — that any country that out-educates the United States will outcompete the United States, and that is a fundamental national security issue."

NPR reported Tuesday that, in part because of COVID-19, we have 500,000 fewer students enrolled in colleges this year. Does anyone really think we can compete in the modern workplace with just a high school education?

I coached high school football for many years. I can tell you firsthand that the quality of education of the "average" student today would have been below the level of a remedial education when I was in high school. There are scores of students who are functionally illiterate as well as scientifically and mathematically illiterate, and have no idea how government works or what their responsibilities in a democracy are. Many scream about "rights." Fewer understand responsibility.

Many are hoping and praying to find a menial job where they can "survive," and rarely do they dare to dream they might thrive. Many cry out for universal health care, but don't believe we'll get it. Some don't even understand how to get a decent salary, paid medical leave and other benefits, let alone how joining a union could help them accomplish those tasks. They don't know what socialism or capitalism are — other than thinking that one is bad and the other is American. They don't know our history, have no view of the future and are moribund in a present they fear, hate and don't understand.

We have to do better. The reasons are clear. Biden is correct: Without a competitive education, we sentence our progeny to industrial servitude while those who are educated amass power and wealth. Look around. We're in a new space race with China. We're behind in hypersonic technology. Our scientists say we must have a nuclear rocket to beat the Chinese to Mars, but millions of people believe that Clorox might treat the coronavirus. Some even tried it.

Biden wants to provide free or affordable post-secondary education, and has pointedly reminded us how useless a mere high school diploma is today — and that frightens some of us. George Carlin warned us that the overlords of society want you smart enough to operate the machinery, but no smarter than that. Some believe that to be true. Others in Congress tell us that such educational outlays in the budget are cost-prohibitive — while at the same time nodding reflexively each time we increase our bloated military budget.

This is not a recent development. Our dedication to education has fallen steadily during the last 40 years — and like most of the rot that has occurred in this country, I place the blame at the feet of Ronald Reagan and the ultra-conservatives he used to get elected and that he helped bring into the mainstream.

If you don't want to accept that Reagan was a feckless fool who destroyed unions, education, the free press and health care, and took us down the road to ruin, then look at the stench stirred up by George W. Bush and his infamous "No Child Left Behind" education policy.

That moronic mantra became every child left behind, creating an entire generation of Americans who were taught how to pass tests — but never how to think critically.

Many of those children who grew up being trained to pass tests are adults now and beginning to populate mid-level management positions in the American workforce. They have become part of what H.L. Mencken described as a "vast and militant ignorance" a century ago, which reminds us that arrogant ignorance isn't a new phenomenon — only that No Child Left Behind exacerbated the problem. "Team America World Police" and "Idiocracy" look more like documentary films than satire these days.

What's the most striking example of the lack of education? Two words: Donald Trump.

And I have one real question I'd like answered: Will someone please stop sending me emails from Donald Trump and his children, relatives, underlings and minions, begging me for money and guaranteeing me private time with the Donald?

Don Jr. even sent me an email telling me he was going to tell his daddy if I didn't give some amount of money NOW! I also got promised a football if I contributed to Donald Trump — who isn't even officially running for office yet, but certainly has honed the art of conning people out of their hard-earned cash to a laser-like precision.

I know dozens of other White House reporters who are apparently on the Donald's email list, and none of us signed up for his systematic harassment and panhandling. He's an internet stalker and homeless vagrant rolled into one. Apparently the former president took the White House correspondents' email list with him when he fled D.C. Since I'm also getting email from the Sarah Sanders campaign and a few other close Trump associates who hold office, I can only assume they are sending me their scatological musings because Trump has shared the email list with his itinerant, angry, brain-dead acolytes.

They all send me content designed to make the uneducated howl at the moon and scratch themselves like a junkyard dog with fleas. These "press releases" from Trump's moronic disciples are met with yelps of pleasure from their fans. Poor grammar and spelling aside, these fecal releases usually make no sense and appear to be the mutterings of simpletons who've ingested tainted hallucinogens.

The idea that the most qualified candidate in the Republican Party for the highest office in the land could once again be a guy who was impeached twice and encouraged us to ingest Clorox and shine ultraviolet light inside our bodies — that's something even an overabundance of psilocybin in your bloodstream can't explain.

But a lack of education explains all of it, including but not limited to Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.

Our lack of education is the single greatest threat to the existence of our nation. Jake Sullivan is right: It's a national security issue.

"And though my lack of education hasn't hurt me none/ I can read the writing on the wall," Paul Simon also told us.

Today, I'm not sure how many people can even read that.
https://www.rawstory.com/here-s-the-sta ... t-problem/

We have lost at least two generations to ignorance.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: conservative is now counterculture? wtf?

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"We have lost at least two generations to ignorance."

Yeah. I retired from teaching community college after thirty years. Seeing this happen is pretty sad overall. And for those rural towns like mine who depend on students, we have suffering. I think the students suffer the most, though. They're hungry for learning and they can't get it. Starving.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

Re: conservative is now counterculture? wtf?

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Lack of education as a security issue. Yeah, people usually think it's because we'll get out-competed in the long run by better educated societies. It's much more pressing than that. Lack of education is a major force behind this divided country. Too many people too easily led down crazy path. We couldn't mount a national defense at this time if we needed to. Two years ago I would have said that a national crisis would bring us together (yes, I'm that simple). Then I watched what we did with the pandemic. What would we do with an external threat?

Re: conservative is now counterculture? wtf?

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TrueTexan wrote: Thu Oct 28, 2021 12:41 pm Here's an explanation of the new Conservative Counterculture.
Here is the startling truth about America's biggest national security problem


The United States is a nation of militantly ignorant people, arrogant in their beliefs, unable to change their minds and unwilling to try. We lack education.

And the lack of education in this country is such a problem that national security adviser Jake Sullivan described it this week as a critical issue for our national security. "I do consider it a national security problem," he told me during a White House briefing on Tuesday. "In fact, it's Dr. [Jill] Biden who has repeatedly said — and the president frequently quotes her — that any country that out-educates the United States will outcompete the United States, and that is a fundamental national security issue."

<snip/>

But a lack of education explains all of it, including but not limited to Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.

Our lack of education is the single greatest threat to the existence of our nation. Jake Sullivan is right: It's a national security issue.

"And though my lack of education hasn't hurt me none/ I can read the writing on the wall," Paul Simon also told us.

Today, I'm not sure how many people can even read that.
https://www.rawstory.com/here-s-the-sta ... t-problem/

We have lost at least two generations to ignorance.
Amen!

It's shocking to discover this late in life how practically speaking, how "freakin' stupid" such a large percentage of the US citizens are! That stupidity will likely doom this democracy experiment going forward unless curtailed, as an intelligent electorate is critical for a healthy democracy to succeed (along with fair voting practices etc!), noting that autocracies have no such requirements!

Aside from a lack of education, don't forget the "GREED" factor, as it's a critical issue as well.

Re: conservative is now counterculture? wtf?

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DJD100 wrote: Sat Oct 30, 2021 2:16 pm
Amen!

It's shocking to discover this late in life how practically speaking, how "freakin' stupid" such a large percentage of the US citizens are! That stupidity will likely doom this democracy experiment going forward unless curtailed, as an intelligent electorate is critical for a healthy democracy to succeed (along with fair voting practices etc!), noting that autocracies have no such requirements!

Aside from a lack of education, don't forget the "GREED" factor, as it's a critical issue as well.
Ignorance and greed tend to go together. Where it is a CEO of a major oil company or the bubba down the block with the new rolling coal pickup, it is greed and ignorance wanting to have the most money, power or new stuff, no matter the cost to the people of the world or the world itself.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: conservative is now counterculture? wtf?

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Both sides of the political spectrum live in echo chambers, it becomes groupthink.
Groupthink is a phenomenon that occurs when a group of well-intentioned people makes irrational or non-optimal decisions spurred by the urge to conform or the belief that dissent is impossible. The problematic or premature consensus that is characteristic of groupthink may be fueled by a particular agenda—or it may be due to group members valuing harmony and coherence above critical thought.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/groupthinkx

The antivaxxers who aren't all Republicans have always been anti-science, but during the pandemic they merged with the "freedom" crowd. Anti-science allied with those who view their own person freedom to not wear masks or physically distance themselves as more important than the health and safety of others.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: conservative is now counterculture? wtf?

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It used to be the belief by some cynics in government that reducing spending in education would result in a mass-consumerist culture in America that is easier to herd like cattle.

Who knew that it would actually result in something more akin to Mad Cow Disease.
"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent." -Gandhi

Re: conservative is now counterculture? wtf?

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I taught critical thinking for the last ten years before I retired in 17. Critical thinking is hard. Americans are lazy fucks for the most part. If they have cheese doodles and something compelling on the screen, they're good.

But we must acknowledge that Repubs have defunded .edu all the time. In California our top of the world .edu system was eviscerated under Prop 13 and it has never recovered. I wanted to teach guitar, but Prop 13 (1978) killed all the guitar classes after I'd registered--all that was left was composition, music and English. So now I'm a retired English teacher who can write string quartets. On the upside I get all tingly talking 17th century voice leading.

Life is a series of tradeoffs and compromises. And beer.

CDFingers
Crazy cat peekin' through a lace bandana
like a one-eyed Cheshire, like a diamond-eyed Jack

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