Can there be any hope for a nation whose people are so ignorant and deluded?
‘That the electorate believes the president to be a unifying force for the country, and by no small amount, is completely incongruous with his actions on the campaign trail, through the fiscal cliff dispute, his inauguration speech, his State of the Union speech and now during the sequester negotiations.
‘Recent comments from President Obama include, “Republican leaders will not collect a ransom in exchange for not crashing the American economy” during a press conference on the debt ceiling in mid-January. And in his inaugural address while discussing climate change, he called Republicans neocons who don’t understand that “enduring peace and lasting security do not require perpetual war.” These are hardly the statements of a man working towards a united America.
‘Indeed, the president’s relentless engagement in identity politics – on the basis of race, gender, religion, and economic standing – has made him far from the bipartisan, solution-driven president he promised to be.’
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/03/04/america-willful-blindness-obama-is-divider-not-unifier/
To answer your question: Very.
One of the things I found remarkable even 40+ years ago, when I was traveling the world and living in several ex-British African colonies, was how much even young folks enjoyed discussing politics, and how much more they knew about my country than I knew about theirs. I had been taught that it wasn’t polite to discuss politics or religion in social settings among strangers; but to them, arguing politics was almost a national sport. Just walking past a sidewalk cafe, one would encounter groups loudly arguing passionately over international political issues.
Of course, they had the decided advantage of not having television to suck the minds out of them, so they read newspapers and listened to BBC and VOA on shortwave radio. The deliberate dumbing down of the American sheeple is not something new; it has been in progress for over 100 years. I do fear that it has progressed beyond the tipping point, and is now irreversible. Sure, a few of us are not asleep and can see what is happening; but damn few and I fear not nearly enough. ◄Dave►
Hope for the best, plan for the worst.