Are You Dumber than an American?

[whathehell]

310. What many under a certain age don't realize is that this idiocy, this "rejection of science", etc.

was not at ALL common in public life during the decades of the fifties, Sixties and Seventies.

It may have been in the some rural areas at the state level, but certainly NOT at the national one.

As someone who grew up during this period, I can tell you that the nation has gone backward

in a BIG way.

The America of the 1960's had the largest middle class in the world and the greatest number

of college graduates. It's even been suggested that during those VERY democratic (small AND big d) days

the "powers that be" became SO frightened by the "calamity" of it all, the

counterculture, the War protests, etc, they claimed there was "too much

democracy" and started a conservative "comeback".

Trust me....No one of the ilk of a Michelle Bachmann could have gotten NEAR a national

stage then, which is why Boomers like Chris Matthews & others are AMAZED that someone as

embarrassingly ignorant as she and some of the other wingnuts, are even holding office, and I understand

it completely, as we came from a far smarter, more liberal era.

The "dumbing down" of America started in earnest in the Eighties with Reagan and the "Religious Right".

The Republican Primaries, aka "The Republican Clown Show" is something no adult in the Sixties and Seventies

could have even IMAGINED.