When much of the voting population is numb, dumb, and uninvolved .........

[Stinky The Clown]

..... you get exactly what we have had in America for at least the last decade.

The poll is a simple true or false on that statement, but perhaps the more valuable pearl in this thread will be the discussion that I hope will take place.

We can talk about how we got where we are (I think its the media). We can talk about how the situation was exacerbated and used by the Reich Wing (I think they were very skillful at manipulation and capitalization). We can talk about the impact (or lack thereof) of 9/11 on the moribund, somnambulant populace.

I would also throw out for discussion this postulative corollary to the statement in the thread title: When only extremists vote, you get extremes in government and intractable positions among the electorate; compromise dies.

Again, the essential poll question is whether or not the thread title is true or false.

[polichick]

1. Agreed...

Here's the video I posted a few days ago ~ AMERICA: Dumbed Down, Doped Up & Distracted

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxB8GT37ZkM>

[Stinky The Clown]

3. Thank you for that. That was a fantastic clip.

When I was a kid, Kate Smith had a 15 minute teevee show my Dad used to watch all the time. That was her theme song. I haven't heard it in years, but I remember every little nuance of her rendition.

That aside, the video illustrates VERY well the point of my OP.

[polichick]

5. You're very welcome - I remember Kate Smith from my childhood too...

I think a caring person could just about go nuts thinking about what's happened to our country ~ I so hope that this is the darkness before the dawn, but the U.S. is a nation of addicts and, like most addicts, we may have to hit rock bottom. God bless America indeed!

[rucky]

2. I think they try, to some extent.

2 weeks before the election they flip on the tube to see what the candidates are all about.

Consider the source.

[Perry Logan]

4. I think media bias is what has screwed things up.

My theory is that people are not much dumber and number than they have been in the past. So that's not the variable. But the U.S. media has gone down the tubes in the last decade or so. This affects even informed and involved people, such as most of the people at DU. DUers are not generally numb or dumb--and yet many of them are very misinformed. That's because they're still treating the media as if it were real news. So you hear false memes here all the time, and witness attitudes shaped by years of right-wing disinformation masquerading as news.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Those who control the messsage.... control everything else

why do you think media keeps getting into fewer and fewer hands and next target is net neutrality