What Me Worry?

Forget what the elections mean for Americans, think about how they are perceived abroad. Our allies in the developed world thought we were ridiculous with our healthcare debate. What society would let people go bankrupt because they were sick? Or after the 2008 collapse of the global economic system, how could you possibly be against wall street reform? Now they see millions of foreclosures that are of dubious legal merit that may force another banking crisis. Why would you want to be associated with people who can't manage their own society in a just and fair way? People forget that Hurricane Katrina was a major blow to America's prestige abroad. With all the riches America has, how come it allowed its most vulnerable to die in a major natural disaster? If America can not handle this in its own territory, why should it have any say in managing the world?

But John Bertlesen wrote for Friday's Asian Sentinel how the rising tide of wilful ignorance threatens the foundation of the United States. He sees the impulse among the right to banish knowledge as a means for securing political power as a dangerous strategy that can undermine and even destroy the fabric of society.

Here wants us to consider the following:
*Despite the fact that the National Academy of Sciences unequivocally concluded the human activities are responsible for much of recent global warming, 77% of all House Republicans refuse to believe it. Of the 20 Republican Senate candidates in contested elections, 19 question the science of global warming and oppose any comprehensive legislation to deal with it.

*Just 44% of Americans,according to 2007 Gallup poll, stated that they accepted Drawin's theory of evolution, compared with 78% in Japan, 70% in Europe and 69% in China. I am sure the percentage of Americans has dropped even further.

*According to the National Endowment for the Arts, fewer than half of adult Americans had read any work of fiction or poetry in the preceding year--no detective novels, romances or even the "rapture" novels beloved by the religious right. Only 57% had read any kind of nonfiction work.

*49% of US adults do not know how long it takes the Earth to revolve around the Sun. According to the ACT College Readiness report, 78% of high school graduates did not meet the readiness benchmark levels for one or more entry-level college courses in math, science, reading and English.

*Although almost 90% of Americans say they are religious, and 96% of them own a Bible,few apparently have read it. According to Pew, the majority of Americans don't know that Genesis in the first book of the Bible. Half of high school seniors think Sodom and Gomorrah were a married couple. One in 10 Americans believes that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife.

*The National Science Board's "Science and Engineering Indicators 2006" found that more than 20% of Anericans believed in witches and 29% believed in haunted houses.

America may pay dearly for its willful decision to turn away from scientific enquiry. For example, according to a new report by the National Science Foundation titled "Rising Above the Gathering Storm, Revisited:Rapidly Approaching Category 5, the U.S. now ranks 22nd among the world's nations in density of broadband internet penetration and 72nd in the density of mobile telephone subscriptions. In 2009, 51 percent of students studying physical sciences and engineering in US graduate schools were foreign, not domestic. 69% of American public school students in 5th through 8th grade are taught mathematics by a teacher wityhout a degree or certificate in mathematics. 93% of students are taught physical science by a teacher without a degree or certificate in the physical sciences.

The disaster continues throughout the National Science Foundation report, part of which was censored so as to shield the public and the internatinal community from the dire shape we are in.

As we have seen with the teabaggers and the extreme right in the United States, there is a joyous pride in one's own parochialism and intellectual limitations.

So don't be surpised about tomorrow's elections. It's a protest vote against Obama because he's an elitist who reads.