FEAR AND STUPIDITY

Gore Vidal's latest article on how we got where we are is most insightful. The whole thing can be read at www.truthdig.com/dig/page2/20060124_president_jonah/ , but here's just a taste:

"Meanwhile, the indoctrination of the people merrily continues. “In a ‘State of the First Amendment Survey’ conducted by the University of Connecticut in 2003, 34 percent of Americans polled said the First Amendment ‘goes too far’; 46 percent said there was too much freedom of the press; 28 percent felt that newspapers should not be able to publish articles without prior approval of the government; 31 percent wanted public protest of a war to be outlawed during that war; and 50 percent thought the government should have the right to infringe on the religious freedom of ‘certain religious groups’ in the name of the war on terror.”

Imagine that. Too much freedom. Fox News and Limbaugh and the browbeating of the public schools by the right (coupled with the flight from the public schools by the affluent sectors of our society) can be blamed for a nation where 45 percent of adults think our Press is too free, or where three in ten believe that the press needs government approval for what it publishes, or that dissenters should be jailed, or that religious freedom yields to the War on Terror. Does that include the Quakers, who protested the war in Iraq? Does that apply to the Episcopalians, especially librul ones like All Saints Epispocal in Pasadena, under IRS investigation for urging its congregation to Vote Peace in 2004?