News that the American prison population is now at world record levels should not be surprising.
The US popular culture is so toxic that few can escape it's influence...and children and less intelligent adults are the most vulnerable...
Unlike most nations of the world the US does not have a tradition of learning, or respect for intellectual achievement... Most of the world went through a period where aristocratic elites dominated the cultural environment...and a "respect for" learning, art and culture was encouraged among the lower classes of society.
Not so in the US or the "new world"...which was founded on the total rejection of the old aristorcratic traditions of Europe...and unfortunately that included the respect for learning and intellectual achievement found in most places in the world today...for example, most parts of Europe, China, Japan and India to name only a few places that are currently far ahead of Americans in respect for learning and intellectual achievement. And alas, prove it everyday now!
Indeed, America is decending into a bizarre "religiousity" that is only found in places like the middle east, where the "Enlightenment" tradition has not taken hold. Most Americans today "believe in" angels...and think that Satan is real. Unlike Europ,e were a Secular and Scientific Humanism and socialist politics is dominant.
If America's excessively primative religiousity were not enough? ...
There is the highly toxic US popular culture also in the mix...which sees violence as "entertainment," "fluff news" as information, with a materialist attitude gone mad as the norm, and were sports and entertainment "celebrities" are very often simply "famous for being famous."
Is there EVEN ONE American pop cultural "icon" that would encourage children to learn? To respect culture, or even seek intellectual achievements? I can't think of even one! Not so in most of the rest of the world...
Americans who want to avoid this toxic cultural soup are required to seek refuge in the backwaters of the American media...in places like NPR, Public Television or the university presses.
But it's a losing battle at best...when everone else is "into" Reality TV, The Donald, and Paris Hilton...!
Americans are probably the stupidest people on earth bar none! Consider...most graduate programs in the sciences and engineering are dominated by foreigner students...most medical professionals are from outside the US...the only thing that "interests" American youth is money and fame.
But alas, the days of the Greenspanian economic bubble are ending...the debt is piling up...and foreigners are increasingly in control of America's economic destiny.
Is it any wonder that a nation this stupid should also lead the world in prisons and prison population?
America enters the 21st Century as the world's number one PRISON NATION...
Perhaps it's time for the more intelligent folks in the US to start looking for another place to live...??
