America is in decline because of institutionalized stupidity. Scientists are under attack by corporate interests because of one simple fact; knowledge is the enemy of unbridled consumerism. The corporations' front line forces are the Religious Right and the ignorant and greedy politicians that they support.

NOAA scientists have been censored by officials who appear to be on corporate payroll. These scientists have been ordered to stop their research on global warming and to, instead, concentrate on endangered species because global warming is a politically unpopular subject.

While the study of endangered species addresses some of the problems that contribute to global warming and climate change, that approach tiptoes around the really urgent issues. This abuse of science is orchestrated by pressure from religious groups and corporate owned politicians who either lack the education to understand the scientific evidence or whose greedy interests dictate that they work hard to institutionalize ignorance and turn out stupid voters. The public is unaware of who is meeting with NOAA officials, and agency officials are not being held accountable if they transgress against scientific integrity.

While politicians keep their constituents arguing about gay marriage and birth control and whether Creationism should replace evolution in science classes, they are busily selling out our country to the corporations that are destroying the environment and employing fewer and fewer Americans and turning out products that have a negative impact on our health and safety.

While a few enlightened educators carry on the fight to introduce real science into the classrooms, the uneducated voters are turning our country over to politicians who have virtually no understanding whatsoever of science and who encourage the idea that responsible management of resources and real education are "against God".

The corporations, aided by their bought politicians, are dismissing experienced teachers based on flimsy and suspect criteria, and replacing them with young, inexperienced teachers who will work for less money, in preparation for corporate takeover of the education system.

Tea Party politicians like Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann are pushing for the abolition the Federal Department of Education to pave the way for reintroducing Christian doctrine into the curriculum and reestablishing segregation.

The schools are teaching kids with corporate advertisements disguised as educational materials and teaching them pseudo science and pseudo history while training them to be soldiers and factory workers. Meanwhile, most children couldn't identify a wild herb if their life depended on it, which it well could one day, the way things are going.

Politics and religion have become unholy partners in the taking down of America. It's mutually beneficial for them to downgrade education and replace it with religion and to denigrate social services. It's easier to institute stupid policies and tear away every social entitlement when the voters are either afraid to think because of their religious teaching or unable to think because of their politicized school systems.

Little by little, real food is disappearing from the dinner table and being replaced by processed, irradiated, artificially flavored and colored, chemically preserved fat and high fructose syrup. The corporations have been allowed to basically steal our farm lands and replace our food with that stuff because of the politicians who were either too stupid to understand the ramifications of that kind of change in the human diet or too poorly educated in science and nutrition and/or bought and paid for. Small farmers have all but disappeared and been replaced by food factories manned by low paid, undereducated, un-insured and unhealthy production workers. Fearful of the growing anger over jobs being overseas, these corporations have stepped up the pressure on their politicians to do whatever is necessary to do away with minimum wage, health care and basic education in science and critical thinking and survival skills. They support the movement to bring religion back into the school curriculum and to glorify war and mindless consumerism.

We can see institutionalized stupidity in the on-going drug war which runs into trillions in actual and related costs while having virtually no effect whatsoever on drug use and the illegal flow of drugs from South America. The South American governments want to wash their hands of the American drug war because they can see that the death toll and the economic toll outweigh any possible positive results.

We see small counties cutting funding for education while spending nearly $100,000 on a fireworks display for Veterans Day. Cliche patriotic gestures have replaced the real patriotism that requires involvement and thoughtful assessment of laws and political candidates.

We see groups, who claim to be patriotic militias, making threats against our president because of his racial heritage. Racism is institutionalized in the southern culture and no laws will dislodge that prejudice. Politicians are elected by the churches and, because the voters have been told by their ministers and politicians that their way of life is being threatened by ungodly science and by Muslims, they vote for the party that best vilifies science and cultural diversity.

The institutionalization of stupidity is crucial to corporate America's bottom line. Without it, they couldn't sell us this unhealthy, unsustainable lifestyle.





