I couldn't agree with you more about that "intellectual sluggishness" problem, Don. It seems to be on the scale of an epidemic in North America.

I've watched all 3 portions of John Perkins' talk, and it's great. I just went out and bought his book to get some more background on what he's talking about. I really like the fact that he doesn't do the standard dumb thing which people almost always do around such an issue and label the people who are running what he sees as the oppressive machinery as "evil". This is what demagogues do to get an audience charged up. Rather, he says that the many corporate CEO's he has met....all of them....have all been people much like the rest of us, and that they ARE vulnerable to persuasion, that their minds can be changed, and their moral awareness can be raised, and that it is up to the rest of us to change their minds, because they too want to see a better world for their children and their grandchildren, but they're caught up in a system and they need our help to give them the gumption to change it. That's powerful. The same can be said of politicians.

It's way too easy to just label all the people you disagree with as "stupid" or worse yet "evil", and it leads nowhere useful, but people do it because it makes them feel so goddamn righteous and superior when they call someone else "evil". They can thump their chests and mouth off fire and brimstone about it, after all, and cry out for vengeance on the "evil ones" and that makes them feel just great, right? ;-) Watch out for people who call for a war against some great "evil" that they claim to have identified in someone else or in some other country or religion. Such people are extremely dangerous. They seek blood and personal power, not justice or positive change.

Regarding the intellectual sluggishness...I think you'll find a lot less of that in some other countries. North Americans have been stupefied by their consumerism, their excessive lifestyle expectations, and their TV and other entertainment media in the past fifty or so years...basically since WWII ended.