BS: old - but irresistable

Subject: BS: old - but irresistable
From: Lox
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 01:04 PM

the most powerful electorate in the world

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 01:21 PM

Appalling - but two thoughts:

#1- how many people did they NOT show?
#2- has this been done with other countries' man on the street?

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 01:21 PM

I watched this just long enough to get the idea. You could make the same sort of thing in any country in the world, I imagine. Course, it might take you a little longer in some countries to get as many clueless answers, but you could still get them.

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: GUEST,saulgoldie
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 01:22 PM

We're in bigger trouble than we care to know. And it is later than we think.

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 01:30 PM

And when I read the title of this thread, I thought you were talking about me... :-)

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: Donuel
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 01:43 PM

Why did the Cheney administration even think they needed sophistcated propoganda to pursue the "war on terror"?

how about
"There they are - GET EM !

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: RangerSteve
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 02:12 PM

I guess we're a popular target. I've dealt with foreign tourists on my job, and believe me, they are just as clueless about us as the people shown on the video are about them. And some of them are British, just like the people who made the video. Like all reality videos, this was probably rigged.

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: Scoville
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 02:18 PM

Okay, so they showed the same for ignorami over and over. Big deal. How many people did they have to interview to find them? You could pull the same stunt in any country.

And "United States of America" is a bit cop-out answer for a country that begins with U. Technically, Mexico is the United States of Mexico, too (well, Estados Unidos de México). And we refer to ourselves as Americans, beginning with "A", so it wouldn't have been most peoples' first thought.

(Uganda, Uruguay, and Uzbekistan, if you want my answers.)

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 02:45 PM

Uraguay and Uganda were mine too. The US didn't come to mind- if the question was 'begins with A', I would undoubtedly have said America, and qualified it a moment later.

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: Scoville
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 03:06 PM

Duh, that was four. I can spell, I just seem not to be able to type today.

My elementary school teachers would not have accepted "U.S.A" as an answer for that question, but it's ambiguous at best.

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: skipy
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 04:31 PM

we'er all doomed!
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 04:39 PM

How many of the people on screen were Sacha Baron Cohen in disguise?

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: Rapparee
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 04:47 PM

How much was the film edited? Where was it shot?

Clueless people abound everywhere.

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: skipy
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 04:56 PM

Not on mudcat, they don't!
Skipy

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 04:58 PM

Well, now, spell irresistible (clue, don't read the thread title).

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: katlaughing
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 05:10 PM

Jay Leno has a segment on like this every once in awhile. It's called "Jay Walking." And, now there is the new game show hosted by Jeff Foxworthy, "Are you smarter than a fifth-grader?" ONe of the recent questions on it was the same as on this video, "how many sides to a triangle."

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 05:17 PM

Even though they didn't show the people who got RIGHT answers, it sure makes me worry...'cause some of those folks vote!

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 05:28 PM

"And some of them are British, just like the people who made the video".

Ok

LOL

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: Leadfingers
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 06:04 PM

Except that the video was made by New Zealanders !!!

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 09:46 PM

The scary part to me is that the votes cast by those folks interviewed count the same as the votes from someone who could accurately answer every question.

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: mack/misophist
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 10:48 PM

20 years ago I asked the waiter in a restaurant about green peppercorns. It was the first time I had ever seen them. Before answering, he delicately asked if I had ever heard of Madagasgar (the place most of them come from). He assured me it was a common question and that most who asked had never heard of Madagascar or Zanzibar. We suck at geography. And history and math and civics, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 09:21 PM

I agree with RangerSteve. There are a lot of clueless people out there, but they aren't all Americans. It's amazing what you can do when you edit a piece like this, like remove all of the correct answers.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: Janie
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 11:16 PM

Naw, Bill--I bet none of those people do vote. Less than 50% of us do, remember? (and that may be a good thing after all:^)

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: Peace
Date: 11 Mar 07 - 01:14 AM

I just watched it. Too bad they didn't ask all those questions of George W Bush. Now, THAT would have been informative.

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistible
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 11 Mar 07 - 08:41 AM

"How many people did they have to interview to find them? You could pull the same stunt in any country."

Aussie comic group "The Chaser" - they have a website - did some ABC TV shows - one of their segments was this sort of thing - they interviewed Americans - must have been a good 'expenses paid' way to travel to the USA - you don't get quite the same sort of 'idiots on the street' in Australia, well most of the time... or is that just the way the TV stations here edit things...

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: Amos
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 12:11 AM

IN SPECIAL TRIBUTE TO ALL THE GIRLS WE'VE LOVED BEFORE .. 2007

Ursula Andress is now 70


Julie Andrews is now 71


Ann-Margret is now 65

Carroll Baker is now 75


Brigette Bardot is now 72



Leslie Caron is now 75


Julie Christie is now 65


Joan Collins is now 73


Doris Day is now 82


Barbara Eden is now 72


Annette Funicello is now 64


Kathryn Grayson is now 84


Lena Horne is now 89


Deborah Kerr is now 95


Gina Lollobrigida is now 79


Sophia Loren is now 72


Rita Moreno is now 75


Julie Newmar is now 73


Kim Novak is now 73


Debra Padget is now 73


Patti Page is now 79


Jane Powell is now 77


Debbie Reynolds is now 74


Jane Russell is now 85


Jean Simmons is now 77


Elke Sommer is now 66


Kay Starr is now 84


Stella Stevens is now 69


Gale Storm is now 84


JillSt. John is now 66


Shirley Temple is now 78


Mamie Van Doren is now 75


Rachel Welch is now 67


Esther Williams is now 83



UNBELIEVEABLE, HOW IN THE WORLD DID WE ALL GET THIS OLD???

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: akenaton
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 03:57 AM

It's in the interests of the system to maintain a high level of ignorance.......Just take a look at your news media.

An electorate who are prepared to tolerate living in a society without a National health service, National minimum wage, and rulled by a corporate one party system designed to keep them from addressing their real and pressing problems.....can't be too bright.........Ake

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 04:13 AM

ALL THE GIRLS WE'VE LOVED BEFORE ????

All 'bout the right age for an ol' geezer like me.

Send 'em ALL around. We'll have a nice cup o' tea and talk about old times until we all fall asleep.

John

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: Wolfgang
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 07:36 AM

The thought that such a "survey" is not valid without a comparison is correct. But such surveys have been done and find the US population at the bottom of "Western countries"

Comparative study

About 11 percent of young citizens of the U.S. couldn't even locate the U.S. on a map. The Pacific Ocean's location was a mystery to 29 percent; Japan, to 58 percent; France, to 65 percent; and the United Kingdom, to 69 percent.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: Amos
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 08:56 AM

Obviously they didn't survey Californians. We are born knowing where the Pacific Ocean is.

A

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: Peace
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 10:03 AM

And the Sierras, too.

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: heric
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 10:41 AM

and that's all we need to know!

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: Bill D
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 10:52 AM

You sure they know the NAME of the ocean? Or anything that borders it except California?

Maybe all they know is where the beach is.

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: PoppaGator
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 12:44 PM

YouTube also has an "answer" video to this one, featuring British idiots. I hate to admit it, but the UK effort is quite obviously even more rigged than the US-based original, in terms of editing out all the right answers that must have been filmed.

An even smaller number of subjects are shown repeatedly, in rotation, and (most tellingly) they had to include several minor children, each giving multiple wrong answers, to fill up the three-and-a-half minutes.

One of the pre-teen boys was asked "who is the British Prime Minister," and the answer he gave ~ supposedly "wrong" ~ was shown in the subtitles as "Tony Blare." Since the kids was answering verbally, he can hardly be held responsible for the editors' spelling error. (Of course, we don't know when filming took place, so Mr. Blair may or may not still have been in office; but even if Tony Blair were the recently ousted ex-PM, it's not such a terribly ignorant answer for a twelve-year-old.)

Sad to say, huge numbers of everyday Americans are incredibly ignorant. I suppose it's because we can afford to be. Jay Leno's regular feature showing this type of person-on-the-street quiz is normally shot at a shopping mall or some kind of relatively upscale downtown street ~ not in a poverty-striken "underclass" neighborhood, where lack of education/erudition might be understandable. These blissfully ignorant fools are generally affluent, living the good life, fat and happy and completely uninterested in learning anything they don't feel that they "need" to know.

I remember reading recently that some frighteningly large percentage of Americans can't find Chicago on a map. It occurred to me at the time that most of them could probably afford to fly to Chicago, that many have probably done so, and still they haven't the slightest inclination to know where they're traveling. Let the pilot worry about that...

I'm sure that most of the ignoramuses we see in these film clips are supported by a family breadwinner who does have some idea about the world around him/her. But for each such informed citizen, there are probably multiple dependants who have no interest in learning anything except which credit card is not yet maxed out.

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 07:31 PM

An electorate who are prepared to tolerate living in a society without a National health service, National minimum wage, and rulled by a corporate one party system designed to keep them from addressing their real and pressing problems.....can't be too bright.........Ake

So what's your excuse?

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: bobad
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 07:44 PM

Sad to say but,IMO, Ake's right.

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: akenaton
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 08:09 PM

Oh I'm not excusing you Ebbie...You must get off your arses and start changing your society.

And scampering off to vote for Hillary the Hawk...because she's a winner, wont do at all...

Bobad......You must be the "exception that proves the rule"...:0)

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: Don Firth
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 09:49 PM

It would be interesting to see a "General Knowledge" test, covering ALL of the subjects that I was required to study in the public school system (public schools in the United States are not the same as public schools in Great Britain--you knew that, didn't you? Do you know what the difference is?) and had to pass tests on to graduate. I started the first grade in 1937 and graduated from high school in 1949.

I would be interested in seeing a demographic breakdown (including age, which would indicate when the respondent went to school), to see which age and regional groups know what.

I'm betting that it would be a real indictment of what the American educational system has become in recent decades.

Who are the Senators from your state? How many of them are there? Can you name the Congressional Representative from your legislative district? Can you name your state attorney-general? Without taking out your voter registration card, what are your district and precinct numbers? Where is Patagonia? In World War II, American troops fought in French Indo-China. What is French Indo-China known as now?

I remember reading a newspaper article in the late 1950s about a general knowledge test given to college graduates. 4% of them were unable to name the current president of the United States (Eisenhower). I thought that was pretty pathetic back then! I wonder what percentage of Americans could answer that correctly now? The current president, I mean!!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: old - but irresistable
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Oct 07 - 09:48 AM

My neighbors are not oblivious to their own ignorance. They know what they think they need to know and that is all they know.
Everthing they do to others is based on the knowledge they hold inviolate which is mainly religious, racist and tribal.

They are careful not to engage people who are outspoken and brand that person as one who never shuts the fuck up.

These are middle class Americans who live in half a million dollar homes and vote against their own economic self interest and may in fact lose their homes in the 7 million home forclosure crisis that is loomng over the next 3 years.

Some of them are just trying to go with the flow but many of them are more interested in keeping up with the Jones' than developing a cosmopolitan base of knowledge.

C'est la vie.