Idiocracy
Have too many Americans become gullible, ill-informed idiots who have elevated feelings over facts and replaced critical thinking with a blind sense of trust for authority? I'm not trying to be insulting here; I'm just trying to figure out Rudy Giuliani's poll numbers.
Four years ago Tucker Carlson asked Britney Spears on CNN, "A lot of entertainers have come out against the war in Iraq. Have you?" And Britney, who was chewing gum throughout the entire interview, answered, "Honestly, I think we should just trust our president in every decision he makes and should just support that, you know, and be faithful in what happens."
It's this kind of head-in-the-sand, free rein granted to those believed to be in a position of moral authority that has led to warrantless wiretapping, torture, and a $6.1 million judgment for a Kentucky McDonald's employee named Louise Ogborn. In 2004, Louise was 18 and working at McDonald's when her assistant manager Donna called her into the back office, said a police officer on the phone had identified her as a thief, and then forced Louise, under the "cop's" orders, to strip naked, do nude jumping jacks, submit to a spanking and finally perform oral sex on Donna's 43-year-old exterminator fiancé. The whole ordeal, ordered by a prankster over the phone, lasted three hours. But you know what they say about fast-food work -- the time flies when you're busy.
A Kentucky jury listened to testimony, watched a videotape of the entire incident and awarded Louise $6.1 million dollars from the obviously culpable party in this matter -- the McDonald's Corporation. That's right, two adults pressure a third adult into stripping, a spanking and a blowjob based on the word of a stranger on the phone and the fault lies not with the gullible idiots who blindly obeyed some perceived voice of authority, but with the company that happens to have its name on the sign out front. McDonald's has a written policy in their training manual against any type of strip searches and even sent out a voicemail warning franchises about such phone hoaxes but the jury found that the company was liable because, after all, the perv on the phone did say he was a cop and what choice did Donna the assistant manager have but to, as Britney says, "just support that, you know, and be faithful in what happens"?
Bill Maher is the host of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" which airs every Friday at 11PM.
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Isn't McDonald's the same corporation that once was forced to award money to a woman who was scalded by hot coffee, because she didn't realize the hot coffee was, in fact, hot?
(And now, everything that is either hot or can become hot has to be clearly labeled as such: "warning: contents may be HOT!")
It's not so much that we're an idiotic country (we are), but that we're also a heavily litigious country.
You might want to read the transcript of what actually happened in the "hot coffee" incident. You are quoting the well financed and distributed version of events created by McDonald's pr and legal folks. There is much more to the story that McDonald's cleverly left out. The jury hears the whole story, you don't.
It may be the same in the incident Bill refers to above.
The woman received 2nd degree burns from that coffee. That goes a bit beyond "hot".
*
Too...at first glance..the coffee award appeared to be silly..BUT..if you had the guts to dig a big deeper you would know that McDonalds had been warned numerous times that it's coffee far too hot..to the "scalding" point..and the IDIOTS at McDonalds HAD to be sued to lower the friggin temperature...nuf said..you obviously just listen to faux news..(by the way...just in case..you should know the Stella awards are an urban myth)
Selective idiocracy...head in the sand..blinders.. doh!..kinda like the Germans back in the early 30's.. ahh..the "state" can fix this...just trust the little guy with the mustache... oh..and I think we trusted Nixon to get us out of Viet Nam... People, American's in particular, have no concept of personal responsibility...see..if you "trust"..then..you don't have to accept that you were/are an idiot..instead..quite frankly, like Hilary..you can play the blame game.. wah wah..you LIED to me..you TOLD me the earth was flat and there were WMD's and I believed you!..for shame..
The silent majority is dangerous..in it's complicity...shopping after 9/11 to show the terrorists they "lost"..THAT should have been the first clue..
Elected (wait..he wasn't elected..)..Voting for a man/child you wanted to have a beer with instead of an intellectual who "sighed" in disdain..when what the country needed was not an alky..but a designated driver to lead us through troubling times...
I hold so many in contempt..and it's not a pleasant sensation.. I am disgusted by the antipathy of the masses..we are all Nero's.
Wow! You, tooo, are a PRIME example of what Maher is talking about. You spout what you have heard instead of investigating the actual facts of the case. The poor woman had to have skin grafts over a period of a year to recover. That's a very bad burn.
Suing is the ONLY option open to us regular people when it comes to the big corporations and controlling their callous disregard for us. Take that away, and we have nothing.
McDonald's had been sued over three hundred times, as my memory has it (please don't trust my memory). The lady involved did not in fact ask for as much money as she was given. The jury, upset that apparently McD's was not getting the message, set the monies she received. In this one instance, the big corporation was clearly at fault.
Bill watched your show last night and noticed you forgot to mention some news, Ann the Man's latest hateful comments about Jews.
Why wasn't she included in your panel discussion?
Your guest, Joy Behar, mentioned her and you let it go.
Tucker was a guest on your show too. Lost opportunties
for real discussions last night. Disappointed.
I disagree. It was an engrossing show. The interview with fmr. Pres of Mexico was insightful. But even better was the interview with the woman, Naomi Klein, whose book "Shock"about
the government's relationship with the corporations should make us all wake up and see what may be happening.
I do not believe Americans have elevated feelings over facts. It is a matter of not getting the facts. What are the facts? Whose facts are correct? Our "feelings" are dictated by the way we think and respond to the events in our lives. If we cannot decipher truth from fiction (and we are getting more of the latter from agenda-driven media and a fear mongering political cycle, when we do respond, is it a response to the truth or to a fallacy?
I recently read a book entitled FEARPROOF Your Life (How to Thrive in a World Addicted to Fear) by Joseph Bailey that teaches us how to immunize ourselves from the BS and live and respond to what is true.
Read it. www.fearproofyourlife.com
Well, Bill got his hook here alright. Now, but what is the real issue? That the trial lawyers know where to get the money? In this scenario who are the *stupids*? The whole American population, or is it the large corporation, in casu McDonald? Now, here is the real problem. EVEN large corporations are no longer safe from the trial lawyers. Oh, but wait, we knew that already, did we not? Long ago we had a much simpler case. One of a thief who was on a roof of a fast food restaurant and fell through a window. THE THIEF was able to get a trial lawyer to sue the company targetted for theft, and...reward both the thief and the trial lawyer. See how that works? You do not even have to do the burglary, just fall through the roof, and presto there is money to be made by a trial lawyer! Now, what were you babbling about again, Billy boy? Put your thinking cap on, please! The general American public is not involved in this case, and was not a party to the trial. Oh, but Ann knows that, very well. Just ASK HER. Bill, dear, she will say, we got to make money. So, we go after the money, and the perverts do not have any money. Neither does the American Public. They are just the pieces we move in the chest game of life. Got to get some sleep now. Good night, Bill.
Nice retooling of an urban legend to bash trial lawyers. What's that called, "lying for the greater good"? You would fit in nicely in the Bush Administration. And what greater good is that? The complete destruction of the one group of attorneys who can and will help you if an insurance company ever robs you of the insurance that you've paid for or who recovers money from a tortfeasor who injures you? God forbid you were run over by a Walmart truck tomorrow. Do you really think Walmart would come to your hospital room and cut you a check for all that it had done to you? Without trial lawyers and the court system, this country would be more of a fascist state than it already is.
Bill : Unbelievable. Tucker Carlson's a complete tool....
Great show Bill, Thanx ! -ralph
That's what I wanted to say, too. His voice is like a nail on a blackboard. Please don't have him on your show anymore. I almost turned your program off. I could hardly wait for "New Rules" tonight! Tucker is an absolute "IDIOT!" You are terrific, however, and so is Joy Behar! Your show is SO much better without the RIGHT-WINGERS!
Tucker's only purpose was to confuse the issues and pretend that reasonable people can believe that black is white. He shouted down the much smarter Krugman time and time again with absolute inanities, and you can see in his eyes that he knows he's deceiving with every word.
According to Tucker: liberals are paranoid to think that Bush might attack Iran; conservatives are pleased to include so many homosexuals, fetishists and child abusers in their numbers; bloggers and pundits are right to attack a 12-year-old boy, because it's unfair to put a human face on policy discussion; on and on.
He blustered and bullied on every topic throughout the show without any regard for reason or honesty. It was a terrible display of the way an intelligent man can turn his wit to confusion and deceit. And Bill only cut through his shit on a couple occasions.
Right wingers never win debates. They just filibuster with disinformation long enough to run the clock out.
Tucker Carlson = Michelle Malkin with a smaller dick
Tucker made my teeth hurt tonight.... idiot
I can't agree more about the likes of RUDY.
Rudy is in the bunch for the sake of taking on the ability of those American voters who think people like him are the best for leading this country. What is the definition of leader?
But then again Bush changed the way we address the title of president and the definition of
presidency.
Are you sure this isn't a bogus lawsuit, planned by those who want to do away with lawsuits?
No couple would be that stupid. No young girl would be that stupid. No jury would be that stupid. It had to be handpicked to have given that much money as an award.
I think that's Bill's point. They (we) are that stupid.
The dumbing down of our society is working. Through the likes of those who contribute to the cause of breaking the backs of those supporting the education system in the U.S..
Back when people were a little smarter they even voting for people with a sense of accomplishment. Today they vote by flipping a coin or the likes of listening to liars and those who have the ability to manipulate the minds of the already senseless.
The fearful part of all this is that the largest population of our country consists of people who are lost in thier mind.
People who need direction; people who have lost their way.
Americans know that their government is engaged in war crimes, if not genocide, in Iraq
in order to gain control over Iraq's oil resources.
They also understand that our leaders believe we need Middle-Eastern oil and that without it, the economic bubble, inside which they have become comfortable, may burst.
So, rather than rise up against the abominations perpetrated in their name by their government, they pretend they don't understand.
No, Mr. Maher, down deep they really don't want to know. Keep that bubble afloat. Play dumb.
On second thought, maybe the dumbing-down of the American public has already been accomplished.
Ooh! He's on! He's on!
6 mil for videotaping a B.J. at a McDonald's? Wow, I'll bet all those overworked porn stars are jealous! Maybe we should all celebrate the fact that they (the victims?) were smart enough to get in some good camera angles-the jury must have got a good enough view to award that much $$$. Fast food joints trigger my gag reflex, so I'm impressed anyone could perform under those conditions.
This has to be a complete hoax. Any moderately intelligent 6 year old knows better than to comply with such obviously inappropriate and salacious demands. Let alone for three hours and at the command of a disembodied voice over the phone. Shame on you Bill for repeating this nonsense.
The story has been on the news. Google it--I just found it in seconds.
The boss was an authoritarian-type with a mean streak, and her boyfriend was an opportunist who found it easy to be evil.
And the "hoaxer"/sex offender has pulled the same thing numerous times, with similar results.
Like they say, it's not just worse than you think; it's worse than you can imagine.
"Have too many Americans become gullible, ill-informed idiots who have elevated feelings over facts and replaced critical thinking with a blind sense of trust for authority ?"
Yes. And also a large amount of Right-Wing Religious nut bigot.
And struggling to raise a family with two jobs, no health insurance, and mortgages they cannot afford.
But who cares, the Arms dealers and oil companies are doing very well !!!
In answer to your question, "Yes," completely programmed by people who want to manipulate, market to, and entertain them. "Truth is fiction, and tv reality."
Well, so what?
I give you that most Americans are undereducated, uninformed, apathetic, American-Idol-driven, and stupid.
So what's the solution? Educate them? Get them to read books? Reason with them? Please, spare me.
The solution is to establish (i.e. fund) a 24/7 TV station to counter-brainwash them, to distract them, and to periodically get them to vote for people who support progressive values even if they don't have a clue what that means.
Pretty much what the neocons have been doing very effectively for twenty years, except that the values would change from greed, intolerance, dishonesty, and meeting the needs of the upper 1% only, to fairness, tolerance, honesty, and meeting the needs of the middle class.
And yes, the ends do justify the means.
George Bush is prezidunt. Hello?
I'm not sure your issue is with America, land of the stupid and home of the inane, or with the courts going after Mickey D's. Labor law provides that corporations are liable for employee misconduct on the job. This was misconduct. If Mickey's can only find assforbrains to work for them, that's their problem. They payin' now, and I say $6.1 million ain't enough. Po' assistunt manujer Donna ought to turn around sue them as well for inadequate training and a hostile work environment. Bring on da lawsuits!
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