DUMBNESIA

Dumbnesia (dumb + amnesia) is a common form of inability to comprehend our world combined with the inability to remember important facts and events that would help us understand.

Do you occasionally suffer from dumbnesia?

Most likely, when you do, you don't realize it.

Dumbnesia is a most insidious condition that is very difficult to heal because it combines colossal arrogance with extraordinary gullibility to the extent that the victim thinks they know everything when actually they don't know shit.

Dumbnesia is very difficult to cure, because the victim only trusts those who want him or her to remain in a vulnerable condition for exploitation. For example:

Disproportionate tax giveaways to the super-rich have been touted as good for the economy – because the rich are expected to spend their new-found excess wealth, and that wealth will someday “trickle down” onto the rest of us. Therefore:

If you haven't realized that the Bush tax breaks for the rich are effectively just another replay of “Trickle-Down Economic Theory” (which is effectively piss on the poor), you might be suffering from dumbnesia.

Luckily, once you do realize the obvious, you have been cured – for the moment. New strains of dumbnesia pop up every day. Here are some examples:

After 30 years of declining real incomes for the middle class, if you still believe that the “invisible hand” will somehow make things all better; you might be suffering from dumbnesia.

If you haven't figured out that the phrase “less regulations and less taxes” really means let the powers that be take whatever they want and keep all the profits for themselves, you might be suffering from dumbnesia.

If you believe that “free market economics” is so righteous that it is better for someone on the other side of the world to essentially be a slave than have someone here with a good job, you might be suffering from dumbnesia.

If you believe that privatizing social security won't lead to what happened to your 401K in 2008, you might be suffering from dumbnesia.

If you believe, after 30 years of U.S. jobs being transferred to other countries and small businesses being gobbled up by monopolies, that Obama should have fixed it all in 2 years, you might be suffering from dumbnesia. (By the way, technically, he has. The recession is over.)

If you don't remember that the same "news" people who were claiming that Barack Obama was a militant Christian are now claiming that he is a secret Muslim, you might be suffering from dumbnesia.

If, after Fox contributed one million dollars to the Republican Party (and has helped numerous Republican candidates collect campaign contributions on their “news” shows), you still believe that Fox News is “fair and balanced”; you might be suffering from dumbnesia.

If you still believe that BP stands for “Beyond Petroleum”, you might be suffering from dumbnesia.

If you aren't convinced that the millions of dollars that the fossil fuel industry spends on mass media advertising hasn't influenced news reporting of the BP oil spill (or reporting of efforts in Congress to do something about it), you might be suffering from dumbnesia.

If you still aren't convinced that emitting millions and millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year is bad for the climate, you might be suffering from dumbnesia.

If you still haven't noticed that renewable energy generation has been effectively suppressed for the past 30 years (with multi-billion dollar taxpayer-funded subsidies to the fossil fuel industry), you might be suffering from dumbnesia.

If you believe that militarily occupying multiple Middle Eastern countries somehow reduces terrorism, you might be suffering from dumbnesia.

If you have been convinced that killing people in Far-off-istan is more important than saving lives of the ill here at home, you might be suffering from dumbnesia.

…

Postcards From the Pledge

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity

.....................

Of course, dumbnesia is not the only affliction out there. A far more dangerous condition, known as apathesia, is even more common.

Apathesia (apathy + amnesia) is a stupefyingly mindless condition commonly seen in zombies. The symptoms of apathesia are a combination of a sense of powerlessness and lazyness. (Which, when you think about it, makes perfect sense.)

Do you suffer from apathesia? Here are some symptoms:

If you believe that the best way to deal with those who suffer from dumbnesia is not to vote, you might be suffering from apathesia.

If you believe that all you have to do is vote for the right candidate, and this (superhero) candidate will fix it all for you, you might be suffering from apathesia.

If you just quietly accept that a corporation is a “person” and the millions they spend to influence elections are just this “person's” opinion, you might be suffering form apathesia.

If you make no effort to find alternatives to just spending your money on the very products or services sold to us by the very companies who are obviously ripping us off, corrupting our government, stealing our common resources, and poisoning us with pollution; you might be suffering from apathesia.

After 30 years of concentration of wealth, the monopolization of everything, the exportation of America's manufacturing sector, the privatization of the commons, the disintegration of our government's capacity to function, and the inability of our civilization to deal with such perfect storm “end game” issues as global warming, over fishing in the oceans, overpopulation, resource depletion, and innovation suppression – if you still believe that somehow things will all just fix themselves without your help; you might be suffering from apathesia.

If you are convinced that the collapse of everything is inevitable – so you may as well just stay wasted, watch mindless TV shows, play video games, focus on your hobby, be a lazy ass, or take whatever you can with no regard for anything but immediate gratification; you might be suffering from apathesia.

….....................

If however, you are beginning to realize that the secret to life is for us to give a damn, you are on the road to recovery.

….....................

If you have any dumbnesia/apathesia jokes/comments of your own, please add them in the comment section and share them all with your friends.