# Why Are Americans So Ignorant ( warning this thread is graphic )



## GFR (Apr 29, 2006)

_ * Why Are Americans So Ignorant Of The Hell Their Greed Produces?*


_ Americans believe that we "deserve" access to all of the  planet's resources that will satisfy our every basic human need.  Clean  water, nutritious food, safety from the elements and from the aspects of nature  that frighten us are simply expected to be delivered through the stores or the  airwaves without end.
     Americans firmly believe that our needs cannot really be  satisfied unless we can also waste most of those resources.  This comes  from our complete inability to ever understand the reality of "enough".
     We want our food "super-sized" but we throw away large  portions of what we buy.  We want our cars huge, fuel inefficient, poorly  designed and heavy in order that we can feel "safe" from the other huge, fuel  inefficient, poorly designed and heavy vehicles that clog the roads and spew  filth into our air.  We then sacrifice our own children and the children of  the world to keep the cost of that fuel low.
     We want our swimming pools full and our lawns green and our  behemoth, ugly station wagons clean  .    
     We want to pour pesticides and fertilizers onto our lawns and  farms but we don't want to be reminded where all that toxic crap eventually  flows to.
     Americans just don't give a damn how wasteful and ignorant  they are.  They just want to get home from work or school so they can turn  the TV on and sink into the fog of "entertainment" and "news" that never makes  them feel uncomfortable.  Americans don't want to see how the rest of the  world lives and the misery and desperation that millions of human beings face every single day  so that Americans can continue to wallow in wasteful materialism and ignorant  over-consumption.  If possible, and the corporate media makes it all quite  possible, Americans simply don't want to be depressed or made to feel shame for  their consumption of the world's wealth nor do they want any images placed  before them that might make them lose a moment's worth of slumber.  Hell,  Americans just want the rest of the planet's passengers to either go away or  shut up and let us enjoy our greed and stupidity in comfort.
     When an American is thirsty, we can just go to the  refrigerator for a cold beer or soda or just to the tap for water that we know  is clean and healthy.  Of course, we also let the tap run for a minute or  so to make sure that the water is also cooler.  We watch that water go  spinning down the drain and I would bet that not one in a thousand Americans can  tell you just where that wasted water flows to.
     For too many of the rest of the world's inhabitants, water is more precious  than gold.  When they must endure a drought, you never see American  corporate or military might being called on to provide that treasured substance  by drilling wells or donating filtration systems or any other assistance.   Americans believe that they have no responsibility to help these wretches.   Instead, all Americans can muster sympathy for is their own greed and their  constant demands for lower and lower taxes and the rest of the world's needy can  go screw themselves.
     Well, imagine, if you would, your child or your grandchildren  or your brothers and sisters being forced to make the most horrendous choices in  order to just stay alive for a couple more hours.  Imagine the people you  love having to make the unbelievably depressing decisions that the dying human  beings below have been forced to make.
​










Go into your local fast food place.  Take a quick peek  into the trash receptacles they place around the dining area.  Are most of  them full?  Can you see the remains of half-eaten burgers and orphaned  French fries? Do you see overweight parents with their chubby little  children ordering obscene amounts of fat and sugar?    
     Go to your local school.  If they offer subsidized  lunches, then go check out the trash cans there, too.  Do you see the  hundreds of  pounds of uneaten food that is destined to be taken to the same dump  as all of the old car batteries and sofas and paint cans and the other crap that  our society casts off 24 hours a day, seven days a week?  Have you noticed  that, even though the kids throw away the vast majority of their meals at  school, they're still mostly overweight, out of shape and already on their way  to the massive coronary that their parents are just around the corner from?   In fact, some of those kids are the poster children for the obesity epidemic in  America.  That food they threw away doesn't mean that they'll go hungry, of  course, since all they'll have to do is walk out of the lunch room and buy  themselves a sugar-filled Coke or Pepsi from the vending machines and maybe a  candy bar or two in order to satisfy the unnatural and constant hunger that  comes from the diabetes-inducing lifestyle.
     Hell, look at the trash cans in your own home.  How much  wasted food will you find there?  If you have a garbage disposal unit under  your kitchen sink, how much edible food do you send into the sewers every single  day of your life?
     Want to bet that, first, we throw enough food away every day  to sustain this little guy's needs and, second, we really don't want to know  what he's eating in the photo?​ 

      If you can look at this last photo and then toss away even a crumb from your plate, then it will only prove that Americans are too far gone into the vile sea of greed and ignorance and sloth to offer any hope of redemption.  If you can look upon this image of hell on earth and not suddenly understand just how ghastly life is for the vast majority of this planet's youngest and most defenseless passengers, then I can only feel pity for the reality that America has dug itself into such a deep pit of filth and ego and gluttony and we will never be able to climb back out those stinking, slippery walls.  
          Read the caption under the photo.  Look at the world      that we have allowed, shit, the world that we ENCOURAGED to exist.  If your heart doesn't break, if you      don't lie awake at night in moral agony that America and Americans can      ignore this nightmare that occurs every single day in tens of thousands of      lives in      hundreds of countries, then there is no possible hope for mankind.







    I completely understand the photographer's actions.   How can anyone sleep at night knowing the a child is dying so needlessly?   How can we sit down in front of the TV with a bag of chips or some cookies  knowing that we have done nothing to ease the pain that even one child endures?   How can we make love to one another knowing that our children are dying from  obesity while children everywhere are dying from such massive hunger and thirst?  How  can we write checks to save the whales or to adopt a wild horse or to save the  redwoods when tiny, defenseless and heart broken, lonely children are dying every minute of  every day?  Have we become so hardened to the world's suffering that we  will allow such misery to exist for a child but will ease it for some stupid  damned Chihuahua?
*      What, in the name of whatever god you choose to worship,  is wrong with you?*


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## lnvanry (Apr 29, 2006)

are you asking yourself, an American, or is this a rhetorical question?


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## BigDyl (Apr 29, 2006)

lnvanry said:
			
		

> are you asking yourself, an American, or is this a rhetorical question?




True Story, Ivanry really cares...


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## GFR (Apr 29, 2006)

lnvanry said:
			
		

> are you asking yourself, an American, or is this a rhetorical question?


I did not write this article so I am asking nothing son.


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## dumbdumbdinkel3 (Apr 29, 2006)

thats a shame...all they get is little crums and shit. and me im packin in 4000-4500 calories a day to get bigger. kind of makes me feel selfish...at least i never make anything i dont finish.


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## Little Wing (Apr 29, 2006)

kevin carter won a pulitzer for that photo but with it came a lot of criticism about just walking away from that little girl and leaving her to her fate. he waited something like 20 minutes for the vulture to spread it's wings to get a better shot... but i'm supposed to feel sorry for him cuz he cried afterwards? he killed himself and in doing so left another child to her fate... his daughter.


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## lnvanry (Apr 29, 2006)

Little Wing said:
			
		

> kevin carter won a pulitzer for that photo but with it came a lot of criticism about just walking away from that little girl and leaving her to her fate. he waited something like 20 minutes for the vulture to spread it's wings to get a better shot... but i'm supposed to feel sorry for him cuz he cried afterwards? he killed himself and in doing so left another child to her fate... his daughter.



What a loser


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## BigDyl (Apr 29, 2006)

lnvanry said:
			
		

> What a loser


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## Mudge (Apr 29, 2006)

I grew up finishing my meals, even when I sometimes didn't want to. I hate it when they give me ketchup, when I never asked for it because its going to get wasted.

I have two sponsor children, to try and at least make a minute bit of difference.


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## Little Wing (Apr 29, 2006)

angelina jolie-pitt would have picked up the little girl n adopted her right after tomb raidering that birds ass.


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## Little Wing (Apr 29, 2006)

http://www.heifer.org.za/


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## GFR (Apr 29, 2006)

Mudge said:
			
		

> I grew up finishing my meals, even when I sometimes didn't want to. I hate it when they give me ketchup, when I never asked for it because its going to get wasted.
> 
> * I have two sponsor children, to try and at least make a minute bit of difference.*




To this day if I throw away food I feel guilty


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## Big Smoothy (Apr 29, 2006)

I think Americans are ignorant because of the media sources they have that feed them passive information.


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## Mudge (Apr 29, 2006)

Mr_Snafu said:
			
		

> I think Americans are ignorant because of the media sources they have that feed them passive information.



Or because we dont really have to look at it, live it, or experience it.



			
				ForemanRules said:
			
		

> To this day if I throw away food I feel guilty



Yep, even if I am full (which is my own fault for eating so much).


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## topolo (Apr 29, 2006)

ForemanRules said:
			
		

> To this day if I throw away food I feel guilty



Which makes no sense because if you eat it or throw it away the starving people are still not getting it.

Feeling guilty is just a liberal's way to get through the day without actually adressing the problem. Like Mudge I "sponsor" two kids as well.........I wisj I could do more.


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## lnvanry (Apr 29, 2006)

"guilt is like a bag of fucking bricks...all you have do is let it go."


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## GFR (Apr 29, 2006)

topolo said:
			
		

> Which makes no sense because if you eat it or throw it away the starving people are still not getting it.
> 
> Feeling guilty is just a liberal's way to get through the day without actually adressing the problem. Like Mudge I "sponsor" two kids as well.........I wisj I could do more.


I sponsor your mom with my sperm, and she dose not get into the liberal thing with me......my son....my son


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## topolo (Apr 29, 2006)

ForemanRules said:
			
		

> I sponsor your mom with my sperm, and she dose not get into the liberal thing with me......my son....my son



She said it was pale and tasteless......you should get checked.


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## GFR (Apr 29, 2006)

topolo said:
			
		

> She said it was pale and tasteless......you should get checked.


Your mom  said she would go to the doc for me and drain her vagina of my sperm so they could test it.


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## lnvanry (Apr 29, 2006)




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## DOMS (Apr 29, 2006)

topolo said:
			
		

> She said it was pale and tasteless......you should get checked.


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## GFR (Apr 30, 2006)

Bump


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## GFR (Apr 30, 2006)

debump


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## GFR (Apr 30, 2006)

bump


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## bio-chem (May 1, 2006)

Little Wing said:
			
		

> kevin carter won a pulitzer for that photo but with it came a lot of criticism about just walking away from that little girl and leaving her to her fate. he waited something like 20 minutes for the vulture to spread it's wings to get a better shot... but i'm supposed to feel sorry for him cuz he cried afterwards? he killed himself and in doing so left another child to her fate... his daughter.




excellent post. this is a very complicated issue.  the problem is economic. with the distribution of resources being the key issue. whether i finish my plate or not doesnt change whether a kid starves in n korea or not. its interesting to see how much finacial aid the U.S. gives annually. both privately and through the govt.  unfortuneatly much is ineffective.  a book called WHITE MANS BURDEN discusses this issue. ive not yet had the chance to read it (finals are a bitch) but its premise is interesting


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## MyK (May 1, 2006)

why doesn't god do something?


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## Decker (May 1, 2006)

I think Mudge is sound in his sponsorship.  That's admirable.  My wife and I donate money and items--food and otherwise.

Thirdworld countries--where the populace is either very rich or very poor--will continue.  Fatalists writing off aid b/c the infrastructure for that aid is not efficient or is corrupt have missed the point completely.  Every little bit helps.  If one is truly worried about massive fraud and waste, talk to the Pentagon.

Wasting what's on one's plate is indicative of why americans are scorned and ridiculed worldwide.  Gas is scarce.  We drive inefficient fuel hogs.  Food is scarce in some parts of the world.  1/4 of all food produced for human consumption is wasted.  Guess which country leads the list in that ignoble pursuit. http://www.wastecapwi.org/documents/foodwaste.pdf

I don't care much for the validity of religion but there are some christian groups doing some marvelous work in third world countries to help these poor people out.  Remember, at some point in everyone's life a helping hand is needed.


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## Steele20 (May 1, 2006)

"Americans just don't give a damn how wasteful and ignorant they are" 

It's true. I am, and I don't care.


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## NeilPearson (May 1, 2006)

What about the poor bird?  He has to eat too you know.


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## Dale Mabry (May 1, 2006)

Little Wing said:
			
		

> angelina jolie-pitt would have picked up the little girl n adopted her right after tomb raidering that birds ass.





She apparently only adopts completely healthy newborns, so I don't know that this is accurate.


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## Dale Mabry (May 1, 2006)

From Wikipedia:

"In March 1993 Carter made a trip to southern Sudan with intentions of documenting the local rebel movement. However, upon arriving and witnessing the horror of the famine crises Carter began to take photographs of starving victims. The sound of soft, high-pitched whimpering near the village of Ayod attracted Carter to a young emaciated Sudanese toddler. The girl had stopped to rest while struggling to a feeding center, wherein a seemingly well-fed vulture had landed nearby. Carter snapped the haunting photograph and chased the vulture away. However, he also came under heavy criticism for just photographing ??? and not helping ??? the girl:

    "The man adjusting his lens to take just the right frame of her suffering might just as well be a predator, another vulture on the scene." [2]

The photograph was sold to The New York Times where it appeared for the first time on March 26, 1993. Practically overnight hundreds of people contacted the newspaper to ask whether the child had survived, leading the newspaper to run a special editor's note on the fate of the girl. On April 2, 1994 Nancy Buirski, a foreign New York Times picture editor, phoned Carter to inform him he had won the most coveted prize for photography. Carter was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography on May 23, 1994 at Columbia University's Low Memorial Library.

He later confided to friends that he wished he had intervened and helped the child. Journalists at the time were warned never to touch famine victims for fear of disease. This criticism and the death of a close friend, Ken Oosterbroek, who was shot and killed in Tokoza on April 18, 1994 while covering township violence, may have contributed to Carter's tragic suicide. On July 27, 1994 Carter drove to the Braamfonteinspruit river, near the Field and Study Center, an area he used to play at as a child, and took his own life by taping one end of a hose to his pickup truck???s exhaust pipe and running the other end to the passenger-side window. He died of carbon monoxide poisoning at the age of 33. The last person to see Carter alive was Oosterbroek's widow, Monica. Portions of Carter's suicide note read:

    "I am depressed ... without phone ... money for rent ... money for child support ... money for debts ... money!!! ... I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings & corpses & anger & pain ... of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners...I have gone to join Ken if I am that lucky." [3] "


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## BigDyl (May 1, 2006)

God likes to watch africans eat shit out of a cows ass and drink its piss, and little babies starving to death while a vulture waits to eat it's sinewy carcass.


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## myCATpowerlifts (May 1, 2006)

NeilPearson said:
			
		

> What about the poor bird?  He has to eat too you know.



Wow


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## Doublebase (May 1, 2006)

Ok we have all this food here that goes to waste.  What is being done with all this wasted food?  I have so many questions but I will probably do what most Americans do and just ignore the issue.  Isn't a lot of this being taken care of?  Celebrities/rich people are pretty good about giving to charities.  Or so I thought.


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## clemson357 (May 1, 2006)

People in general are ignorant, not just Americans.  People are ignorant because it is easier to be ignorant than informed or intelligent.


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## GFR (May 1, 2006)

clemson357 said:
			
		

> People in general are ignorant, not just Americans.  People are ignorant because it is easier to be ignorant than informed or intelligent.


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## clemson357 (May 1, 2006)

people are ignorant because it is easier to be ignorant than intelligent.  people post irrelevant video clips because it is easier than coming up with something witty or substantive.


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## BigDyl (May 1, 2006)

clemson357 said:
			
		

> people are ignorant because it is easier to be ignorant than intelligent.  people post irrelevant video clips because it is easier than coming up with something *wity* or substantive.


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## clemson357 (May 1, 2006)

Ibid.


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## lnvanry (May 1, 2006)

ForemanRules said:
			
		

>



is that Jean Claude?


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## GFR (May 2, 2006)

lnvanry said:
			
		

> is that Jean Claude?


 *Yes  *
*Jean-Claude Van Damme in Breakin ( 1984)
*


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