First of all, these people are not intellectuals. I keep hearing how Kagan and Geithner and Summers et al. are so goddamn intelligent. As Robert Fisk said of Condoleezza Rice, “I have yet to see any evidence of it.” Being relatively intelligent, let’s say an IQ of at least 110, and being phenomenally good at ass-kissing and backstabbing and all the other things one must do to be an “American success”, is the key to their power.

Intellectuals are supposed to analyze their society, to be creative and critical, detached from the values of the status quo. Listening to these so-called “intellectual heavyweights” is unbelievable—they don’t speak well, they have nothing to say, their synapses fire at about the speed a baby crawls. At least Condoleezza Rice dressed really well.

I don’t think Obama is any dummy, but he figured out long ago how to butter his bread generously. He is a man with no values, which speaks volumes about the parenting he received. I’m sure he is personally charming, but I don’t really care if the guy stealing my pittance is charming or not.

What is meant by “bright” people being the easiest to fool are the studies done which show that those with college educations are much more willing to take orders and do what they are told. I presume this is part of what a college education is intended to accomplish.

so left i am right: every advertising agency knows that intellectuals (bright persons) are the easiest to fool.

We’re going to have to revisit this when the government starts defaulting on T-Bills.

As, they say those in hell have plenty of time to think about their sins and how they came to be in Hell.

Hell’s just around the corner.

Kunstler, a former Rolling Stones editor and author of many books including the
MUST READ “The Long Emergency,” is always very blunt in his blog. He has a take
on the world unlike most and I think his “Peak Oil” filters in are pretty damn good.

http://www.kunstler.com/

Pres-O-dent is just a puppet, we all know that. The man himself may be bright
but those pulling the stings and scripting the show have only one goal. Greed. It
sounds dumb to us “little people” and it is dumb for us to believe it.

“I think America missed something…. but President Obama made a very interesting remark when the financial regulation package passed in the senate the other day. He said the bill would make sure that “Main Street is never again held responsible for Wall Street’s mistakes.”
    Whoosh….
    That was the sound of something going over America’s head. Something about the size of Rodan the Flying Reptile. And frankly I don’t think the president even meant to be coy or deceptive. It just means he doesn’t get it either. Never again….
    Never again?
    What the fuck?
    Why even this time?  Why isn’t there an army of federal attorneys out there, their teeth bristling with subpoenas, beating the bushes in every lane and skyscraper floor of lower Manhattan (and Fairfield County, Connecticut, not to mention a thousand office parks around the USA) to roust out the grifters and swindlers who took Main Street to the cleaners this time.
    The audacity of cluelessness! And the hilarity of “next time.”
    Earth to President Obama: there isn’t going to be a next time. This time was enough to git ‘er done. Wall Street - in particular the biggest “banks” - packaged up and sold enough swindles to unwind 2500 years of western civilization. You simply cannot imagine the amount of bad financial paper out there right now in every vault and portfolio on the planet. Enough, really, to sink any company even pretending to trade in things more abstract than a mud brick or an hour of labor. What’s more, the cross-collateralized obligations between them are so vast and intricate that all the standing timber in North America could not be fashioned into enough pick-up sticks to represent the hideous death-dealing tangle of frauds waiting for the wing-beat of a single black swan to come crashing down.”  James Howard Kunstler, 6/28/2010

Unlike Kunstler, I don’t think the president could be so damn dumb.  But he’s a swiss pocket knife of a tool.