BRIAN KAREM - Dumbass nation: Our biggest national security problem is America's "vast and militant ignorance" / ExxonMobil's campaign to fund climate science denial

By Dilip -

The United States is a nation of militantly ignorant people, arrogant in their beliefs, unable to change their minds and unwilling to try. We lack education. And the lack of education in this country is such a problem that national security adviser Jake Sullivan described it this week as a critical issue for our national security. "I do consider it a national security problem," he told me during a White House briefing on Tuesday. "In fact, it's Dr. [Jill] Biden who has repeatedly said — and the president frequently quotes her — that any country that out-educates the United States will outcompete the United States, and that is a fundamental national security issue."

Why is Biden failing? His tightly controlled relationship to the media might be worse than Trump's

NPR reported Tuesday that, in part because of COVID-19, we have 500,000 fewer students enrolled in colleges this year. Does anyone really think we can compete in the modern workplace with just a high school education?...

https://www.salon.com/2021/10/28/dumbass-nation-our-biggest-national-security-problem-is-americas-vast-and-militant-ignorance/

ExxonMobil's campaign to fund climate science denial

In a secret video recording made public in late June, a top ExxonMobil lobbyist—Keith McCoy, who was fired soon afterward—not only conceded that the oil giant's support for a carbon tax is a sham, but he also admitted that the company quietly financed climate science denier groups to stave off government action and maximize its profits—a fact that my organization, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and others revealed more than a decade ago.

"Did we aggressively fight against some of the science? Yes," McCoy, then ExxonMobil's senior director of federal relations, said during the interview. "Did we join some of these 'shadow groups' to work against some of the early efforts? Yes, that's true. But there's nothing illegal about that. We were looking out for our investments. We were looking out for our shareholders."…

https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/exxonmobil-climate-science-denial/

Tom Engelhardt: Biden's indirect admission highlights the steady decline of American empire


Guantanamo Bay - President Obama's shame: The forgotten prisoners of America's own Gulag


Conversation with Lawrence Lifschultz: The American reporter who investigated the assassination of Mujibur Rahman


"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face, forever" - George Orwell’s Final Warning


George Monbiot - Asymmetric force: Pegasus spyware is the latest tool autocrats are using to stay in power


Chauncey DeVega: Trump is mentally ill but our real sickness runs much deeper


America isn't breaking. It was already broken. By Andrew Gawthorpe // Why This Time Is Different. By Dahlia Lithwick


TOM ENGELHARDT: A World at the Edge


Alfred McCoy: The crumbling delusion of Washington's endless world dominion


William Astore: The U.S. Military’s Lost Wars // Chris Hedges: The American Empire Will Collapse Within a Decade, Two at Most


Andrew Bacevich: High Crimes and Misdemeanors of the Fading American Century

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