For the first 39 years of my life, I was a walking, talking useful idiot. I believed without question what I saw on TV, and adopted as fact whatever I saw in the newspaper headlines.
Armed with this information, I figured I knew it all. There were no questions I couldn’t answer and no opinions I wouldn’t espouse. Especially when they were formed by others.
In my younger days, I still had respect for authority and institutions. I believed the ‘experts.’ I took their pronouncements as fact and defended them with fervor. I never doubted the premises. I truly believed that since everyone else believed that way, why, that was the correct way to think. If it was on TV or in the newspapers, it was true. That was the way things were. Absolutely.
I had the certainty of youth. Where all issues are black or white, where people were good or bad. Where no gray areas intruded to cast doubt on my wisdom. Things were ever so much clearer then.
Until age 39, I was too busy being the center of my own universe to give deep thought to any issue that didn’t affect me directly. I lived in a magical place where no analytical thinking was required. I kept abreast of other’s opinions and considered myself not only informed, but pretty darn smart.
Imagine my surprise when reality eventually intruded. When I found out that, gasp, Che was a mass-murderer, not a freedom fighter. That Kinsey was a sexual pervert and pedophile, not a scientist. That the earth wasn’t melting and that Obama wasn’t the answer to all the world’s problems. When I found out that ‘is’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘is.’
To my chagrin, I finally realized that no matter how thin the pancake, there are always two sides. And I had only been exposed to one. I was the quintessential ‘useful idiot.’
The term ‘useful idiot’ was originally coined by Russian mass-murder Lenin, referring to blind defenders and apologists for the Soviet Union in the Western democracies.
The most famous of these useful idiots was New York Times Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty. Duranty got a Pulitzer prize for his [non] reporting on Stalin’s man-made famine in the Soviet Union in the 1930’s. Duranty reported to the American people and the world that things were peachy keen in the Soviet Union, totally ignoring the fact that Stalin was starving millions of his own people. Stalin eventually killed more people than Hitler did in the Holocaust.
By proxy, Duranty turned millions of Americans into useful idiots. By reporting on what people wanted to hear instead of what was actually happening, America’s policies continued to enable Stalin’s killing spree.
Fast forward to 2010 and we see history once again repeating itself. Agenda driven, ideological reporting by the mainstream media is being accepted as fact by millions of Americans. And the powers that be are counting on increasing numbers of useful idiots to accept their premises without question. Like lemmings, blindly following their fellows into the sea.
All I feel now when I think of those days is acute embarrassment. The innocence, the naivety, the absolute certainty. Those happy days before I realized that I had been manipulated into accepting and promoting someone else’s agenda.
I had been treated as fodder in a war I wasn’t even aware was being waged. A war for the hearts and minds of American citizens. And because I had blindly parroted and regurgitated every popular consensus without question, I deserved the label of useful idiot.
Fortunately, this is not a life long condition. I am now a recovering idiot. I keep my mouth shut unless I am sure of my facts. I rely on common sense instead of the experts. And if I want to spout opinions, I make sure they are based on my own research instead of talking heads and soundbites. I also try to keep in mind that there are always two sides to every issue.
This doesn’t make me wise, but at least I am no longer an unwitting pawn in someone else’s agenda. Or a useful idiot.
Well,better late than never,Nancy…still and all,this puts you ahead of nearly half of the suckers out there who are still drinking the Kool Aid
now if the other 50 million kool aid drinkers would wake up.. welcome to the dark side Nancy, where fact and figures do matter!
Your comment about lemmings is wrong.
http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Disney/Lemmings.html
AMEN!!
NANCY you are very good writing a ost like that take some skill ,bye
Nancy, I appreciate your conversion, hopefully there will be millions more: yet you have neglected the most important part; why or how did you have this epiphany? You see, except for a few debating type libs and unbalanced trolls, we are all dedicated Conservatives who are committed to the Constitution and the principles of our founders.
Awakening the mind benumbed, “Useful Idiots” that Stalin referred to is a passion for us. Some of us campaigned for Goldwater, some of us remember the tragedy of McCarthy; let me assure you we appreciate a new Conservative, but if you can provide the key or missing link as to how to make an intelligent middle-aged woman realize the absurdity of Socialism and have a similar rebirth like your own, you would be the type of hero that Ronald Reagan would have had to dinner in the White House.
Yes, you are upbeat and inspiring; however, both of us know you are capable of much more. Now Nancy, oil up that keyboard and limber up those fingers; give us the insight that we hunger for, anecdotal history is entertaining; but we are not playing to win, we are playing to keep freedom alive for the future.
Thanks for writing Nancy and welcome to enlightenment by critical thinking. You are in good company and there is a lot of new ways to look back at stuff we’ve lived through and see the other side of that pancake. You’re a little younger than me, but two that shaped my growing up times, Vietnam and Watergate….. when you do a little digging and see that there was another side to the story … and context not represented by the media, etc, and you get a real uneasy feeling about just what has been going on …….
Skookum,
My conversion came as the result of six words uttered by Perot. He was on TV holding up a toilet seat, saying that the military paid $700.00 for it. And then he said, “And this is all public knowledge.”
It was then that I decided to educate my self on all this public knowledge. I started with National Review. For the first time I was exposed to the conservative POV. I was furious that I had lived my whole life (in LA) and had never known that I was exposed to only the liberal side. It changed my life.
Ever since then, my goal has been to make available the conservative point of view.
I’m one of those slow learners you hear about. It was around my 50th birthday that common sense set in. Now that I am retired I have been to different Tea Party rallies, and will be going to more. I am well known for the outfits I come up with and the signs I make.
The latest sign I came up with is an “UNWANTED” poster for Pelosi when she was going to speak at Lancaster PA, but bad weather coming canceled it. I suggest others make “UNWANTED” posters and put the picture of the ones you don’t want in congress on them.
Well written Nancy, but be careful mentioning Perot around here, just sayin’.
Nancy, I was looking for a secret as cryptic as the Double Helix and you hand me a toilet seat. What a funny story! Thank you!
I remember Ross and his toilet seat: it is a good story, you might want to retell the story at some point in the future. Humor is the most challenging discipline of journalism, but it might be fun for you.
I was hoping for the secret catalyst that could help us all in our political missionary work, yet you may still have the key: a visual aid that illustrates corruption, hypocrisy, and deception that is both humorous and humiliating to the opposition.
Thanks for being a good sport, this information may yet prove to be extremely useful.
hi SKOOKUM did you bring your camera on your ski trip?are you participathing in the olympics games in vancouver? bye
SKOOKUM i just read a post very interresthing at MARION’s fromRON EWART about INDIVIDUAL SOVEREINGTY that americans must have the courage to each fight for their freedom because the danger letting others to take overyour freedom,very good is in it to remember.there is more but this struk me
Welcome aboard, Nancy. I was late to the party myself (I was actually a confirmed SOCIALIST who voted for Jimmy Carter to my eternal shame), but once I figured out how wrong I had been, I NEVER LOOKED BACK.
@yippie21: The term ‘critical thinking’ has been attributed to the indocrination machine of the communism international. It is used to instill in our children, and ourselves, the idea of ‘criticizing’ their world around them i.e., our world.
Dangerous thing. Capitalism has built a beautiful world around us. Let’s give it praise every time we can.
Congratulations Nancy. Wish I could say I had awakened as early as you have…I didn’t have my epiphany until the Democrat Rules and Bylaws Committee Meeting in 2008. Thank God for C-Span! Watching them in action, live and no editing, made me so angry I had smoke coming out of my ears. You do feel foolish. I always made my own way for myself and my children, yet was made to feel responsible and guilty for all the evils and ills of the world. This from one who has always had a deep love family, history of our country and our constitution. Just goes to show how good propaganda can be that your thinking can become so twisted. I, too, am embarrassed at how I used to spout off…cringe worthy for sure…a regular little regurgitating tape recorder. Oh, well, I had plenty of help getting there and I got my own self out…now a happy Independent.
We became Reagan Democrats because of….Carter.
Although we went on to vote for Bush 41 we remained dems until C-SPAN came to town. I was home when the Rio de Janeiro conference was going on. Al Gore blathered on during a committee meeting about Bush and what his environmental representative was doing in Rio. I can’t remember who it was that Bush sent but he testified later and I could see Gore was lying….to Congress.
I thought all this would be a big news story, that night I waited to see what Peter Jennings would be saying about it. He showed clips of Gore and repeated Gore, it was like a slap in the face, Gore lied and the press made no effort to report exactly what had happened in a televised committee meeting. When hubby came home I made him watch the rerun of it later that evening.
This became a ritual, I was addicted to C-SPAN and made hubby watch it every night, baseball games? made him stay up late and watch reruns of the reruns after the game. He’d fall asleep and I’d poke him.
I began to detest Sarbanes-MD, Sasser-TN and Riegle-MI, considered them to be the three stooges of the Senate, they were actually campaigning for Clinton/Gore in committee. I was embarassed to be a democrat because of their behavior.
Big tall Foley and chubby cheeked Mitchell, to me were Sylvester and Tweety. I swear, they never missed a beat, they spent more time out on the steps in front of cameras whining about that bad, bad Bush. Of course the press would eat it up, they were pulling for Clinton/Gore.
At that time I had a friend that was working for Bacon’s clipping service, she told me about her job and how many newspapers she read a day. Whoa! what an interesting job so I went down there and got a job, read 33 newspapers a day, during my lunch hour and breaks I would read the political articles, out of the 33 papers, only one paper from a small town in Indiana was reporting the whole story, another eye opener, discusting!
We also found Rush on WHO/Des Moines while doing our weekly trip through Iowa, after we crossed the Mississippi we could pick up that channel. A few years later our local radio channel started broadcasting his show, after his television program began airing.
Nancy, we also subscribed to National Review and would read it from cover to cover, once we were done with our magazine you could tell it was well read, we couldn’t get enough of this new kind of information.
At some point in our lives, most of us were “useful idiots” until we became conscious of reality. And this is probably one reason why.
http://www.brutallyhonest.org/brutally_honest/2010/02/under-seige-the-deliberate-dumbing-down-of-america.html
One thing we MUST do, is to hold any incoming Reps accountable if they do not fix that.
YONASON yes this post kind of make me to return in my past and bring my useful idiocys at the surface just when i was sure they where deleted bye
Interesting conversion stories, we should all add ideas and experiences.
I have felt I was born a Conservative. I work for a rancher who was a congressman during the Reagan era, a great guy to talk politics; I asked him it was possible to be predisposed toward Conservatism because of genetics, he told me that was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard. He is a moderate Conservative in the midst of CO, a Liberal bee hive. You’d think he would be more considerate of my feelings, but that is not the nature of our relationship.
We have great conversations after dinner: he knew all the key players by their first name so he is a great resource. He is old school Princeton Republican and considers me a radical Conservative, together we have met many limousine liberals in healthy but bitter debate. Great fun! not exactly a conversion, more like exposure to a moderate Republican who still believes Liberals are legitimate patriots with a different point of view. I give him current facts that makes his old Korean War platoon leader’s blood boil. I’m sure when I leave, his family spends time cooling him out. I usually spend a week or two there every spring, and I have done so for over twenty years; so I have plenty of time for sowing the seeds of discontent.
hi SKOOKUM i hope you put this one in your book too bye
From the movie “The Matrix”:
Morpheus: This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.
Funny how the color of the pills matches the colors on the election maps…
Skookum,
I have found most on the left to be impervious to facts.
Nancy, most of the left can’t even handle reality.
I was never a liberal, but I was a moderate Republican as a teen. Not a RINO, but a true moderate.
I didn’t fully understand the nature of the left. I actually thought that most were just uninformed and swayed easily by emotional arguements. I learned otherwise when I got out into the world. They tend to be elitest, arrogant, narcissistic, extremely hateful, and unstable.
An informative and fun thread of commentary.