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.
Nancy Morgan is a clumnist and news editor for RightBias.com
She lives in South Carolina
Moe Lane
Dan Spencer
Dan McLaughlin
Jeff Emanuel
Me too Nancy for the first 35 years for me....
JadedByPolitics (Diary) Wednesday, February 17th at 8:16AM EDT (link)I guess I always knew something wasn’t right that the RIGHT couldn’t be as bad as the left made them out to be however the beauty of age tells me that the left is AS BAD as they projected on the RIGHT. The LIARS in the leftist media my entire life spinning a story of the beauty of liberalism and to actually now see that liberalism is a KILLER of all the groups they profess to help.
I always take a moment in prayer to thank God for the internet and FOX news because without the ability to actually see the other side WE were indeed “useful idiots”…..the sun is shining in all the dark places of the LEFTIST media and they have no where to hide anymore!
BTW the idiot in Chief wants EVERYONE to have the internet I say to him and D’s if EVERYONE gets the internet they will NEVER win an office ANYWHERE because when the truth catches up to the LIES of the left Americans REJECT the left
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so was I for 37 years - more later - nt
Mike gamecock DeVine (Diary) Wednesday, February 17th at 10:45AM EDT (link)Mike DeVine’s Examiner.com and Charlotte Observer columns
“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson
Welcome!
Christine (Diary) Wednesday, February 17th at 9:08AM EDT (link)I call people in that other world “MSM liberals” because they spout not so much what they believe as what the TV and their college professors tell them to spout. They think they believe it, but that’s because of the lure of the message. The liberal agenda, as libs advertise it, sounds so perfect….so honest and fair, that it is a obvious route for young people to take.
I was in that world myself when I was younger. Although I was a registered Republican at 18, I believed what the TV told me. I voted against Jessie Helms somewhere in that timeframe simply because he was “old and mean”, and was BESIDE MYSELF when I learned both of my parents had voted for him.
I was lucky and “recovered” in 1992 when my husband and I discovered Rush Limbaugh. I was hooked….he made so much sense, was funny while doing it, and made me really THINK for once. That was my start down the “right” path.
I see others still in the “MSM liberal” trap and sometimes find myself angry and upset, or desperately trying to change their minds. Then I realize it’s not worth the worry or the effort. They are young and caught in the trap, and it will not be me who changes their path. Something in their lives, or someone they hear on the radio or TV will do it….or they will stay in the clouds. I just have to hope for the former, and wait.
The primary process is FLAWED. Two states should not decide our candidate.
“I would be a poor Commander in Chief”
– Barack Obama, July 3 2008
Yikes, typo....
Christine (Diary) Wednesday, February 17th at 9:10AM EDT (link)Jesse Helms….
The primary process is FLAWED. Two states should not decide our candidate.
“I would be a poor Commander in Chief”
– Barack Obama, July 3 2008
Welcome home.
Brian Hibbert (Diary) Wednesday, February 17th at 10:27AM EDT (link)I assume there are things posted here that you still don’t agree with. Please feel free to ASK or even ARGUE when you find such things. Either we’ll explain our reasoning or maybe you’ll point out something we haven’t considered.
Either way, reasoned honest debate is welcome.
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