And I heard enough stories from thinking people who lived in the 20′s (my grandparents) and 50′s (my grandparents and my parents) to know that people certainly weren’t happier then. My Dad’s thought on the 50′s? “What? we were afraid The Bomb might drop any day. I’d rather not go through that again!”

Glenn Beck probably thinks Leave it to Beaver was a documentary.

Happiness, in this case, is a double-edged sword.

Religious people may be happier, but it may often be at the expense of the livelihood of others.

If the devoutly religious couldn’t feel better by deciding that bad things were just “a part of God’s plan”, maybe some of them would actually work to stop them from happening, thus improving life for everybody.

Well, I can dream, can’t I?

But it was being shown in the country’s top design university.

A person who really believed in God or any good ethical system would never behave in this manner and any person who claims to be a follower of Gods laws and behaves this way is just claiming membership to the club and not paying dues.

Yes and the small portion of humanity that is truly pious have been outnumbered by normal old fallible humans for the entire history of mankind.

What is it with people looking back at history and thinking they were the “good old days” that were full of purity and honesty and puppies?

The 10 Commandments are “basic rules of life”? Let’s just start at the top, shall we? This list is from Deuteronomy 5:

6 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; 7 you shall have no other gods before me.

Now why should that be “common knowledge”? I see no reason I should obey that one (and just as an aside, he sure as shit didn’t bring ME or any of my ancestors out of Egypt). It’s definitely not a “basic rule of life.” FAIL

8 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 9 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents

I take it my images of Ganesh-ji, to which I bow and chant every morning before breakfast, are right out. Again, not a reasonable “basic rule of life.” But you know what is? Not blaming kids for their parents’ behavior! I have to say I don’t much like this God of yours. FAIL

Moving on to Rule #3:

11 You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

OK, that’s pretty cryptic, and I really don’t give a rat’s ass about it. Pretty harmless, I guess, especially since literally no one in the world knows the correct pronunciation of YHWH and it could be Yahoo-Wahoo for all we know. Still, that would definitely not qualify as a “basic rule of life,” in this case because who the hell cares? FAIL

12 Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. 13For six days you shall labour and do all your work. 14 But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you.

I don’t know anyone who keeps that one (I used to know some Orthodox Jews, but I’ve lost touch with them). And it says you’re supposed to work a six-day week, which I have to say I don’t much care for. PLUS nothing is supposed to be open on Saturday (yeah, Saturday, look at a calendar). Kinda sucks if you want to go somewhere and need to stop for gas, or if (say) your house catches fire and you need firemen to put it out. And note the implicit endorsement of slavery; again, your God is not a nice one, and I’m not inclined to do as he says. FAIL

16 Honour your father and your mother, as the Lord your God commanded you, so that your days may be long and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

OK, that one’s pretty good. PASS

17 You shall not murder.

Basic as it gets. PASS

18 Neither shall you commit adultery.

Now, if this one just meant “Don’t cheat on your wife,” I’d give it a pass. But I believe it means “no sex outside marriage,” which I believe is counter to the best interests of the individual AND society. FAIL

19 Neither shall you steal.

Pretty good rule. PASS

20 Neither shall you bear false witness against your neighbour.

Again, sounds good to me. PASS

21 Neither shall you covet your neighbour’s wife.
Neither shall you desire your neighbour’s house, or field, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.

OK, this one sounds good at first, until you realize it’s about WANTING stuff. Trying to take it was covered under stealing. This one means that you can’t see your neighbor’s fancy new car and say to yourself, wow that’s nice. Wish I had one. This one is more about making sure people feel bad all the time than about controlling behavior. Note that Yahoo Wahoo repeats his endorsement of slavery here, along with classifying your neighbor’s wife among his property. FAIL

So that would be 60% FAILs as general rules of life. Feel free to keep them, if you’re OK with treating women as property and working six days a week and stuff. But “basic rules of life”? “Should be common knowledge”? Not on your life, because America is a diverse country, and I can worship a Hindu god if I want to, and work on Saturday if I have to, and covet my neighbor’s ass if he has a nice ass, and it’s none of your damn business.

Speaking of asses, you’re talking out of yours.

What, the millions upon millions of dollars that corporations spend on self-congratulatory advertising campaigns isn’t enough? Puh-leeeze.

One – There is a huge difference between Liberal and Leftist. Please learn it.

Two – I see lots of people claiming it’s propaganda but I don’t see many facts. Parts of it could be ideological but for the most part is seems factually correct. As in the following:

Mike1234
“In part 3 of the video the woman tells us that we sleep on pillows doused in neurotoxic (brain cell killing) chemicals. Give me a break.”

“My brain cells are being killed by watching this drivel.”

Annie Leonard is right. You are wrong pillow breath.
The Sustainable Scientist

As I said, Reality has a liberal bias. Is there a single fact contained in “The Story of Stuff” that can be shown to be false??

Thought not. Buncha ignorant Glibertarians… grrrrrr….

Free Range Studios
http://www.twitter.com/@freerangestudio

8 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 9 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents

I take it my images of Ganesh-ji, to which I bow and chant every morning before breakfast, are right out. Again, not a reasonable “basic rule of life.” But you know what is? Not blaming kids for their parents’ behavior! I have to say I don’t much like this God of yours. FAIL

Never mind that that giant cross many Christians focus on while praying is pretty much idolation. Plus all those little figurines of Mary and what not fall under this category.

No one follows the 10 commandments and they certainly don’t follow the other 603 commandments Christians somehow glossed over. And don’t give me that whole Peter, et al excused you crap. If that was true you wouldn’t have to follow the 10 commandments either.

What makes the film great is more the model that she uses to show how idiotic our manufacturing process is, and how it is simply doomed to fail for lacking a sound economic (never mind ethical) structure. It’s not leftist propaganda, but it does have a strong point of view that’s just a tad to the left of merely passing on facts. No more so that my grade school history book, though. If it’s going to be biased, hell, at least this one is motivated by the right reasons. The facts are mostly accurate, and the philosophy is dead-on.

2. Glenn Beck should live for a couple of years in a third world country and see how that effects his opinion. I think the Peace Corps would be a good thing for him– actually a church group might be better: he can see for himself that all the bibles in the world won’t help the poor when they are being kept down by powers much larger than them (be they corporations or governments bribed by corporations).

3. Whenever you think he’s outdone himself, Glenn Beck goes just a little bit farther. I try to guess what paranoid logic he will come up with next but he’s always one step ahead of me.

Thanks, Anonymous. Best laugh all day.

Or you could get off the couch and do it yourself instead of lying around dreaming about getting religious people to do it for you. Just a thought.

How do we fight that? I think that’s a big problem in civics today. How does a thinking, rational system thrive in a world where a significant amount of people are more easily swayed by illogical, obviously incorrect arguments… as long as they sound good and/or are repeated ad nauseum?

With a lot of people it’s a lot easier and more effective to be loud and patronizing than it is to be smart and insightful. That’s a hell of a hurdle to try and overcome without the shortsighted tactic of stooping to the same level.

And as for america being a “socialist slophole” because of corporate bailouts, well, a classic quote usually does the trick:

“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power” Benito Mussolini

You know, use the proper terms. Fascist slophole is closer to the point.

You, like everyone who uses that quote to make this point, are wrong.

The corporatism of Mussolini’s fascist state does not refer to modern, American-style business corporations.

See “Fascist corporatism” for details, but here’s the key bit:

Italian Fascism involved a corporatist political system in which economy was collectively managed by employers, workers and state officials by formal mechanisms at national level.

Emphasis mine. Italian fascist corporatism referred to the centralized management of the economy wherein various interests formed organizing bodies which were then directed by the state. Mussolini’s corporatism nothing to do with kind of corporations that we’ve been bailing out, and “corporate” was simply a collective, organized body that represented a particular group’s interests–including that of the workers. It was, in fact, a mechanism intended to achieve state control of the economy, not private business control, and was thus much closer to real-world (as opposed to idealized) communism as practiced by the Soviets.

To quote further:

Corporatism has been supported from [sic] various proponents, including: absolutists, conservatives, fascists, progressives, reactionaries, socialists and theologians.

Finally: it’s likely that Mussolini never uttered those words.

So, yes, use the proper terms. Don’t use fictional quotes to make your point, either. If you want a real quote to make the same point, use FDR’s:

The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism—ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.

Still highly debatable, but at least we know that FDR actually said it.

/pedantry

Yeah, yeah, a little implausible, but to me less implausible than them being sincere in this nonsense.

None of above that has anything to do with religion or socialism not too mention every time in history has it’s crazies. Lucky us (heavy sarcasm) we get Glennn Beck the wonder mensch and the 50′s had McCarthy. Hopefully history will let us spit when we mention Blech and not salute.

Beck has already shown that personally experiencing a problem makes no lasting difference on his opinion. His botched hemorroid surgery last year led him to make a video decrying the US health care system. Now? The US health care system is teh awesum.