Americans react to Pravda mockery of 'illiterate' Obama voters

https://twitter.com/Gabby_Hoffman/status/272832932299821056

PRAVDA: Obama 're-elected by illiterate society'… http://t.co/MpFhde5p

— NEWS MAKER (@NEWS_MAKER) November 25, 2012

https://twitter.com/Jeffersonranch/status/272824636755030016

#Pravda claims Obama is promoting the #CommunistManifesto – a leader "re-elected by an illiterate society."

— CupaLena (@lena116) November 25, 2012

Pravda, the communist Russian mouthpiece of dictators for one hundred years, knows a savvy, exploitative commie when it sees one. A recent op-ed in the propaganda rag mocks America’s “illiterate society” and credits President Obama for exploiting voters’ ignorance to promote the “Commnist Manifesto without calling it so.” Transmit this:

Recently, Obama has been re-elected for a 2nd term by an illiterate society and he is ready to continue his lies of less taxes while he raises them…

…

…He is a Communist without question promoting the Communist Manifesto without calling it so. How shrewd he is in America. His cult of personality mesmerizes those who cannot go beyond their ignorance. They will continue to follow him like those fools who still praise Lenin and Stalin in Russia. Obama’s fools and Stalin’s fools share the same drink of illusion.

Logical consistency isn’t to be expected from a state propaganda organ, but the fact that Pravda attacked Obama from the right may be a first.

Many American Twitter users responded to the story by … agreeing:

Going back more than six years, it’s clear our nation’s college students are largely civically illiterate. According to surveys from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, college freshmen typically flunk a 60-question civics test with an average score of just better than 51 percent; college seniors flunk it with a score of around 53 percent.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, our country’s high schools taught less about the constitution in 2010 than they did in 2006, a trend that continues. In fact, in 2010, only 67 percent of high school seniors studied our founding documents, meaning about a third don’t study our government in the year before they are eligible to vote.

Based on National Assessment of Education Progress tests, the formal assessment exams given to students across the nation to gauge what they’re learning, American students exhibit an alarming lack of proficiency in government and economics.

As of 2006 (the last year for which statistics were available when I researched the book), only 36 percent of high school seniors could name the government’s primary source of income. (That would be taxes, kids.) Only 33 percent could explain the effect of an increase in real interest rates on consumer borrowing, and a scant 11 percent could analyze how a change in unemployment rates affects income, spending and production.

And of course, it’s not just young adults who are civically illiterate. In 2008, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute administered a basic 33-question civic literacy test to a random sample of 2,508 American adults. Respondents had a range of educational attainment from high school diplomas to advanced degrees.

Questions came from past institute surveys, as well as from nationally recognized exams, such as the U.S. government’s citizenship test and the National Assessment of Education Progress test. Respondents also were asked questions regarding their level of engagement in other activities that may or may not contribute to civic literacy.

The average score for all Americans who took this straightforward civic literacy test was 49 percent, or an “F,” proving the apple doesn’t fall far from the civically illiterate tree.

Heh: