Iran? Is That the One We Invaded? TRAGIC, WE ARE SO DUMBED DOWN

Iran? Is That the One We Invaded?

Forget the nuclear deal. My personal quest was to find a single American who could locate it on a map.


By ADAM WREN

July 16, 2015

“Your nation is grateful,” National Security Advisor Susan Rice tweeted this week as Secretary of State John Kerry and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz announced the most historic international agreement of the Obama presidency, the Iran nuclear deal.
Huh? Grateful? Us?

On Tuesday night, long after the ink had dried on the 159-page document outlining the pact, it took me three hours and nearly 10 conversations with shoppers, diners, and passersby at a Midwestern megamall, inside a nearby Applebee’s Bar and Grill, and on an Uber ride to find an average, everyday American—the most bandied about voter group so far during the 2016 cycle—who cared, or even knew, about the Iran nuclear deal.

Things are actually far worse than that. As it turns out, 75 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 can’t locate Iran on a map, according to a National Geographic-Roper Public Affairs Geographic Literacy Study in 2006, let alone be grateful for a complicated diplomatic deal crafted half a world away.
The Bondo-colored Castleton Square Mall, situated just off I-465 and Interstate 69 on the north side of Indianapolis, is the state’s largest mall. It lies 6,561 miles west of Tehran, but only a stone’s throw from familiar American chains such as Costco and Applebee’s. With its JCPenney and Sears and Chick fil A, Castleton earned a local reputation as the mall for 99 percenters, in stark contrast to its more posh neighbor down the street, The Fashion Mall at Keystone, where so-called 1 percenters can browse Apple or Saks Fifth Avenue or Tesla Motors retail stores.

On July 14, the day now known by Beltway pundits, diplomats and foreign policy wonks as the nuclear agreement “Finalization Day,” Ben Wallace, 35, sat outside of a Macy’s, enjoying a day he knew by a more pedestrian term: Tuesday. When asked if he had heard about the historic deal reached earlier that morning, Wallace, a barber on the city’s eastside who identifies as a Republican, squinted his eyes. He hadn’t heard anything about the events unfolding in Tehran or Washington, D.C., he said.

Was such an accord even necessary? Wallace wasn’t entirely certain. “They don’t like us, right?” he said of Iran, as he lingered over a box of sausage pizza from the food court.  “Isn’t it oil-related or Saddam Hussein-related?”

Asked whether he could identify Iran on an unlabeled map of the Middle East, Wallace used the process of elimination to narrow his choice between Saudi Arabia and Iran. When I pointed out Iraq—the country the U.S. invaded in 2003—to give him a reference point, Wallace was shocked to find that it seemed comparatively small.

“The smaller one? Damn.”

Nearby, Megan Lynch, 37, sat in a chair, resting after a busy evening of shopping. Lynch—an 11th grade English teacher at North Central High School in Indianapolis, a prestigious public school that’s produced notable alumni ranging from former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels to former Ebola czar and Vice President Biden’s former chief of staff Ron Klain—had also not heard news of the recently sealed pact that was hammered out over the course of some two years.

“I have been so very busy this summer,” Lynch said. “I usually keep up.”

She had at least heard of Iran. Asked about her opinions on Iran and foreign policy in general, Lynch shifted to biblical prophecy. “My political views are shaped by a very different focus,” she said, adding that under the relevant section of her Facebook page, she had typed three words instead of the more customary one. Not Republican. Not Democrat. Not Independent. But: “Follower of Christ.”

 “I’m pretty much led by the Word of God,” Lynch said. “I know that things happen the way that they’re supposed to happen, but I also believe that we have so many issues over here. I always think that [it’s important to] clean up your own backyard before you try and cut someone else’s grass. I’m a firm believer in a lot of prayer, and I don’t really get too caught up in a lot of the politics of everything. I know that things are going to happen in the way that God has ordained them to happen.”

Could she identify Iran on a map? Of course. But then, as she studied the same map Wallace had peered at minutes earlier, she seemed flummoxed. Roughly 10 seconds later, she surrendered. “Sadly, I must say no,” Lynch said.

Closer to the food court, Steve Winter, a 57-year-old auditor for an insurance company, hovered over a steaming Styrofoam clamshell container of rice and teriyaki chicken splayed on his table. Like Wallace and Lynch, he had yet to hear about the nuclear deal. He described hi

“There’s so many other things we’re concerned about,” Winter said. “It’s hard to be concerned about everything on the world stage.”
Later, outside the mall’s entrance, Chris Stark, 32, stepped out of a McAlister’s Deli with leftovers in his hand. He hadn’t heard of the president’s p5+1 victory, and like Wallace and Lynch and Winter, he couldn’t locate the country on the map. Did Stark think events in Iran mattered to his own life here in Indiana?

He shrugged.

Near a courtyard-like entrance to the mall, a 50-year-old woman who worked in marketing and identified herself only as Connie, walked with her college-aged daughter, Jess. Like Wallace and Lynch and Winter and Stark, she and her daughter couldn’t identify Iran on a map, and I had to break the news to them about the deal.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/07/iran-deal-americans-120246.html#ixzz3g6tJ8JUH

i am not surprised! problem is, we now live in a society that is too wrapped up in themselves to even see the big picture. you know it really is scary when you think about it. i went back to driving a big truck after 5 years of being off the road. what i have noticed is that about 65% of all the cars going by me on the road either have a person inside with a smartphone in hand, about half of them are texting and the other half are doing whatever. i heard a joke the other day and it goes like this; youtube,twitter and facebook are merging and their new name is going to be, youtwitface. i had to laugh, but that just about sums it up. my wife insisted that i have a smartphone, so i went "reluctantly" and got one, 3 weeks later i went and exchanged it for a good old fashioned flip phone and went straight back to being happy! the american public has no attention span whatsoever!

I totally agree, but it does take "time" to have an attention span.