I was in high school in the early & mid 90s, so it was pretty well dumbed down already.
I'm going to tell you an old fart story, that is, a story from my youth. In 1968, I was 12 years old. Khe Sahn had just been relieved. (I remember a photo in the local paper which had a bunker entrance with the following sign over it: 'Warning: Khe Sahn can be hazardous to your health'; at the time I thought it was a humorous riff on the then new anti-cigarette campaign). There was no cable, only the big three networks, plus PBS (which was a fuzzy UHF channel in my locality), plus independent channels in the larger cities (Norfolk, Va and the surrounding Tidewater area was large but had no independent channels). On a weekly basis (on Friday or Monday, I forget which), the nightly national news served up, with dinner at most American households of the time, their body count report. It would always go something like this: An estimated 10,000 NVA were killed last week, while there were 257 US killed. I thought at the time, now wait a minute! If we're killing around 10,000 enemy a week, and only 'losing' around 200-300 of ours, this war should be over, just based on attrition alone. Yes, I actually thought in those terms. (Math: How does it work?) I knew the war reporting was fukced up, even at the ripe old age of 12. Why was this so? Because I was taught to think logically and critically in a coherent manner. Kids today? Not so much. Now they go along with the propaganda flow because of various reasons, but mostly because they are being trained to be government sheep, to not use critical thinking, as if they are even taught such 'nonsense' today. I was taught government was a necessary evil, something to be constantly monitored whereas now kids are taught how magnanimous government is, how benevolent, and if you don't believe it you're a radical anti-government terrorist, like those whack jobs at Ruby Ridge and Waco, or in the TEA Party. Now kids are cheerleading for government tyranny, as long as they get theirs (and they will, they just don't know the manner the 'get theirs' will take). We have created a whole generation of Khmer Rouge child killers, completely amoral with no empathy whatsoever, so killing for them is easy. It's how Pol Pot was able to keep power, through the killing fields run by illiterate kids. We may rightly fear the militarized police forces we have in this country today, but tomorrow it is the kids to fear. In fact, the little darlings are already flexing their muscles with their knockout game violence that goes unreported. I'm not sure of my point, but our situation is much more dire than many (not here, though) realize. When the FEMA camps with their youthful AmeriCorps guards get up and running, mass slaughter is inevitable, as inevitable as their sociopathy which has been deliberately inculcated and protected (just try getting a violent criminal thug kicked out of school; see: Tray-B-Gone). As far as I'm concerned, we're fukced: We haven't fired a shot in anger yet, even with all the abuses heaped upon us by this government. It is the appearance of normalcy which dispels our cries of 'Watch out! Tyranny is here!' Back then, I was taught the concept of good and evil, replete with historical and then current examples. Now good and evil is sooo judgmental, like how judgmental it is believing American culture is superior to the sand crab and jungle bunny cultures in the rest of the world.
"Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted." ~ Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov
We're there, though many do not know it, nor do they seem to care to know it. Just imagine camps run by the feral kids of today, kids completely amoral and without regard for human life. Pol Pot would be so damn proud of our teachers, praising them instead of killing them.
