What Information and The Only Reason That Is Really Important

It is impossible to disagree with the recycled, seven year old item originally posted at TomDispatch, up at Alternet by Rick Shenkman about the extent to which Americans are dangerously ignorant and how dangerous that is.  I think it's fairly safe to say his approach in reproaching Americans isn't going to do a thing to help fix the problem.  Since the chapter is an excerpt from a book, he might have had some ideas in that but I don't have the book, I only have this excerpt and it's hardly news that Americans know dangerously little about the world, history, etc.

Perhaps I'll go back later today and look at comments to see how self-congratulating they are that the readers of Alternet are so much smarter than the vast majority of people and the group shunning of the ignorant masses, having fact checked and analysed a number of Alternet articles and comments in the past, they don't have nearly as much to brag about as they like to pretend they do.

From looking around for more of what Shenkman said apparently he did have some ideas about how to fix the problem, even mentioning the unmentionable, that television plays an enormous role in that ignorance and disinformation.

Just how stupid are we? Pretty stupid, it would seem, when we come across headlines like this: "Homer Simpson, Yes -- 1st Amendment 'Doh,' Survey Finds" (Associated Press 3/1/06).

"About 1 in 4 Americans can name more than one of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment (freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly and petition for redress of grievances.) But more than half of Americans can name at least two members of the fictional cartoon family, according to a survey.

"The study by the new McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum found that 22 percent of Americans could name all five Simpson family members, compared with just 1 in 1,000 people who could name all five First Amendment freedoms."

Having committed the unpardonable sin of mocking FOX Entertainment's products online, Matt Groening's cutely cynical cartoon, included, I can tell you that the audience he probably hoped to attract and which Alternet is geared to is probably far better versed in The Simpsons and sit-coms than they are in the laundry list of ignorance the post goes through*. And boy do they get touchy when you diss their shows.   Which should inform them that the practice of mocking people for their ignorance and on their taste in entertainment isn't likely to make them want to learn.  It's certain to make them not want to take the advice of those who are mocking them.

Television and now the internet are the central problem because there are only so many hours in a life and when you spend eight hours a day watching TV, that's what's going to be in your head and how you're going to use it.  Television, not schools, have become our de facto public education system and it is about the worst one imaginable.   Television isn't required to serve the common good, providing  The People with the right to information that they need to cast an informed vote for people who aren't crooks and crackpots and so they don't.  It's in their interest as corporate, profit making entities to entice an audience with what's easy, facile and entertaining and excluding anything that is at all challenging or, especially, what would be disadvantageous to their financial interest and the interest of the owners and the class that they serve, the rich.

There is some irony in the fact that when he posted this piece that Shenkman worked at George Mason University because George Mason is where the problem he decries originated.   As the "father of the Bill of Rights" Mason drafted a much longer set of proposed amendments to the original Constitution. His #16 said:

16. That the People have a right to Freedom of speech, and of writing and publishing their Sentiments; that the Freedom of the Press is one of the great Bulwarks of Liberty, and ought not to be violated.

Expressed in that First Amendment as the briefer catch all:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Which has been interpreted by the branch of government most friendly to the interests of the wealthy and the oligarchs, the Supreme Court, to pretend we are still an 18th century print based world, totally ignoring the danger of mass media to prevent effective self-government and to serve any interest except the one the Constitution claimed to serve, The Peoples' right to self-government.

It also doesn't distinguish between the personal liberty of natural people as opposed to the artificial entities that are "the press."   Especially when "the press" is actually a corporation, that difference becomes crucial as corporations are formed to greatly increase the power and ability of those involved to bend things to their own ends, including corrupting governments and duping The People into acting against their own good.  That, in short, is the problem of why ignorant people can't govern themselves and why they will be at the mercy of demagogues, corporations and a real ruling class, whether called a plutocracy or an oligarchy.

Our Bill of Rights is dangerously vague** in addressing that issue and the corrupt Supreme Court has used that vagary to corrupt elections and the information that people need to rely on to vote in the best interest of themselves, their families, their communities, their country and the world.   The Supreme Court, being chosen in the most undemocratic manner of any part of our government, has proven to be untrustworthy in that and so many ways.   Since they can be counted on the continue in that, we will only be safe if the Amendment is amended to place responsibilities for honesty and truth on electronic mass media.  The environment in which democracy will have to survive and live has changed, absolutely, from the one the 18th century aristocrats who wrote the First Amendment,   The history of the use of mass media as a tool of deceit, cheating, robbing, oppressing, inciting mass murder all through corrupting of the minds of The People with lies appealing to the basest of our weaknesses proves that democracy won't survive under the rules as they are now.

When the history of how The United States lost democracy is written, it will probably be a lie financed by billionaires, under the system the libertarians of the "free speech-free press" industry has promoted.  The real reason will be because of how The First Amendment has been interpreted to allow the mass media to distract and lie to The People through television, radio and other electronic media.

*  No one can know everything, they can't even know everything they're supposed to know or need to know.  Certainly, as a citizen in a democracy, you need to know what you need to cast an informed vote on current issues than you do to know a lot of facts about things that you will never need in your lifetime.  I don't think it's going to be a serious impediment to casting an informed vote if an American doesn't know the date of the Norman Conquest of England.

[Note, yeah, that "Normal Conquest" got past me this morning.  I have to stop using the automatic spelling corrector on my word processor.]

One of the big problems caused by the mass media is that a lot of people believe they know about the past based on historical fiction, the falsified history found in movies and TV shows, costume dramas, falsified historical myth, etc.  The cult of Constitutional Originalism is founded on obviously ideological lies told about the document, its writers, those who voted to accept it and the history of its use.  It was a cult that has clear political and economic goals,  promoted and supported by the same wealthy class that has taken up the pseudo-liberal chant of "free speech" "free press" to use for those ends.  The suckers that so many liberals are, misinformed by their own romantic view of history and civics, don't even seem to notice that operation going on in the open, right before their eyes.

** The one that became the "Second Amendment" is actually, somewhat more specific and, so, less dangerous than the abbreviation in the final version.

 17. That the People have a Right to keep and to bear Arms; that a well regulated Militia, composed of the Body of the People, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe Defence of a free State; that Standing Armies in Time of Peace are dangerous to Liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided as far as the Circumstances and Protection of the Community will admit; and that in all Cases, the military should be under strict Subordination to, and governed by the Civil Power.