The Really: Are we really as ignorant as they say we are?
For the most part, the masses are certainly guilty of displaying ignorance as far as their American political history goes but is it their fault? Shouldn’t the elite take it upon themselves to educate the masses so they can best understand what elites are doing? Or would the elite still be elite if the masses had even half of the American political history savvy as they do?
I personally believe the masses need to educate themselves, however, I also believe that it is incumbent upon the elite to promote general knowledge of the whos, whats, whys and whens of our political history. When people are educated about something they have the capacity to apply critical thinking to it. If the masses were all Rhodes Scholars or even in the 50th percentile of knowing about American political history the elites would have a lot of explaining to do.
Just take a look at our media. For the most part our media is comprised of semi educated and very educated individuals that are tasked at times with asking our elite, in this case political figures hard questions about exactly what they are doing. It is our media that may not discover, but tends to exploit and educate the masses when the elite are not doing the "right" thing.
Take the war in Iraq, the Enron scandal, President Bill Clinton’s abuse of power with intern Monica Lewinsky or President Bush’s use of illegal wire taps post 9-11. We leave it up to the press to basically educate the masses so that the masses have some idea why what the press is reporting is important. Example. When current President George Bush signed a bill in 2007 that temporarily revised federal electronic surveillance laws, he didn’t come out and explain to the masses what he was doing.
There was no Oval Office or Rose Garden speech about why he was doing this or how it may affect our right to privacy and freedom of speech. It was and probably always will be up to ourselves or our advocates, in this case the press, to inform the masses of what is going on and why it affects us. CNN wrote an article explaining that Bush had signed this bill into law and what it meant in regards to the affect it would have on the masses. This is a perfect case of the elite keeping our masses ignorant of their political history so that they can go about their business and just think of the few who actually read this article or anything about it.
Think for a moment, if George W. Bush had gone on national TV and said, “I am going to sign a bill into law that basically gives the Federal Government the power to listen to any of your phone conversations and take away your 1st and 4th amendment rights as American Citizens” do you think it might have been a little bit more difficult to sign that bill into law?
I do. I think when people are educated they participate. I think when the press or our elite want to us to be educated about our political history they do everything in their power to shove it in our faces so we have to know. They, the elite, tend to only do this when they strongly believe that they need to be seen as having public support for something such as the War on Terror. When the current administration went out to the public, they used radio, TV, news papers and any other possible avenue to reach the public to inform the masses of the impending doom that awaited us if we did not allow them to act.
Right or wrong, for may Americans only in a few cases such as the War on Terror, Bill Clinton's possible impeachment and now the economic crisis do the masses pay any attention to current or past American political history.
Ultimately it is up to ourselves to be educated about our American political history although it would be nice if we had some non biased help from our privileged elite. Maybe we can pass a law that states if you are elected to government office part of your job is to educate your constituents. Don’t hold your breathe…
