cker said:
I think the largest problems in the US are based on the ignorance of average Americans. Not so long ago, about 1/3 of FOX News viewers thought Saddam Hussien was responsible for the 9/11 attack. There's lots of statistics like this indicating that people are not well informed about a wide range of issues. The media is part of the problem but the news companies are driven by ratings and if people wanted quality information, they would deliver.
Personally, I think you are mixing up the cause and effect here. All of the media conglomerates and news companies are owned by a handful of corporations. To my mind, the masses aren't requesting accurate or truly informed information because they don't know what to ask for...they assume that the news-media is acting as the news, unbiased, impartial and accurate, when in fact, it is acting as the news-media; the lapdog of corporate ownership and interest.
The reason people thought Saddam was responsible is because this is the way that these events are presented to them by FOX...it's not that they independently thought about it, researched it and then started watching FOX; it's that, what they believe to be "news" told them or insinuated this "fact" and allowed them to apply that maligned understanding to whatever else happened to be going on at the time. Ratings don't affect the news...I mean, they do, but not to the degree ratings affect most shows. Most news agencies expect to (at least they used to with regards to tv-media) operate at a loss, and can do so precisely because they are corporate-owned and another sector's profit makes up for their loss.
The News (ideally) exists to create the informed public that is necessary for a democracy to function properly. We can get into the inherent contradiction of "democracy" and "capitalism" at a later date, but assuming that the news does its job and doesn't function as the news-media, you wind up with an informed public. Why? Because most people are sheep...decently intelligent sheep, capable of seeing things and making connections, but sheep nonetheless. If the news was not corporately-manipulated and propagandized, people would be getting a "picture of the world" rather than a daily slice of horror designed to increase fear and sell a product that should not exist to be marketed as such. This picture of the world would create an informed citizenry and allow for an awakeneing of sorts. The average Joe works an exhausting nine-to-five wage-slavery job and comes home completely beat. He doesn't have the time or the energy to take on research projects and read voluminous works on the geopolitical scheme of the world, so he flips on the news-media, which he believes will present him with a distillation of global reality...unfortunately, that's not even remotely close to what he gets.
Enforce journalistic standards, cut the press from the corporations, end the sensationalism and return the news-media back to what it once was and you will have a considerably better-informed citizenry.
cker said:
Finally, if we don't hold government accountable, they will do whatever is easy and in THEIR self-interest. If we are too lazy to be informed, we can't fix anything and will have the government we deserve.
This is exactly what happens...this is because the politicians and CEOs are in bed with each other. They control the media, they control the regulatory firms, they control EVERYTHING. How do you hold government accountable when it's literally the same people going back and forth between government, private sector, and private sector regulating firms? It's literally impossible. This is the incestuous behemoth we have created that needs to be taken down...most likely through violent overthrow...simply because, nothing less will effectively abolish the system.
It's not about people being too lazy to be informed, it's about the capitalist system preventing people from having the time or energy to stay informed of political events. Add on a credit/debt-cycle economy to this and suddenly all of the average person's time and energy goes into barely keeping their head above water. When you have entire sections of the populace that can barely feed, clothe or house themselves, how the hell can you expect them to stay informed? This problem is systemic and as much as it is inherent to the capitalist system...it can be traced back to Reagan's deregulation and tax policies. In the 1970's, the American working class had the highest standard of living, EVER. Consequently, it was also a period of great political and social activism. Since the implementation and continuation of numerous Reagan-era policies, we have continued a long dark slide into the abyss, as a tiny minority gains incredible wealth at the social, economic and natural resource cost to the vast majority of the country's populace.
