Thursday, July 21, 2011

How Can We Americans Maintain A Democracy In Ignorance?

To me the issue is the U.S. media not living up to its First Amendment obligation to bring us important news. U.S. soldiers are being killed and maimed and vastly more of them are coming back with PTSD and will need long term care, yet virtually none of their stories are being told. They and their families are invisible. America is in dire financial straits yet is spending billions of dollars a month in these wars, but this is not worthy of coverage even as politicians debate a debt ceiling.

How can we Americans maintain a democracy in ignorance?

Dick

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Dick,

It is indeed frightening.

A couple of thoughts: 1) It may be that most people are simply overwhelmed. In such a case it’s hard to know where to start and it’s easier to just have another beer and watch more TV. 2) It may be that the “reality media” has inoculated us to the suffering of others. We cannot see genuine suffering through eyes hardened by staged suffering as presented on TV and in movies. We have lost sensitivity to reality.

Here is another frightening concept:

http://vridar.wordpress.com/2010/07/15/how-facts-backfire-why-facts-dont-change-peoples-opinions/

Namaste, John

Anonymous said...

Thank you John for your insightful comment.

Dick Kazan