In the wake of the Tea Party, the Occupy movement, and a dozen or more episodes of real rebellion on the streets, in the legislatures of cities and towns, and in state and federal courthouses, this presidential race now feels like a banal bureaucratic sideshow to the real event – the real event being a looming confrontation between huge masses of disaffected citizens on both sides of the aisle, and a corrupt and increasingly ideologically bankrupt political establishment, represented in large part by the two parties dominating this race. Let’s put it this way. What feels more like a real news story – Newt Gingrich calling Mitt Romney a liar for the ten millionth time, or this sizzling item that just hit the wires by way of the Montana Supreme Court.
Taibbi points to an astonishing statistic brought to the public attention by Dylan Ratigan: "94% of the time the candidate who raises the most money wins. That's not a democracy. That's an auction."
Here is an MSNBC feature on locksmiths who cheat people who call them in emergencies when they are locked out of their homes. This news piece follows a tried and true formula for creating a good memorable story: It vividly exposes an unscrupulous practice, and then turns the camera on the perpetrators as they try to slink away. To tell the complete story, the producers included the fact that there are honest people in the trade (in this case, honest locksmiths); locksmiths can make a living while giving people a fair shake.
Why, then, don't networks treat all of those who lie, cheat and steal with comparable scrutiny? What I have in mind are Wall Street Banks, telecoms, fossil fuel industries, healthcare insurers, the defense industries and other powerful entities who have purchased Congress and then made certain that industry reform is impossible. These industries have driven out competition and/or figured out how to freely feed out of the public trough. They've been gouging consumers, directly and indirectly, in ways that make the crooked fees charged by locksmiths look like chump change. Consider this recent article by Matt Taibbi, illustrating how big banks are cheating taxpayers.
Consider also how Barack Obama's promise of an expanded industry of energy conservation and sustainable energy production would be a centerpiece of his Administration. Though he has done some good things, has also opened up large tracts of Western lands to coal mining and providing much more funding to nuclear and fossil fuel than to green alternatives. This is one of many of Obama's broken promises-- somehow, indefinite warmongering against undefined enemies is somehow much more important that having a sustainable economy back home. And even after "health care reform," people who had health insurance are struggling mightily to pay uncovered medical bills, many of them tipping over into bankruptcy. Payday lenders run rampant across the country. A few months ago, telecoms almost succeeded in destroying what is left of net neutrality.
These sorts of thing don't just happen; powerful people are consciously making these terrible decisions, and they (including most of our politicians) are motivated by money, not public service.
I fear that one of the main reasons we are cleaning up these industries is that too many Americans are math challenged -- they suffer from innumeracy. And most Americans would flunk a basic test on American civics and history. Foxes run rampant in the American hen house. One would need to spend some serious time thinking about the effects of lack of competition in order to appreciate how much the public is being fleeced, but Americans are highly distracted with TV and other forms of entertainment. Another hurdle is that big media is owned by big companies and serves big industries by selling them commercials. Thus, we don't see constant aggressive journalism illustrating how the public is being ripped off by many (by no means all) big businesses.
Don't expect the journalism to get better, especially for the reasons outlined by John Nichols of Free Press. Expect things to get worse, in light of the fact that this week the FCC proposed a new set of rules that would unleash a wave of media consolidation across the country. If the agency's proposal sounds familiar, that’s because it’s nearly identical to rules the FCC proposed during the Bush administration. This proposal is especially scandalous for the reasons stated here.
An additional hurdle to getting these stories out is to make them simple and memorable stories, but this is quite a challenge. These industries have successfully complexified themselves--it now takes "experts" (including teams of lawyers) to understand how these industries function. Ordinary people don't have much of a chance of even articulating how and why they are getting ripped off, much less understanding what can be done to fix the problems. Complexity is not an accident--it is a tactic. Consolidating the mass media isn't simply happening--it is a tactic of big business to maintain control, as are recent attempts to give private businesses the power to shut down internet domains without a court order.
There is no incentive for the mass media to excoriate those behind any of these proposals. There is little to no incentive for big media to descend on those behind these movements as though they were crooked locksmiths. If only.
I just finished taking this test of United States government civics and history. I correctly answered 32 out of 33 questions, having guessed at a couple of them. I believe that most of these questions are fairly worded and that they concern important topics of which American voters should be familiar. I assume that I scored highly because I work as a lawyer, because I read quite a bit, and I actually lived through some of the events mentioned in the questions. I would think that Americans who choose to vote should be able to answer more of these questions correctly than incorrectly. In fact, it is my opinion that people who do terribly (those who answer more incorrectly than correctly) should voluntarily refrain from voting in national elections because they lack a basic foundation of knowledge on which to base political decision-making. Now consider this:
More than 2,500 randomly selected Americans took ISI's basic 33 question test on civic literacy and 71% of them received an average score of 49% or an "F." The quiz reveals that over twice as many people know Paula Abdul was a judge on American Idol than know that the phrase "government of the people, by the people, for the people" comes from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.
As discussed by the linked article, even significant numbers of elected officials who took this test displayed ignorance regarding basic topics. This is highly discouraging, of course (and see here).
It is difficult to argue that the People of this country should self-govern when so many of them are so ignorant of the basic information they need in order to cast meaningful votes. It's time to break the silence and to admit to each other that in order to self-govern, the citizens will need to be much more selective in how they spend their free time. They apparently need to be much more selective in their television viewing and book choices (25% of Americans did not read any books last year). Better education is the answer, but how can we educate the many millions of people who have already graduated from school? How can we pry them, at least once in a while, from the addictive fare offered by the Entertainment Industries?
I would love to make all candidates currently running for President take a comparable test. I would suspect that at least several of them would fail even this simple multiple choice test. Actually, I believe that Presidential candidates should be required to take a much more difficult and detailed test under supervised conditions to demonstrate whether they are well-versed in American politics and history. Their scores should then be published (along with the questions and their answers) for voters to consider.
These test results indicate that these are dangerous times for our country. It's frustrations like these that lead me to advocate dramatic measures, such as passing a Constitutional Amendment to get money out of politics. Such an amendment would be a start, and only then might we have meaningful conversations about what needs to be done to fix the country. We cannot have such conversations while we have ignorant voters and corrupted politicians. If we can't depend on the People of this country and if we can depend on our elected officials, on whom can we depend?
Maybe, after passing a constitutional amendment to get money out of politics, we could have some chance to break up big banks and big media, we maybe then we could start weaning ourselves off of fossil fuels and we could start investing in better quality civics and history education for our children.
Or maybe my proposed first step is a pipe dream. Based on many conversations I've been having with people I respect, I'm increasingly worried that we don't have what it takes to pull out of our current nose dive.
Penniman cites disturbing statistics: 40% of a Congressional representative's time is spent soliciting donations. Almost all of that time is spent soliciting wealthy individuals who don't even reside in their districts.
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