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I found that on Digg.com today and it reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend recently about Americans, "democracy," and the accesibility of politics done behind closed doors in a language the average person living in America would be hard pressed to understand.
This friend asked me if it was a problem of American politics being inaccesible - geographically and academically or that the average American simply does not care to get involved in politics? All you would have to do is compare the voter turnout to the number of people who voted for American Idol to see that Americans are seemingly disinterested in politics.
There are the conspiracy theorists among us that believe the American political hegemony and the media monopolies are in bed with one another and this may be the very reason why people know more about Britney, Lindsay, and Paris than they do Hilary, Barack, and John.
Having seen this list and noticed this trend among my own friends and family I am left to wonder what came first:
The futile media and the culture it created
or
American almost entire disinterest in all things political?
Of real interest is the fact that most of us would think that if the sheer amount of the media's coverage of 9-11 and the ensuing "war on terror" throughout 2001 lead to increased interest in Osama Bin Laden, the World Trade Center, and the Taliban then the LACK of coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the United States soldiers on both battlefields would lead to an even greater interest in the wars and their effects on the American people if not the global community.
DISCUSS.
There's something to be said for "leaving it to the professionals", even with voting.
There's also little evidence that voters in more politically engaged societies tend to pick better leaders.
We've all seen the studies AND jokes done on Americans not knowing where anything is in the world or who their own leaders are. Obviously a lot of that could be exaggerated for effect, but if America wants to be seen as the gold standard for democracy and bring "democracy" to the rest of the world an un-informed/disinterested populace works in an almost contradiction to that.
I'm not saying that because you are politically engaged you will be more responsible in choosing your leaders when you have very few candidates of any real difference vying for the same positions but maybe when the nation decides to invade or attack another you will be more questioning of the motives from the beginning.
I'm not arguing for people to follow every second on the senate floor or watch C-SPAN like its ESPN (I would die of boredom myself doing that) but, just to put down the US Weekly once in awhile for The New York Times.
Maybe I'm being naive, but I think if people were a little more informed they would be more likely to revolt against injustice done unto them and the rest of the world.
But my question was more about was the average American always this disinterested in the actions of their Government or was it a result of the proliferation of the Access Hollywoods of the world?
I hope this all made sense...