Tag Archives: ignorance

And the Beat Goes On…

Frank Bruni’s Op Ed in yesterday’s New York Times reinforces a theme that has become all too common on this blog–a lament, really. He titled it “America the Clueless.”

Did you know (I didn’t) that despite the incredible amount of media devoted to “Obamacare” over the past few years, that forty percent of Americans don’t know it’s a law?

Some think it’s been repealed by Congress. Some think it’s been overturned by the Supreme Court. A few probably think it’s been vaporized and replaced with a galactic edict beamed down from one of Saturn’s moons. With Americans you never know.

Sixty-five percent of us can’t name a single Supreme Court Justice. Twenty-one percent believe that UFO really did crash in Roswell, and that the government has been covering it up ever since. As Bruni says, “That we Americans are out to lunch isn’t news. But every once in a while a fresh factoid like the Obamacare ignorance comes along to remind us that we’re out to breakfast and dinner as well. ”

As Bruni points out, engagement doesn’t necessarily correlate with information–just because someone is heavily involved in the political process is no guarantee that he or she possesses actual knowledge about the process or even the particular campaign or issue with which they are involved.

In 2010 in California, I covered a Tea Party rally at which Carly Fiorina, vying for the Republican nomination for a United States Senate seat, was scheduled to speak. I approached a couple whose profusion of hats and buttons and handmade signs — along with their willingness to spend hours in a crowded field under a punishing sun — led me to believe that they were at least somewhat politically engaged. I asked them if they were inclined to support Fiorina. With great seriousness, they said that they hadn’t yet decided between her and Meg Whitman. Whitman was running not for senator but for governor, in a race that hardly wanted for coverage. They didn’t have to choose.

My absolute favorite “factoid” from Bruni’s compendium, however, was this:

Months later a different poll asked voters about President Obama’s religious affiliation, persistently mistaken by some Americans to be Muslim. The good news? The share of voters making the Muslim error had dropped, to 10 percent. The weird news? Eighteen percent said Obama was Jewish.

I guess this answers my repeated question about how people like Louis Gohmert, Michelle Bachmann, Paul Broun et al get elected.

And speaking of religion, I have a favor to ask of those of you who pray. Would you please pray for a more enlightened, more rational America?

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Comedy, Tragedy and 9/11

This morning’s comics were virtually all devoted to the subject of 9/11. One of my favorite strips is Crankshaft (my husband and I tend to relate to old and cranky); this morning’s had Crankshaft sitting in front of his television, listening to a blond announcer give a really lovely tribute that ended with the following sentiment:

“Our nation will survive and grow, secure in knowing that knowledge always overcomes ignorance, and an open, inquisitive mind always overcomes fear.”

I am sad today, not only for the people who died in the towers that day, not only for the brave firefighters and police officers who died or became terribly ill trying to save them, but for the death of my faith in that very belief.

In the wake of the attacks, there was an outpouring of human kindness, a recognition that however different we might be otherwise, we were all Americans. In the wake of a tragedy,we had a rare, precious window of opportunity to rise to the challenge and be a better, kinder nation. Instead, we were told to go shopping, and we did. We embraced a more pernicious invasion–an attack by our own government on our civil liberties. We took out our new fears on our Muslim neighbors (and our neighbors who looked like they might be Muslim). We invaded a country that had no connection to the attack and put its costs on the national credit card so that our generation wouldn’t need to pay for it. We shut our eyes to torture and rendition. Rather than using the tragedy to contemplate how we might improve our communities, we closed our minds, turned on each other, and gave in to ignorance and fear.

The attack was a test and we failed it.

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