A Blog Posting by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF), from May 16, 2018.
According to recent polls, only 20% of Americans know how many U.S. Senators there are, and only one in seven young Americans could identify either Iraq or Afghanistan on a world map. A majority of Americans were unable to name more than one of the protections guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution.
The same polls show that 20% of Americans believe the sun revolves around Earth, and that 30% of Americans were unable to answer what year 9/11 took place. Yet, 22% of us were able to come up with the name of every member of the Simpson family.
This is, after all, the country in which the Flat Earth International Conference was held in 2017 (make sure to check it out this November in Denver), and featured workshops with names like “NASA and other Space Lies” and “Its Flat Like God Made It.”
Wow. It’s mind-blowing. You would have to work hard to believe some of those things…right?
Acceptance Without Question
Perhaps less mind-blowing, but equally disturbing and far more hazardous, is our acceptance of “news” that is delivered to us. The meme “fake news” has been making its way around our cosmos over the past couple of years, thanks to a Trump administration that polls really well with the flat-earthers. But the truth is, on many topics, we have “diluted” news. They are summaries of what’s happening in our country, but rarely explain why.
It is at our own peril that we do not understand why what’s happening in our country is happening. Nor do we understand how our system of government and law not only allows the why, but supports it.
When we understand the “why,” we are a dangerous public to those in power. Not knowing the “why” makes us easier to control. MORE…