Uncle Sam/ the CIA wants Americans to be easier to manipulate,

and free speech to go away, my college Prof. always said that the
American govmnt hates the Constitution, its true and the NeoCons
and the GOP regularly whizz on it.

Of course thats Fox broadcastings whole schtick:

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You're bringing down America!
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(Fox accuses, as Rush does, its enemies of doing what it itself does, Gestapo tactics)


Its bad enough that A-hole Colbert mimicks them.

I think that is on the spot tbh. Looking from outside. And knowing quite a few Americans. There is obviously a great many people who are smart.

But the incentive to educate yourself on the current issue is not really there. And people have better things to do than focusing on every far away event. This is where cable news comes in. It gives a fresh, quick perspective on the news. To bad it's laced with twisted one sided information and no real thorough in debt insight towards those issues. Only television I can think which is worse than the US on is the Italian one. Everything is about being entertaining. Not about being informative.

95%?

I would say between 30% and 40%.

Its better then the UK or Canada where the majority of people just accept what their politicians say and go with the flow.

XXXX is good and YYYYYY is bad.

At least dissent isn't the forbidden fruit YET in the US.

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Sic Semper Tyrannis






http://www.myspace.com/swoop187muzic

You think canadians are better informed about politics, history, and geography?

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January the 20th 2009. The day I started to respect America!

Funny enough Italy and US are the countries where people watch the most TV per day. If americans only had access to the BBC channells and bothered to watch them they would soon become much better informed.

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January the 20th 2009. The day I started to respect America!

Seriously? Because there's as much bias in there as in Fox or MSNBC. What I like about the American channels is that everyone is so much more open about it.

I suppose the question is pretty subjective. I think that when most people say that others are uninformed about "the issues", they include in this group (1) anyone who disagrees with them about an issue and (2) anyone who doesn't care as much as they do about an issue.

So yes, according to anyone speaking in this fashion, the majority of people are uninformed.

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

In a word: apathy
Particularly political, societal apathy.
Political apathy is an evolutionary result of political despair. Both are symptoms of a population that has given up on government. (to which the gov't is all too happy)
Societal apathy is the result of a numbness due to cheap entertainment and the ability to instantly satisfy many desires. Think of the coliseum in Rome...one of the smartest things the Roman government did.

And...America is by no means alone in this.

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The government cannot give without first taking.

Ain't that the truth.

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Great Quotes from Great Americans:

"With regard to the words 'general welfare', I have always regarded them as qualified by the details of the powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphisis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."James Madison, Father of the Constitution

As per my post i think Canadians are as misinformed as anybody when it comes to current events.

Andrew

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“...corporations and those who run them cannot stop exploiting resources and amassing wealth until they have... .I cannot finish this sentence, because the truth is that can never stop; like cancer, they can only continue to expand until they kill the host.”

-- Derrick Jensen

Might it be because they then sit and watch mindless entertainment? I to find watching Family Guy and American Idol very entertaining. But their hardly informative now are they? Clearly not representative for all aspects the US television market. There are some really great informative channels which get very high ratings. Such as Discovery Channel, TLC, etc. But when you just go by ratings, which represent income in terms of ads etc. Then when people turn on the TV to get Entertainment and Sports. You'll going to get a higher average that the informative shows. So you automatically tune the channel into a more entertainment based source. You might say: Well, thats what the people wants. And your right. They want that. But they also need to be greatly informed. Thats what our basis of government rests on. The informed public. If you always have the choice between watching football and a debate on the interaction between church and state. 95% is going to chose to watch football.

More accurately, Americans are oppressed by the Fox/CNN Big Brother

The number of Americans who can name a member of the Supreme Court or even the Vice President is shockingly low. Forget knowing their House Representative.
,

It used to be a good thing that Americans were uniformed. Why? Because government wasn't much of a part of our lives. As government has grown bigger with every president since Reagan, it's becoming increasingly dangerous for Americans to ignore what's going on in DC.

The simple answer to this is that we aren't lazy, like the rest of the world. Yes, we may play hard but we work harder than anyone else. Look it up for yourself. We work more hours than any other nation, on this Earth.

I remember there being riots in France and over a 100 cars being burned when they raised the work week from 30 hrs to 35...

For God's sake!!! A 30 hr work weak is friggin pathetic. Hell, even their 35 hr work week Americans would kill for as that would be seen as a gravy shift. Plain and simple we work hard and earn what we get. Other countries are complacent with the gov giving them everything through a bottle. Of course this has a negative side effect of more stress which shortens our life span and causes more illnesses *shrug*

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A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
- George Bernard Shaw