Wullie wrote:My question for you, oh wise and all knowing slick, is WHY is this happening? Why do suppose that more people can tell you starting line up of their favorite sports team rather than who their representatives are?
farbeit from me to claim 'wise' or 'all-knowing', but thanks for the kudos. Actually, your question is a valid and good one. I have seen it pondered on political sites from left to right from time to time. I don't think there is ONE easy answer(unlike most true believers on left or right). I think the factors are these:
1. The society has gone soft. Our parents and their forefathers had real work to do, real sacrifices to make.
Our current society avoids sacrifice at all cost, and getting an education requires some real work.
2. Our economic system has always played well for those trying to sell stuff. Sports, movies, American Idol
and other stuff are pushed on a population to SELL them shit, it's that simple.
3. Education, and intellectual pursuits have become popular targets of political 'leaders'. It sort of started
with Spiro Agnew in the 60s, but Reagan and the Social/Religious conservatives have taken it to extremes.
4 With huge numbers of two-parent working households, no parent is home all day focusing on early learning,
schoolwork and the like. This has a negative effect on the final education and citizenship of the child, IMO.
5. The constant focus, in some political circles, on non-issues(see thread elsewhere where two goofballs
shouting at voters becomes a 'hot-button topic') has tuned a massive number of voting adults off.
Ever read any Karl Marx? I'd say those in power have read it well and applied it, and they are thinking that it is about time to pull the trigger.
actually, I had to read the Communist Manifesto for Political Science in college, and later read Das Kapital.
What, exactly, are the parts you feel are being read and applied? Marx decried as the 'opiate of the masses' certain things that distract the people and allow them to be led easily, never endorsing such. What are you talking about? Cite the book and page number if you can. You have read Marx, I presume, if you are going to rant about his writings?