An excerpt from Attention Deficit Democracy

Introduction
by James Bovard

Delusions about democracy are subverting peace and freedom. The American system of government is collapsing thanks to ignorant citizens, lying politicians, and a government leashed neither by law nor Constitution. While presidents and pundits harp on democracy’s inevitable spread around the world, it is perishing at home.

Victorious politicians routinely invoke the "will of the people" to sanctify their power. But voters cannot countenance what they do not understand. The "will of the people" is often simply a measure of how many people fell for which lies, how many people were frightened by which advertisements, and which red herrings worked on which target audiences. Rather than the "will of the people," election results are often only a one-day snapshot of transient mass delusions.

Many Americans have little or no idea how government works or who is holding the reins on their lives. The majority of American voters do not know the name of their congressman, the length of terms of House or Senate members, what the Bill of Rights guarantees, or what the government is actually doing in the vast majority of its interventions. A survey after the 2002 congressional election revealed that less than a third of Americans knew "that the Republicans controlled the House of Representatives prior to the election." Recent polls show that almost two-thirds of Americans could not name a single Supreme Court justice and that 58 percent of Americans could not name a single cabinet department in the federal government.

Americans are assured that they are free because rulers take power only with the people’s informed consent. What does "informed consent" mean these days? It means knowing the names of the president’s pets but not knowing his record on key issues. It means knowing the sexual orientation of family members of candidates for high office, but falling prey to their rewriting of history. It means recalling the phrases the government endlessly repeats, and screening out evidence of government atrocities.

The political ignorance of scores of millions of Americans prevents them from recognizing the consequences or dangers of government actions. The citizenry is increasingly on automatic pilot, paying less attention to each new war, each new power grab, each new dubious presidential assertion.

The rising gullibility of the American people may be the most important trend in U.S. democracy. With each passing decade, with each new presidency, it takes less and less to snooker Americans. And a candidate only has to fool enough people on one day to snare power over everyone for four years.

Attention Deficit Democracy begets a government that is nominally democratic – in which elections are boisterous events accompanied by torrents of deceptive ads and mass rallies. But after the election, the president returns to his pedestal. Attention Deficit Democracy lacks the most important check on the abuse of power: an informed citizenry resolutely defending their rights and liberties.

In 1693, William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, wrote what could be the motto for modern American government. "Let the people think they govern, and they will be governed." Rulers endlessly assure people that they are in charge – while creating agency after agency, program after program that people can neither comprehend nor control. Americans’ political thinking is becoming akin to the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance – a series of bromides that sink into the mind and stifle independent, critical thought.

...And that's just a piece of it! Read the rest while you're at it!!