The Politics of Ignorance & Fear

[col. writ. 5/17/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal

As the presidential race inches toward November, it brings with it all
kinds of detritus, flushed from the hidden psyche of millions.

Politicians are used to representing the hopes of others: they're just as
used to dashing those hopes against the hard walls of reality.

For millions of women, the first real chance of a female president has
excited their hopes, some pending for generations. For millions of Black men
and women, the first real chance of a Black president had excited their
hopes, some deeply held for nearly a century.

For most people, however, politics is the art of unrequited hope, for
politicians promise the moon, and deliver star dust.

There is, after all, a reason why millions of Americans are so cynical
about politics, for they've learned that cynicism from the bitter well of
experience.

But consider these voices drawn from those we call the white working
class; middle-aged Al and Evelyn Landsberg; he, a lifelong Republican who
recently switched political parties, and was quoted as telling a Washington Post
reporter recently that Sen. Hillary R. Clinton (D.-N.Y.) would get his vote,
although she wasn't great. Clinton was, however, a good deal better than her
opponent, "you know, uh Embowa. He'd take this country right down the tubes."

His wife, Evelyn, cited data she gleaned from emails, saying, "From what
I can tell, if he (Embowa?} becomes president he will refuse to stand for the
Pledge of Allegiance and we will leave Iraq unprepared." She added, "I'm
not going to sit at home and let that happen."*

It's amazing to think that, several generations ago, millions of Blacks
were denied the right to vote through bogus literacy tests, while millions of
ignorant whites voted unhindered, by virtue of birthright.

Politics is often seen and interpreted as, well, 'the will of the
people.' It is often described in lofty judicial decisions and thick political
science texts as democracy in action--the People choosing their Government, and
ultimately, the American 'way of life.'

Yet, how much is simply unbridled ignorance? How much is simply blind
racial hatred? How much is just plain silliness?

And how much has this been force fed by the corporate media, which can
almost beat a dead horse back to life?

If the role of the media is merely to reinforce and buttress our
collective ignorance, what can democracy mean?

When ratings become the end-all, be-all of the corporate media, how can
it be anything but a mad dash to a mass echo chamber, where ignorance is
multiplied into mega ignorance, and wars become inevitable through rumor?

--(c) '08 maj

[*Source: Saslow, Eli, "Not Just Talking About Change: The Democrats have
registered more than a million new voters in the last seven primary states,
"Wash. Post, May 5-11, 2008 [Nat'l Wkly. Ed.], p.16]