What they tell you..but don't want you to know....

Currently I am taking an Intro to Public Policy Analysis course for my masters and it has turned out to be some what of an eye opener about how the government sees citizens. The MEN who make policy, our representitives, and those that just specialize in researching and cranking out text all have a basic expectation of citizens that I don't think most people... rich or poor, well educated or not have any idea of. These individuals expect us as citizens to be actively involved, concerned, and educated about how government works, what is going on in government, and use our powers to control those we elect.

At first glance..this seemed very simple to me. We do spend a large amount of our education learning of the structure of government and all that jazz. We learn what democratic is (even though we live in a Constitutional Republic and not a Democracy as some people like to force on us). We learn that we vote for the people that will represent us. There are even little mini elections at elementary schools that get us all ready for our grown up responsibilities.

But our government has become this corrupt machine that has out smarted the founding fathers that set this all into place. Politicians have a one up on all of us. These MEN we elect to represent us know that we have the power to control what they do so they have help to feed into a national epidemic know has lack of value on education. Now I am not sure how actively these men have set out to help devalue education but they do it in many ways. One way is through capitalism.

Our society is market driven, by definition the only failure for public policy is Market failure... In the United States everything depends on the market. We teach our children, through our actions, that making money and being finacially successful is the ONLY thing that really matters. Children from a young age learn that it is better to be a doctor than an activist, that high paying jobs are all the glory...so we focus them in the direction of math and science. We push them to read the "Greats" not so they have better understanding of literature but so they have something to talk about at the country club. Every step in education is to get you one step closer to being rich.

So all the education we receive about the government and how we play a central role becomes just some stupid piece of information that we pick up on our way to being rich. Now that we have groomed a bunch of crabs in a barrel we ask them to make informed choices, we put all of the information needed out so they can see it...and say "GO". The Problem is that we slept through our history classes. We pick the person promising to do what we think is best for our finacial well being... tax breaks and such. Then here is the key... Because we don't truly get what our role is we sit back and wait for our representatives to do what they say. Ha!

Politicians have us nailed. They are fully aware that once they are in..they are in. They know that there are very few of us that actually take on our responsibility...and they know that those few are usually the richest of the rich. This way they cater to that elite group..their pockets stay fat..and they keep their place because we are so clueless that we don't know whats going on.

What Bills are being bounced around congress right now? Whats was the last case decided on by the Supreme Court? What has been going on at your State capital? Who is the mayor of the city you live in?

The Reality is...
The citizens of the U.S.A have been hoodwinked in to thinking they are running the show...we have been distracted by capitalistic ambitions and the "American Dream" in so many ways that our minds have gone numb. WE are not in control of our government.... And guess who Politicians blame for all the corruption, all the dirty lies, all the failures in government. US! It is our fault because we are too busy watching the ticker at the bottom of the screen to see how our stock is doing to look up and see whats going on in D.C. and right in our own city!