Why do the majority of US citizens appear to be so ignorant of world affairs?

Ultimately, you can probably blame our Puritan roots. You can also blame the remnants of our long-held policies on isolationism. We're self-righteous and self-absorbed. The only other countries near us are Canada and Mexico, and neither are a real threat to us, so we ignore them.

And yes, the Bush administration has been very good at propaganda. For the majority of his first term, he had the press and everyone in Washington gripped tightly by the balls (sorry for the crude terminology, but it's true). In fact, for several years there it was dangerous to have an opinion that wasn't in line with Bush's opinion. In some cases, it still is, but we've been slowly coming around the last year or two. Here's the deal with the press -- you had to be invited and "imbedded" to report on the war, and that meant that you had to be 100 percent in line with the administration's policies or you couldn't go. Then you were censored, either before or after the fact, and if you said something the administration didn't like, you and your sponsoring media organization were uninvited and blackballed. So, if you wanted to do any part of your job, you had to compromise some of your values and keep your mouth shut. If you were in politics and said something that disagreed with the administration, regardless of what party or interest group you belonged to, you were subjected to brutal mudslinging by the administration to discredit and blackball you -- look at what they did to that CIA agent in retribution for her husband's unflattering report, when a civilized administration would have simply come out with a rebuttal argument instead of taking it upon themselves to destroy a family. Even everyday citizens could be wiretapped and possibly arrested without any probable cause other than they knew the wrong person or said the wrong thing. The intellectual community was scared out of their minds because if they spoke their minds they could lose their jobs, their reputations and have their families torn apart. If you didn't agree blindly, then you were "UnAmerican" (how unAmerican is it to label anyone unAmerican? That's what I want to know), and you could never hold your head up in public. And the "Patriotism" Act had everyone who had a mind quaking in their shoes.

The less-intellectual of us rallied blindly around the 'patriotism' banner, and it probably was that grass-roots appeal the monkey in the White House relied on to give him his power. They were easy to lead because Bush's hold on the media allowed him to scare everyone into seeing ghosts (or at least jihadists) where none really existed. He's very good at being divisive and turning people against other people.

When I visited DC for Christmas a few years back, they were building giant, solid wall around the Capitol Building so a short person like me can't even see the dome anymore. That made me sad and angry at the same time. I understand stepping up security, using dogs and metal detectors, going through bags, etc. But when the government is so afraid of its own citizens that it locks them out of their own capitol, perhaps it's time to question who the government is really serving.

The saddest part about it all is that we knew what was going to happen when we voted Bush in. We knew his sole agenda was to get back at Iraq to avenge his daddy (who, incidentally, didn't want avenging). We knew he wasn't really interested in education. We knew he had no domestic policy. We knew he didn't give a whit for freedom of speech, religion or expression. Bushes motto should be "All for one and one for none." We knew before we went to war that the CIA was saying there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but we let Bush change their and our minds. I doubt we ever see Osama, since he never was Bush's main objective (he was after Sadam and only using terrorism as a front to get him in). North Korea was actively trying to engage us in war with them, Iraq was not a threat and was begging us to let them cooperate with us, but which one was on Bush's agenda and always had been? What ever did happen to Afghanistan?

Well, at least the Supreme Court is finally getting around to calling Bush's policies for what they are -- down right illegal, unconstitutional and wrong.

You don't have to go much farther than Y!A to discover most Americans are just a touch on the arrogant side. A little bit of arrogance can be a good thing, but every con man knows the best mark is an arrogant person. People who are arrogant tend to have their guard down, hence 9/11.

The news media and the politicians know very well how to play their slightly arrogant fellow Americans. Most Americans think freedom of the press means objective news reporting. All it means is that instead of the government controlling what you hear some other smuck is giving you his slant on things. Dan Rather is in my estimation the person who officially ended objective news reporting in America. There is no news media in the USA where you can go and get a totally unbiased reports on current events. The only truly unbias news agency seems to be the BBC, and very few Americans listen to it.

Part of that stems from the fact that politics, current events locally and internationally, are not taught as being important in school. You take a history class, maybe a civics class, and thats it. It certainly is not taught in the home as being important, compared to soccer and basketball practice, MP3 players, Ipods, cell phones and my space. I mean, if we can't hold the attention of Americans to eat well and exercise, do you think they have any interest in the world around them or why w starts a war in Iraq and is lining up his October surprise ( probably in 2008 ) to attack Iran or Syria? The American people generally just don't give a rat's *** about what the Fed govt does.

It probably come from watching the network news programs at 6:30 in the evening where they chat about everything under the sun except the news.

I think for a lot of people, unless it directly affects them they just go with what they're told. I wish more people would take an interest in world affairs and trying to look past the "rule by fear" tactics the current administration has become so good at. We need to all realize that everything we do does affect us all in one way or another...........good or bad........

The majority if US citizens are totally ignorant of domestic affairs. Most have never read the Contitution, and discuss political and legal issues based solely on what they hear on their favore news station.

If people can't even take an interest in what's happening in their own country, how can we expect them to lift their eyes to anywhere else.

Maybe it's just that Americans aren't as smart as you give them credit for. How smart can the public be when they obsess over celebrity murder cases but don't think twice about losing one liberty after the other? No one seems to think for themselves any more and if you do your an unpatriotic terrorist supporter. Yeah sounds like a really enlightened country for the middle ages.

"Okay I realise that 45% of the US population are semi-literate..." - including the author of this question. Realize:

Pronunciation: 'rE-&-"lIz

Function: transitive verb

Inflected Form(s): -ized; -iz·ing

Etymology: French réaliser, from Middle French realiser, from real real

1 a : to bring into concrete existence : ACCOMPLISH <finally realized her goal> b : to cause to seem real : make appear real <a book in which the characters are carefully realized>

2 a : to convert into actual money <realized assets> b : to bring or get by sale, investment, or effort : GAIN <realized a large profit>

3 : to conceive vividly as real : be fully aware of <did not realize the risk she was taking>

synonym see THINK

- re·al·iz·able /"rE-&-'lI-z&-b&l/ adjective

- re·al·iz·er noun

official propaganda fed to them by the US government and media.

If you think the US government and the media are giving the same message, you are not bright enough to understand a rational answer.

because it will never change to the way we really want it its always what THEY want

how do we know our votes really count , look whose counting them