Ignorance Is Bliss

As I was flipping through the radio channels on my way into work this morning I came across an interview with author Brigitte Gabriel, author of They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It and president/founder of ActForAmerica.org. One of the things that she was ranting about was that there was an Islamic school, I think someone in Florida, that was receiving education funding from the federal government. She claimed to be outraged that there was an Islamic terrorist school operating right here in the US that was being funded by the federal government and that the American people didn't seem to care. She accused us of being ignorant and caring too much about Dancing With The Stars and American Idol and not enough on things that are important.

These comments were remarkably similar to those made by former war protester and U.S. Senate candidate Cindy Sheehan in 2007, when she announced that she was leaving the anti-Iraq war movement. She too was upset that Americans were paying more attention to reality TV shows then they were to her cause. She too felt that people would be outraged if only they were paying attention. Ultimately, she gave up on the anti-Iraq war movement when she realized that America wasn't listening to her anymore.

Are you as tired as I am of being continuously called ignorant because we pay more attention to reality TV shows than to their all-too-important causes? Maybe the reason we're not paying attention to these folks is because we don't care about what they have to say, or that we have more important things in our lives to worry about like the sudden reduction in my retirement fund, the bankruptcy of the bank that has my home mortgage, whether or not I'm making a big mistake by changing jobs in this economy, and how I'm going to travel to see my family at Christmas. I don't think I'm ignorant that I care about these things and others, including American Idol, more so than the "possible" threat of a Muslim school in Florida or why President Bush wouldn't talk to the mother of a Iraq war veteran.

The same holds true for groups like PETA and Code Pink, plus right-wing radio talk show hosts who claim Obama supporters are stupid for not knowing who Bill Ayers is. I know who Bill Ayers is and quite frankly I don't care. If he's named to Obama's Cabinet then I'll care, otherwise why should I? I hate to break the news to all you single-minded activists, but Americans are not stupid, they just have more important priorities to deal with.

Though, to be honest, I don't much care about Dancing With The Stars either. But American Idol, now that's an entirely different story...