I place most of the blame on the media. (the rest i save for how we spend 20x more annually on defense than on education)

American media is an absolute joke. A laughable disgrace. I'm a communications student in my senior year in college, i'm majoring in journalism. The inception of the Fox News Channel, and subsequent bandwagoning of the other cable news channels, has done more to ruin political discourse and foster ignorance than anything I can remember in my lifetime. The news in America is sold like product, the networks compete for ratings, and very little important information gets to the public. This explains why every time a pretty blonde white girl goes missing, the news talks about nothing but that for weeks on end. The myth of the 'liberal' media would be my favorite joke if so many gullible people didnt believe it. The 5 (count them) corporations that control every newspaper and TV network in the country are ALL skippered by very wealthy, right-wing CEOs. But that fact seems to escape people who cry foul anytime the media actually grows a set of balls to question Iraq, Bush, or US Foreign policy.