Kentucky Finally Matters

Back in the day I had a political science professor who liked to interject into most any argument the phrase, “It just doesn’t matter.” Many of my fraternity brothers parroted him any time someone would start talking politics. “It just doesn’t matter.”

I think the professor was trying to say that, over time, things have a way of balancing out, and whether you swing right or left, we, as Americans, won’t allow things to go too far one way or the other for too long. Or maybe what he could have meant, at least in Kentucky, is that our opinion on issues or on who we want to lead our nation is usually an afterthought.

Generally by the time we head to the polls in late May, the choice has been made for us. For the 38 percent of Kentuckians who are Republicans, that is the case again. “It just doesn’t matter” … Sen. John McCain is your man whether you like it or not. For the 51 percent of Kentuckians who are Democrats, however, there are, at least as I write this, two players in the game—Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to try to tell anyone who to vote for, but I will say this: Please, between now and May 20 (or the general election in November) take some time and do some research and decide who you’re going to vote for based on something more than television sound bites and last-second campaign stops. Pick a candidate who believes as you do, however that may be.

Earlier this year I had an opportunity to visit Murray State University for a speech by Robert Kennedy Jr., the 54-year-old son of the former senator and attorney general, who was assassinated during his own presidential run 40 years ago next month.

As I sat in the Lovett Auditorium listening to his views on the array of things wrong with our country, I found myself sometimes agreeing and other times disagreeing until he struck a nerve. “Let’s talk about the liberal media in this country.”

This is a sore spot at my house. I do not consider myself either liberal or conservative. I wouldn’t label myself moderate, but I hope that I am objective.

If you ask my more conservative friends, of which I do have many, they’ll tell you they think I’m a bleeding-heart liberal, but my more liberal friends, of which I also have many, think I’m a staunch, stiff-necked conservative. Either group is so far away from the center most of the time that I might as well be on the other side. I took a deep breath. Kennedy continued.

“There is no such thing,” he said. “What we do have, however, is a negligent and indolent press in this country, which is tragic for American democracy.”

The statistics he quoted were astonishing. In America today, he said, 30 percent of Americans get their news from talk radio and 22 percent from cable news. Only 11 percent of Americans read a newspaper. “And network news no longer has an interest in reporting the news—their responsibility is no longer to inform as much as it is to watch their pocketbooks,” Kennedy said.

This spiral began, he said, in 1988 with the abolishment of the Fairness Doctrine, established in 1928 to ensure the public airwaves served the common good. Since “the devolution of the American press” and the relaxing of standards of media ownership, five corporations now own virtually all of our 14,000 radio and 2,200 television stations and 80 percent of all newspapers. “What we have now is five guys controlling all media, and there are no investigative reporters left who can connect the dots and provide us the information we need for a properly functioning democracy.

“Instead, what they do is appeal to the reptilian core of our brain’s desire for sex and celebrity gossip. We all know all about Brad and Jen and Brad and J-Lo and Brad and Angelina … We all know more about Tom and Katie than we do about global warming.

“Americans are the best-entertained and least-informed people on the face of the earth,” Kennedy said.

One study that Kennedy quoted claimed that 85 percent of Americans, when presented the exact same information, come to the same conclusion, which means that we share the same values—we just get our information from different, or unreliable, news sources.

Thomas Jefferson said that you can’t have a democracy without an informed public. “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government,” Jefferson said. When not—watch out.

This point was brought home the other day when I was listening to the Bob & Sheri Show, my favorite morning distraction, when co-host Sheri Lynch said something about Racer X, a character on the 1970s cartoon Speed Racer. I fired off an e-mail to remind her that Racer X was actually, unknown to Speed and his family, Speed’s older, long-lost brother, Rex. She quickly e-mailed back, “Right you are, Steve. We’re taking a proper whipping for failing to know that. I swear, if as many people vote in the next presidential election as have e-mailed us about Racer X, then democracy will be in outstanding shape.”

Not so, I thought. Not if they, like me, actually do know more about Racer X (or J-Lo, etc.) than they do about Obama or Clinton or McCain.

What scares me is that I do not think I’m alone.

Readers may contact Stephen M. Vest at steve@kentuckymonthly.com