Gov. Rick Snyder Kills Democracy in Benton Harbor, Michigan

From The Rachel Maddow Show 4/18/2011

The kind of feudalism that people had come to this country to escape in Europe, was being created by this new corporate aristocracy. For the first time since the Gilded Age, we’re seeing those kinds of economic concentrations return to our country. At the same time, something really dangerous, we’ve seen the destruction of the American press as a formidable player in reinforcing the institutions of our democracy. The press has devolved, so that instead of informing us about the issues that are critical to us making rational decisions in democracy, it appeals now to the prurient interests that all of us have in the reptilian core of our brains for sex and celebrity gossip. So, Americans today are the best entertained and the least educated people, and least informed people, probably on the face of the earth. And you can’t have democracy for very long if you don’t have an informed community. ~ Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.