Mariama Diallo
Pol 166
Homework 11
12/19/15

“institutions no longer represent voters. Instead, they have been short-circuited, steadily corrupted by an institutionalized system of bribery that renders them responsive to powerful interest groups whose constituencies are the major corporations and wealthiest Americans. The courts, in turn, when they are not increasingly handmaidens of corporate power, are consistently deferential to the claims of national security. Elections have become heavily subsidized non-events that typically attract at best merely half of an electorate whose information about foreign and domestic politics is filtered through corporate-dominated media. Citizens are manipulated into a nervous state by the media’s reports of rampant crime and terrorist networks, by thinly veiled threats of the Attorney General and by their own fears about unemployment. What is crucially important here is not only the expansion of governmental power but the inevitable discrediting of constitutional limitations and institutional processes that discourages the citizenry and leaves them politically apathetic.”

I chose this passage because I can understand how the media can put fear in citizens heart.  I believe citizens need to stand up for their rights and ask for political correctness without feeling powerless or as if there will always be a repercussion if they make their voice be heard or if they fight for what is correct. Citizens should never be uninterested in what they have a right to speak up about.