An Informed Public . . .

An informed public is essential to a working democracy.

This report via Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing is interesting:

Half of US social program recipients believe they “have not used a government social program”
via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow

“”Reconstituting the Submerged State: The Challenges of Social Policy Reform in the Obama Era,” a paper by Cornell’s Clinton Rossiter Professor of American Institutions Suzanne Mettler features this remarkable chart showing that about half of American social program beneficiaries believe that they “have not used a government social program.” It’s the “Keep your government hands off my Medicare” phenomena writ large: a society of people who subsist on mutual aid and redistributive policies who’ve been conned (and conned themselves) into thinking that they are rugged individualists and that everyone else is a parasite.”

Reconstituting the Submerged State: The Challenges of Social Policy Reform in the Obama Era (22 page PDF)

And I like to think that most libraries are essential government programs too, and, according to data, the majority of people use them.

Stephen