Of course there are people who stand to gain from a dumbed down, ignorant populace. Dumb, ignorant people can easily be manipulated by politicians.

Because they are not well-informed, they can easily be controlled by using slogans like patriotism and nationalism to lure them into war or support virtually anything those politicians come up with.

The end result is a society that believes it is free, while in reality it's carefully controlled by being fed half-truths and by manipulative calls upon their 'patriotism'.

A real-life example of this? America under George W Bush. A country manipulated into war by being fed lies and half-truths and by blatant abuse of the ignorance and misguided patriotism of it's citizens.

Yes.