The Russian Example

Friends, as I write today the people of Russia have sent us a remarkable example of how protests should be delivered against those who abuse their power. With contested elections roiling the atmosphere in a country not wholly at terms with Democracy, we are fortunate to witness perhaps Democracy in it's purest form.

Not at all the complacency we saw here when GW Bush stole the election from Al Gore in the "Dangling Chad" incident of the 2000 election. We Americans just sat back and took it. Two hundred plus years of relative stability has turned the average citizen of this nation into a beer swilling football watching ill informed fool. Voting by rote for the same parties that have propelled our country down a trail of doom and decline, we would rather watch sporting events than keep an eye on those charged with running our country's affairs. Sounds a little like ancient Rome, doesn't it?

Precisely how you lost sight of the fact that when we invaded Iraq, it was not to keep Saddam from developing WMD's it was to gain access to their oil. At the same time it gave us military bases on the border with Iran and in effect allowed us to encircle them with bases in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The point is people that regardless of nationality, our governments are engaged in a game of resource allocation that will inevitably lead to greater conflict the world over. As citizens of the earth, not just our personal patches of ground, we must elect leaders who can work in concert with each other for the ultimate benefit of all. In Russia the people recognize their leaders are only trying to consolidate power, with little or no emphasis placed on the lives of the average Russian. The same applies here, our leaders have just sat back throughout this recession pointing fingers at the other party while doing nothing for the constituents who put them in office. It's all about keeping what they have, without a thought given to improving the lives of those who put them in a position to affect change.

Our political system has become polarized to the point that change needed immediately, is more often than not bogged down in Congressional committees so long that by the time that change is made, it's already obsolete. We need a third option to keep the two entrenched trough feeding parties in check, turning "Self Service" into "Public Service" by removing the profit motive from government service.