After 30 plus years of national leadership ranging from the pathetic to the
treacherous -- all (un)progressively favoring the Big Money Monster -- some have
given up on the notion that America (Amerika?) will ever change. Of course it
will, as do all things, but the questions are: in what direction, by what means,
when will be the big steps, and under what leadership?
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In 1776 there was indeed a solution that turned this country from a
dominion of English gentlemen into a dominion of American gentlemen,
not actually a democracy, but an improvement. Perhaps it's now time for the
same sort of solution, but to actually turn this country at last into a dominion
of the people.
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Problem is that the people would have to be enlightened that such would be
in their best interest. We're a long way from that popular realization, the
actual American electorate (with miniscule exception) at the current stage being
a bifurcated partisan kamikaze wrapped up in a star spangled banner.
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The other day at the post office I asked a very nice senior postal counter
clerk what he thought of the proposition that the U.S. Post Office should be
eradicated in favor of private (profiteering) corporations performing the mail
functions. He agreed in my disfavor of such a development, but then went on
to offer that "No matter what anyone may say, this is still the greatest country
in the world."
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That's where the citizens are, despite the U.S. ranking 37th
"best" among the family of nations in medical care of its citizens (the
only nation among the G-20 lacking a national single-payer system) and about the
same in public education, as well as being by far the world's now foremost
disliked and feared spy master and slaughterous menace of the Twenty-First
Century.
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The unfortunate reality is that most Americans have no earthly conception
of how desperate things are and that the government they vote for is the basic
problem, we being the victims of flag-worship since kindergarten, then dedicated
to the "reality" that we have only two choices in a national election, and if
neither is very good then we must cast in favor of the "lesser evil" lest we
"waste" our vote. (Hitler over Himmler? Bush over Kerry? Hillary over the
latest cowboy? (Hmmm...)
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With the current system of (un)Constitutional governance self-destructing
to the further detriment of both America and the world community, what then can
be done before the history's corrective imperatives obtain,
i.e. revolution or foreign invasion. Political
remediation, of course, would be ideal, but that would require an
enlightenment of the American electorate to include the revelation that there
are solutions and personalities -- other than the yet degrading Democrat and
Republican gangs -- that could offer actually decent leadership from beyond the
pale of the current and longstanding partisan indenture. (Perhaps we could
somehow even encourage more readership of such as Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges,
Seymour Hersh, Matt Tiabbi, Naomi Klein, and other such "radicals.")
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So there are the historically imperative choices: Political
Remediation, Revolution, Foreign Invasion. One will obtain. I
would prefer the first, but have serious reservations upon whether the sluggard
"great" American electorate can muster the requisite social integrity, political
insight, basic intelligence, and moral courage in time to
prevent the second or third mechanism to effect the necessary
change.
