I just finished reading a book by John McCain about his time in the Senate and it made me think. This guy should've been president. Or maybe I should be president. George W Bush should not be president. His proposal of an amendment to the constitution demonstrated that he'd never read the document and doesn't understand how it's supposed to work. Is Kerry any better? Maybe slightly, but I'm sick to death of having to choose the Lesser of Two Evils when voting in this country. (Or in the case of elections for alderman in my ward, not having any choice at all.) Why can't someone run for president that I feel like it's a good idea to vote for? (For the record, I voted for Nader last time around, and the Natural Law Party candidate the time before that.) I'm sure that most politicians don't start out with only their own future in mind, but it seems that by time they get to the level of wanting to be president, there's little concern left for actually accomplishing anything except getting elected. It's MY country that's getting screwed. (And if Michael Moore can't figure out what happened to his country, maybe he ought to get a dictionary and look up the difference between politics and entertainment, and start from there because he clearly doesn't know the fucking difference.) This country is amazing. When it was set up, they knew that idiots could get elected, and so wisely set up a system wherein we'd have a chance to get rid of them before they could do too much damage. In the world of politics, 4 years is a heart-beat. Yet, when we're given choices like whe have been for the last several elections, we can't stop the damage. Our political system has gone from one set up so that you had a chance of knowing the people you were actually voting for (the whole point of the Electoral College system) to one where not only do you not know the people, you aren't even supposed to think about them as people. They (and you) are supposed to be either "Liberal" or "Conservative", "Republican" or "Democrat", "Good" or "Evil". When was the last time you heard a phrase such as "Republicans are ruining this country." or "The Democrats just want to give my money to people too lazy to work." We live in a Republic (not a Democracy) which means the people in power are in power because we put them there. We are responsible for what they do. And it's not the President who really has the power. The President can't do a whole lot without congress, yet most people don't even know who their conressional representatives are. It's a lack of understanding of the system that allows congressmen to serve term after term while people blame the president for every swing of the economy and change in world opinion. And the congressmen (yeah, I know there's a few women, but congresspeople just looks wierd) follow party lines with frightening regularity. We need to break the parties power, buy making our representatives answer to us again instead of the party whip. Pay attention. Write letters.
Last night I happened to catch part of "Meet the Press" on TV and came into a discussion of the possibility of John Kerry naming John McCain as his Vice-Presidential nominee. This could be the best thing possible in this election. Although McCain said he would not accept, perhaps a large enough request for a split party ticket would change his mind. We can only hope. As the chances of changing congress or the appearance of a viable third-party candidate are slim, this would be a start.
Here's hoping.
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