Selling Democracy

If I were in Iraq, amid the chaos, killing, bloodshed and guerilla warfare that George W. Bush has wreaked on the land in the name of freedom and democracy, and if I had access to either radio or TV coverage of the US election, I would wonder...who needs it? Take your ugly democracy and shove it We’ve had over 200 years to work out the kinks in this American experiment called democracy and yet, every election for president becomes more difficult and hate ridden than the last. Each new national election brings more threats of violence, disruption and disorder. Now, that may be okay for us...somehow our republic survives. But if we haven’t been able to solve the problems inherent in democratic rule in our own nation, how do we have the sheer arrogance and colossal gall to try to sell it to a culture we don’t even understand? Not only that, we went into Iraq with guns blazing. We murdered thousands of Iraqis in order to force them to adopt a system that is imperfect, often totally unmanageable and could only be understood and practiced by people who’ve been at it for two centuries. Let us fervently hope, that at least when this election is over we will abolish the Electoral College. My friend Stu, who I have known since first grade in Illinois, now lives in Indiana. He is a fervent Democrat. Which is not an easy path to walk in Indiana. Stu never fails to vote. He is a staunch believer in the right and sacred duty of Americans to vote. But he says the most difficult thing for him is knowing his vote as a Democrat doesn’t mean a damn thing in elections for President and Vice President in Republican Indiana. He may as well stay home, he says. But he votes anyway. For the popular vote to have no meaning in the year 2004 is ridiculous. Our country was founded by well-to-do, well-educated white men who believed the little folk had neither the brains nor the knowledge to elect the top leaders of the land. We have evolved to the point that the little folk are so much smarter, better educated and brainier than our legislators that now Congress cannot be trusted to decide the outcome of our elections for President and Vice President. The brand of freedom we are forcing on the people of Iraq does not include the Electoral College. What’s good enough for the people we conquer, murder and oppress ought to be good enough for us.