We are in TROUBLE!

Sometimes I picture American politicians secretly snickering behind our backs, wondering just how much subterfuge we will endure before there is pandemonium of titanic proportion among the people. It's bad enough that there is so much inherent corruption, that the corporations and their lobbyists are the real "voice" (and that companies like Halliburton determine the kind of world we live in), but the money spent on these campaigns is unconscionable.

The most recent senate races are said to have cost at least 2 BILLION dollars! Something is wrong with people when they choose to put their money into a bid that is going to further their own agenda and ignores the needs of the suffering. Could 2 BILLION dollars not have been better spent?

I have never been so repulsed as I was with the latest senate campaign in Missouri. All of the candidates auspiciously promised that they are what this country needs; offering up some sort of distant panacea as if their words had an ounce of probity to them. More often than not they were maliciously dogging their opponents, as if "we the people" aren't smart enough to see through the CRAP.

The Bush campaign proved in 2004 that [some of] our votes don't really count (contrary to what they would have you believe), that elections can be bought and votes can be manipulated (and even thrown out if the governor of the state happens to be your BROTHER and he chooses to do so, at random). Oh, forgive me, that is all just coincidence, right?

The war in Iraq (and subsequent war on terrorism) is, of course, the biggest issue concerning most of us, or it should be. The Christian right (Bush's greatest fans) push their so-called "moral" agenda, as if the rest of us are incapable of determining what is actually moral, that God is only real to "them" and for all of the love that Jesus was about, they would have us believe that spreading hate and discontent and killing innocents is Ok somehow. Every human is precious in the eyes of God and Christians should be trying to stop this mess, not funding it! I couldn't say it any better than Robin Meyers, a minister and peace activist: "When you claim that our God is bigger than their God and that our killing is righteous while theirs is evil, we have begun to resemble the enemy we claim to be fighting, and that is immoral. We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us."

Most of you middle classers, like me, are sitting at home in your peaceful abodes, eating more food than you should, driving gas-guzzling cars that are dependent on oil that fueled (no pun intended) this war in the first place, buying too much plastic (try researching what goes into that stuff) from a store that imports it from a country who won't help us and who pays children 7 cents a day to make the stuff we're buying that will be in a landfill for millions of years to come. Washington pays no heed to the environmental changes the earth is undergoing due to our pitiful, noxious lifestyles. We are enjoying a prosperity unlike any other culture and are excessively wasteful while the corporations we support with our dollars enjoy record profits. HELLOOOO! There is a WAR going on! Innocent women and children are being killed, starved and tortured but we are fat and happy. How do we stand ourselves?

Sorry I don't have a bandaid to fix our problems. Like most of us, my comfort level is fine, I don't have any family members in politics and I don't have any money so I'll just sit back and watch the nonsense unfold and pray that God has a sense of humor.