This summer I have taken it upon myself to engage in our democracy. Rather than bitch and complain of how bad things are, how disadvantaged I am compared to the 1%, I have decided to do something about it. My political association is less of an obligation to the left or right but to who I believe to be the best leader to make decisions that affect us all. The options that we have in our election process are not always ideal, sometimes they are. How can we expect our leaders to do a job that we would be satisfied with if we do not hold them accountable by making our voice heard? How many of us have ever been to a local council meeting which are open to the public? The public! The public is you and me and everyone else and local government is about as direct an input as any of us are going to have with regards to what affects us at home.
Our system of survival in this country is not capitalism, it's democracy. The right to have an option when we disagree with how things are being run. The problem with this is that we've allowed ourselves to become corrupt. It's not always the bad guy who steals that is to blame. We, ourselves, are to blame. We who choose to ignore or be lazy in our understanding of the world. We can't always blame the thug or the politician. The mechanisms that have been designed since the settlers first arrived in this country do allow us freedom. Sometimes freedom is nothing more than having a choice. That choice is where we can either engage or not. But that is our choice!
So, what now? Our politicians are virtual strangers who portray themselves as something that is familiar to us so that we sympathize and cast our vote accordingly (for those of us who do). After all, how can someone looking to represent millions of people possibly meet each and every one of us! Campaign managers like Karl Rove (W. Bush) and David Plouffe (Obama, now Jim Messina) are quite good at recognizing how to manipulate (Definition of MANIPULATE: to treat or operate with or as if with the hands or by mechanical means especially in a skillful manner) messages to suit their desired crowds. The problem isn't so much with the brave souls who put themselves in the position to lead. It rests in the hands of those who choose to follow. By design if you're not working for yourself then you're working for someone else. So what and who are you working for?
Below are some interesting studies that I've come across in search of some kind of answer to the relation of federal politics and how that translates to those of us in our respective towns and cities. If I fundamentally believe religion to be both a path of salvation and a means to total destruction, what role do the decision-makers have with their belief systems? If we are a country designed to be inclusive of different cultures and beliefs then why is there such a concentrated number of representatives who adhere to a very select number of beliefs?
Below is a graph showing the average age in the house of representatives and senate (federal). It's interesting to correlate this with the percentage breakdown of religion held by those individuals. It doesn't appear to me that the baby boomers and generation X'ers who are currently in Congress represent a very diverse crowd and set of beliefs. How can this marginal incorporation of beliefs represent so many of us who are far more diversified in what we hold to be universal truths? It amazes me how far we've come yet how far we have to go before we actually mean what we say when we promote the American Dream.
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