Democracy: I don?t know What The World Is Coming To!
In the 70s, The Soul Children came out with a blistering chart buster titled ?I don?t Know What The World Is Coming To.? Then, it was stimulating. It was good music. Today, it is a distressingly sobering, cold, hard fact. Is it the clich??s ?life imitating art?? If it is, it?s spooky. But this is not about The Soul Children or their prophetic title. I wish it were.
That?s an excerpt from one of my posts titled ?Scott Peterson To Die: I\'m Worried, Are You?? There, it is part of an article; here, it is the title of one. It?s all about Democracy. Is democracy all it?s billed to be? It?s my conviction that democracy is making a mockery of world governments. Pushed as the best of systems, primarily by the US, it is slowly and steadily gutting and displacing world governments. Some are embarrassed, many are cajoled, a good number is bullied, a few dared, while the unfortunate ones are dragged, kicking and screaming, into the democratic style. And where deemed necessary, the brute force of military might has been employed, complements of the good old US of A.
For a while there, democracy appeared to be the real thing. For those, especially third-world nations who dared to give democracy a chance, we always heard of election frauds, hijacked elections, etc. For decades, we?ve been pointing accusing fingers at other nations. We even send observers to watch foreign governments as they conduct their elections. But now, the fish is beginning to rot from the head. Four years ago, the unthinkable happened. Under our very nose, the White House was lassoed and dragged into the ranch by a cowboy who had promised to ?return dignity to the White House.? We, the people swallowed it, hoping it doesn?t repeat.
Nevertheless, fraud, cheating, intimidation, obstruction, and the like continues to mire elections, at various levels, throughout the US. Again and again, we, the people keep quiet lest we be accused of whining.
This just came in. AP reports, ?Democrat Christine Gregoire won the Washington governor\'s race by 130 votes, according to final recount results announced Thursday from Seattle\'s King County, but Republican Dino Rossi and his supporters said the back-and-forth contest was far from finished, more than seven weeks after the election.? If you remember, a federal court ordered a hand recount of the Washington State gubernatorial election ballots after incidences of uncounted votes were substantiated.
In Kiev, Ukraine, Opposition presidential candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, whose face still is badly scarred from dioxin poisoning this fall, is making a strong showing going into the second runoff election after the Nov. 21 runoff declaring Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych the winner was voided by the Supreme Court, which found there was massive vote-rigging and ordered Sunday\'s new vote. Somebody poisoned him.
Who?s behind the Ukraine political fracas? Who else? The US and Russia, the leaders of which got to their posts by the narrow footpath. The US supports Mr. Viktor Yushchenko. But ?with Russia already feeling hemmed in by U.S. bases in formerly Soviet Central Asia and U.S. military trainers in Georgia, President Vladimir Putin has taken issue with Western and particularly U.S. activism in Ukraine, where the presidential election that sparked a month long crisis goes into a third round this weekend? according to Associated Press. So, no doubt the Russian Pres Putin is behind Ukraine?s Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych.
The funny thing about this mess is: while Pres George W. Bush pretends that everything is honki-dori with Kremlin, his Russian counterpart has a hard time camouflaging his feelings. President Vladimir Putin said Thursday, Dec. 23, 2004, he valued his partnership with President Bush but voiced suspicion that Washington might be behind what the Kremlin sees as efforts to isolate Russia, and even destabilize it.
To hell with their politics, my beef is this. Is this not an endorsement of the mess that is going on in Nigeria and elsewhere? Who will tell these young nations that killing political rivals, election frauds, and vote rigging is criminal? This is Democracy. The fish is rotting from the head, bas news. Left to me, it wouldn?t matter what a government is called as long as the people?s welfare is paramount. Ladies and gentlemen, the salt of the earth has lost its taste and is not embarrassed one bit.
