A Chinese friend (a post-doc in Physics in North Carolina from Beijing) visited my blog yesterday and sent me an e-mail. I'd like to share his comment on American politics, which he introduces with the observation that I am "a very nice and kind person"--despite the vitriol, I guess, that I am capable of pouring on George W. Bush....
He continues: "As to the politics, it is very complicated for you, for me, and for common people like us. So, politicians deal with it for us. Actually, they make a living on this. I feel most American people are well-educated and open-minded. They know what is right and what is wrong. So, let's hope for the best. Anyway, the United States is a democratic society."
I'd like to be encouraged by my friend's assurance, but under the Busheviks it's a lot more than politicians who are making a living off politics. And I'm not sure that the Busheviks are dealing with things "for us" (the People). In fact, its obvious that, for the most part, they are not.
And I question whether enough American people are "well-educated and open-minded," since a large number of the people who voted for Bush in 2000 seem to have made the ill-informed decision to do so again in 2004¹. (I suspect they might have watched too much Fox Noise programming.)
Finally, are we still a "democratic society"? Is your vote equal to that of a person who will save millions of dollars in taxes if the Bushevik Party succeeds in killing the estate tax? Or equal to the vote that is not deleted through election tampering?
It isn't clear that "hoping for the best" can yet ensure an untroubled sleep.
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1. Not that their voting for him in 2000 had been well-informed either. They certainly hadn't heeded Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose's Shrub: The Short [sic] but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush, published early enough in 2000 for them to have read.
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