I just read a long post from The Radiance, concerning politics and policy, and history.  This is why I love you, babe!  See it at: ladycaviar.livejournal.com.  For those who don't want to read her explanation, here it is in a nutshell:  politics, n. the process of making policy.  If We the People understand our history, know our rights, see what we want in the future, and are willing to speak up, theoretically, we can make a difference in the direction of our country.  Even one person can make a difference. 

What follows may perhaps offend...you can choose to skip it.

The executive branch of our government can't make "policy" without the help of the legislative branch, a system designed to spare us from petty tyrants, abysmal monarchs, and horrid dictators.  The president can suggest policy, propose policy, but he/she can't really make it on their own unless it is part of their purview.  Hell, the president can't even declare war--commander-in-chief, get it?--without Congress.

Our system was designed to give us personal rights.  With those rights came the responsibility to speak up, vote, and holler when we see something in the POLICIES we didn't like.  This is why I don't understand why we behave like sheep who allow ourselves to be led by media sensationalism, drivel, and misdirection without reading up and becoming informed.  Instead, my fellow sheep listen to the media, and buy in to whatever the talking heads decide to present for mass consumption.  They then use this dubious news as a basis for forming their opinions--to which they are all entitled--and then spout these opinions as truth without doing further research. 

I can speak to this because I've done it in the past.  But I'm tired of being a sheep.

In light of the presidential election coming up, for the bulk of the public, the media chooses our candidates, and about what we "should" trouble our heads.  However, I believe a campaign should be about issues, and not about promises the candidates have no hope in Hell of keeping, indefinite moral character judgments, and other such BS.  

I will say this: I am not happy about my choices this time around.  I want to know more about actual *plans* for both energy and economic concerns.  I know the president can't do much about making policy, but I would like to know what they want to propose to the legislative branch should they get lucky and achieve into office.  Then I will hope and pray that they don't flip-flop on me and become the liars and cheats I believe them all to be.  Yes, I am jaded.

I watched a movie once with an "honest" politician.  The man said: "I am a politician.  That means when I'm not kissing babies, I'm stealing their lollipops."  How true.  All politicians are human, therefore they will lie, cheat, steal, make deals, flip-flop, obfuscate, shuck-and-jive, and otherwise do what ever they have to in order to further their personal agendas.  Sometimes those agendas are the agendas of others, sometimes not.  Whatever the case, politicians as a whole are not altruistic.   

I honestly do wish for a *viable* third and/or fourth party, and candidates (all of them) that spoke to issues, if for no other reason than to force the general masses to pay attention and not just go with the lesser of two evils.  The candidates over the last several terms seem to have been more concerned with the "moral" character of the other candidate, and the media more interested in sensationalism and sound-bites, than with planning for the future of this country, and keeping it as the best country in which to live.

However, this would require independent thought, self-reliance, and accountability on the part of my fellow Americans, not to mention the willingness and desire to make their voices heard, no matter how small.  That's not easy for sheep.