the need for change beyond obama.

Today, I was behind someone in a large GMC SUV (hopefully that part of the company will die for good with this bankruptcy thing...but it will, more likely, be sold to China just like everything else). This SUV, with its various bumper sticker messages, was actually quite hilarious. I wish I had had a camera on me. There was, of course, the required "W: the president" sticker (if you've never seen one...then you've never spent an hour on an American road). Also, there was a "I Support Our Troops" sticker in red, white and blue, and obviously a "NObama!". But these three stickers are quite common sights. What made this all the better was the "Who is John Galt?" on the back window and the "Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less" on the bumper. I wish I had had a marker to edit that last one with: "Drill Here (just not in my backyard), Drill Now (no really, right now), Pay Less (until our oil runs out)." And all of this on the back of the ultimate symbol of stubbornly myopic American business and consumerism. Ah, yes.

For more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Galt,
http://www.notdependant.com/,
http://www.goingjohngalt.org/blog/

And, on a completely-different-but-really-not-so-different-topic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzw_ZoZ7cLg&feature=channel_page (love the little girl at the end)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp76ly2_NoI&feature=channel (should I be scared?)

Okay but honestly, when are we finally, FINALLY, going to change the way we are structured as a society? Why does everything always have to be yes/no, rather than up for a discussion resulting in several different answers? The yes/no mentality, the two-party mentality, however you like to think of it, we need to grow out of it already. There are no excuses for our limited, minimal, strict ideologies and no excuses for us to keep elevating our most extreme ideologues to prominent positions. Now is just the beginning, but I can only hope that in the next few years or decades, we will finally stop ridiculing those who fall somewhere in the grey area between our black and white policies and platforms. Liberalism, I truly believe, can only be achieved by those who allow for liberal discussion; that is, discussion involving the greatest number of viewpoints possible heard in a rational and reasonable environment. And no, I don't mean liberalism like every American would think I do (in other words, I'm not using liberalism as synonymous with hedonism or socialism, but rather with philosophical democracy and basic human rights). And, as evidenced by the recent Pelosi scandal in which the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, stated that herself and Congress had not been truly informed about what was going on in American foreign prisons under the Bush administration and was therefore summarily humiliated into silence by many politicians and the media, we no longer possess a rational and reasonable environment for the two platforms we do have to be presented, let alone other platforms. This, above all, must change. There are no gathering storms except for those we are creating for ourselves, wasting valuable time and resources, disillusioning those that might actually have had true hope and motivation at one point. For now, I'm just going to keep believing that we can and will do better because to think otherwise would, quite honestly, make me a fairly nihilistic person.

They might not have it all right, but no one does. Check out the other third parties listed on their homepage if you're interested in American politics beyond red and blue (yes, non-Republican, non-Democrat parties do exist! Kind of). It's all a start.
http://www.unityparty.us/platform-unity-party.htm

And to everyone eligible to vote in the European Parliament elections, I sincerely hope you do vote and I sincerely hope that you feel responsible for your vote. It is so important for people to feel responsible for and invested in their actions in the democratic arena. Responsibility leads to legitimacy, and legitimacy leads to continued hope.