We should be ashamed

Last night, while watching the news I couldn't help but notice the contrast between what's happening here in the United States and what's happening in Iran.

In Iran, which is almost a police state and a theocracy, the people are furiously marching in the streets in protest against the recent elections, which they perceive as corrupt. In a nation that barely has a tradition of democratically elected leaders, they're defying the government to speak out. They're risking imprisonment and death to demand that their votes be counted fairly and honestly, and the scoundrels be turned out of office.

By contrast, in the USA, which has for two centuries enjoyed the fruits of a republican form of government, the Obamanation is busily destroying our economy and transforming our political system into something that the Founders would never recognize - and we sit on our collective butts and let him do it. We should be out in the streets every day, just like the Iranians, but doing that might mean that we'd miss the latest editions of our favorite soaps or reality shows.

Sure, many of us are holding Tea Parties, and more people are starting to wake up and speak out and contact their representatives, but if we had half the spirit that the Iranians are showing, we'd already have been camping out in the offices of all of our elected officials, sleeping on their doorsteps and banging on their doors and windows, never letting them rest until they took action to STOP this madness!

The sad part is that, only a few decades ago, we did have that kind of spirit in the USA, and people in other lands looked to this country for inspiration while they took those first baby steps toward a representative form of government.

It's time to stop pissing and moaning about how bad it all is, how someone needs to do something about it. It's time to reach down deep inside and find the spirit that once energized this nation, that made it a beacon to the world and the arsenal of democracy, and to get out into the streets, onto the internet, into the mails and faxes and EVERYWHERE and end this slow awful careening slide into corruption and destruction.

And we, my friends, are the only ones who can do it. It's OUR COUNTRY and we're the ones who must do it. The ghosts of the Founders are hovering about us, waiting for us to rise up and speak out and demand that our elected officials do their proper jobs. Their hands are on our shoulders, urging us to be the men and women who deserve to inherit this great nation, and not some namby-pambys who stand by while it's stolen from us by a pack of unprincipled thieves.

When we see what's happening in the streets of Iran and then turn our eyes to events in Wall Street and Washington, DC we should be ashamed.