Do we really understand the depth of this government shutdown and what exactly means for the ordinary citizens?
Here are some pointers which must serve as eye openers and make all of us rethink about the quality of democracy practiced in America and some other modern democracies.
In the 2008 American presidential elections, Barack Obama emerged a clear winner with a large margin. Among other laws he introduced a new health care law which was debated then passed by congress. After being fought by the opponents and brought before the Supreme Court, it was upheld. The Republican Party lost that fight and decided to blackmail the government until they finally shut it down!
This time last year that same opposition party was fiercely campaigning to elect Mitt Romney as president. Among other central issues, the repealing of the health care law was in the forefront of priorities however, the American electorate rejected the issues of the opposition re-elected Barack Obama. In effect, they reconfirmed their vote supporting the new health care law.
Evidently the opponents of Obama who hate this new health care law were given the chance to fight that law. They lost it democratically and instead of going on with other business in congress, they made that fight as their main purpose of being in congress.
If we take time out from partisan politics and look from a neutral point of view, it will not take long to see that our politicians and political parties are totally disunited with each other. They are fighting fiercely to protect their party's interests to the point of not hesitating to shutdown a Federal Government which denies basic services to several sectors of the 330 million taxpayers!
This action raise some very disturbing questions related to the credibility of our politicians who are demonstrating more loyalty to their political parties and less respect to democratic process which includes the people who elect them and pay the bills of the government (including congress).
With such unacceptable behaviors, it shall not be considered an exaggeration to state that the political parties are nothing more than political corporations. Corporations composed of senators and congressmen as members who are sourcing finances from sponsors (vested interests) and return such favors (return of investment) once the party (corporation) wins the election (management tender) to rule the country for one, two, or more terms depending on their marketing strategy.
To perpetuate themselves in power for several decades, these long serving politicians, (some of them probably do not remember the date they entered politics) they designed the laws in such a way to insure almost permanent re-election by legalizing the practice of vested interests to finance their re-election campaigns.
Adding to this undemocratic practice is the hiring of Public Relations image-makers who coach the politician to behave not on his natural manner but on how his constituents would like him to look or act and we end up having a perfect "artificial political leader" who is elected by campaign financiers (with vested interests of so called sponsors and PR firms).
In short we have elected a "fabricated" politician and the results speak of themselves. A shuttered economy, high unemployment rates, high cost of living, prohibitive health care costs, shutdown government, lack of wisdom to resolve disputes peacefully and incapable to solve problems for the country and keep fighting only to protect the interests of their political "corporate-like" parties.
Unfortunately, our mass media organizations instead of sounding the alarms and give strong emphasis to the low quality of politics which are affecting everybody's life, they converted themselves into a safe harbor for our fabricated politicians and avoiding to expose the lack of qualifications of our "Honorable" political leaders. We are witnessing politicians and government officials lie in interviews or press releases, evading answering properly to questions of vital importance and the media doesn't seem to be bothered about demanding meaningful answers.
Ironically, the tax paying public which pays the bills of government, salaries plus benefits of politicians, consumes the goods or services produced by the vested interests, supports the services of the media and they end up victims and big losers without proper political, economical, employment and other basic services.
Evidently, we are ruled by non-qualified politicians and since we hold the voting power of choosing, it is time for the citizens to reject the corporate politics by voting out corporate political parties, stop condoning campaign financing of candidates by vested corporate interests and severely penalize whoever engages in soliciting even ONE dollar to be elected/re-elected in public office and impose term limit similar to that of the president to de-institutionalize long serving politicians including their "corporate like" political parties.
It might look difficult to effect such changes in our faulty politics but we must not miss the point that all our problems are the product of human errors and we are the human beings to correct them with man made solutions. All it takes is, strategic planning and strong will power. Our politicians are protecting their personal and party interests and we must protect our rights and benefits.