In a story headlined, U.S. Embassy, Iraqi leaders criticize Senate proposal, the local paper reported today on the Senate’s nonbinding resolution to divide Iraq along ethnic lines. This proposal is so bad that even the U.S. embassy in Iraq thinks it stinks and the Iraqi quasi-government agrees with them.

That embassy, by the way, is in itself one of the biggest slaps in the face the Iraqis have had to endure under American occupation, so it takes a really stupid move on the part of the American government to get any Iraqis to agree with anything the embassy says. The U.S. has built the biggest embassy in the world in Baghdad and is staffing it with enough military and diplomatic personnel to make it a major city on its own. If Russia did that in Springfield, would Ozarkans believe that they had no permanent designs on the region?

But I digress – back to the Senate proposal. I guess – given that the Congress hasn’t really accomplished anything of value for at least eight years - it’s no real surprise that our Senate could spend its time on a measure so blatantly arrogant is trying to tell another nation that it should split into separate provinces based on ethnicity, but it still galls me.

What do our elected leaders think their function is? They have recently declined to send BushCo any messages at all to curb their warlike tendencies but instead they spend their time passing resolutions condemning an advertisement run by MoveOn and now this ethnic borders proposal.

Are we witnessing Nero’s fiddling or what? Is there anyone in elected office with the fortitude to stand up and disown the rest of them?

Yes, some Senators and Congressmen do – Byrd and Kucinich come to mind – so a more salient question might be why won’t the American people support people like those two? Why can’t such people be viable candidates for the presidency? Why is it that we are always saddled with the responsibility of voting the lesser of two very apparent evils into the most important office in the world?

We debate whether gays should be married and ignore the rape of the constitution. We argue over whether stem cells should be destroyed and ignore the murder of a nation. We watch fake candidates for national office spending billions in the quest for power and ignore children starving in the streets of every country in the world. In the name of “freedom” we send our children to die in war to unseat a tyrant we created and ignore tyrants in Myanmar who shoot their children down in the streets for demanding their freedom.

We should all hang our heads in shame, and maybe we ought to hang a few Senators while we're at it.

Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi

Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR