What you choose to do about it, being an American, is up to you, Don. Anything you can come up with is fine with me. I'm sure there are a number of possible alternatives, and I am not suggesting you throw your hands up in the air, give up, and go out to the bar and get drunk. ;-)

I'm not an American. What I chose to do about it way back in 1969 was to move the hell out of the USA and back to Canada. But I am Canadian, so that puts me in a different position than you're in. If I was an American citizen, I'd probably still be in the USA.

If I was, I would support independently minded types like Dennis Kucinich whatever way I could. I'd make financial contributions to his campaign funding. I'd look with deep skepticism on the present party system and work toward something quite different...such as a no-party system, for example. In 2008 I would have voted for Obama as the lesser of two evils, and I would have protested his decisions to bail out the banks, continue the Afghan war, and bring in a health care plan that was mostly a give-away to the private health insurance industry.

In saying that the system is corrupt, which it is, I am not saying you should do nothing about it....I'm saying you should do whatever little you can to uncover that corruption and object to it, and propose alternative approaches.

Heck, do whatever you can. That's entirely up to you.

*****

Ultimately though, Don, I see life as a spiritual journey. That's a personal and individual journey, okay? It has mostly to do with self-development, inner work, improving oneself, overcoming fear, unlocking the heart, learing to love. Politics is part of the outer stuff that goes on in society. It's ephemeral. It's like bubbles on the surface of the river, rising and vanishing. I am interested in politics...to an extent...but I'm far more interested in transforming myself through inner work than I am in whatever the hell is going on in the world of politics...a world which is usually deeply compromised by various competitive and ruthless power groups who are out for their own material gain.

I don't frankly expect to be able to do much about that. The only thing in this world that I have full jurisdiction over is myself...and that's where my real work lies. My real work is to master and improve myself as a living, conscious being.

If you feel that your real work (or part of it) lies in reforming the American political system, then I wish you the very best in doing so, and by all means, do it any way you can figure to do it. Joan Baez, whom I greatly admire, has devoted her whole life to that cause, and I think well of her for doing so. Dennis Kucinich appears to be doing the same, and I applaud him for it. He has to have a lot of courage to be doing what he's doing.