The US Congress is without discipline or decency, but needs to pretend to the idiot public that they are sincere, upright and responsible. They abdicate their responsibility to make sane and fiscally responsible decisions and appoint (Simpson Bowles) committees to recommend tough and unpalatable solutions. When the retarded majority of the American population still cannot understand the recommended solution or is lukewarm to the bitter medicine, the irresponsible self-serving Congress kicks the can down the road by enacting a budget suicide pill, and appointing another bipartisan committee to further distance responsibility. 

They do this by designing a deadlock to hold the country hostage as in the debt extension and default decision; and then with the conspiratorial consent of the opposition Democrats, beholden to the same vested interests, (but pretending to be the champions of the average Joe Blow) and the hypocrite Obama, engineer a compromise as a fait accompli. Thus they can disclaim blame, by saying that it was the best of a bad situation, mandated, or an act of God. Thus they are absolved by the attention deficit challenged public with limited intellect, less memory and even lesser interest, for any automatically unpopular budget cuts which would rile the public.

The portion of the legislation which could seriously damage the vested interests or offend their campaign contributors are diluted, amended, left unspecified and undefined and appointments of people with integrity like Elizabeth Warren are blocked, postponed or considered imprudent by a conniving, colluding mole like Obama, who has always been a Trojan horse for vested interests. The pretentious hypocritical liars, which constitute the majority of Democrats and almost all of the Republicans, proclaim that they chose to drink hemlock to save the republic, while ensuring their reelection to gorge at the public trough.

In another country with even more corrupt elected and appointed officials with the same hypocrisy as tax and responsibility evading America, but with an even greater lustful craving and obsession for and with power, are the legislators and civil servants of India, They like Augustine, pray for chastity (integrity and honesty), but not yet, as their carnal (pecuniary) appetites are not yet fully sated. Again we have sainted or religious zealots with insecure egos and a desire for transient Warholian or persistent fame,  playing demagogue to mislead the foolish public. The clandestine understanding between the corrupt leaders and the egomaniac saints are hidden, while enacting a farce for the stupid, ignorant and gullible public. The whole farce is reminiscent of an ancient Aesop's fable about frogs unable to govern themselves or act in the public good, agitating for a king, regulator or Lokpal.

The frogs desirous of being a civilized society with a government and having no established effective ruler with integrity, sent ambassadors to Zeus-Pater, entreating for a Lokpal (ombudsman). Perceiving their simplicity, he cast down a huge log into the lake. The frogs were scared and awed at the splash caused by its fall and hid themselves in the depths of the pool in sheer panic. A little later they realized that the floating log was motionless, they cautiously approached the huge log and on seeing no threatening gestures, overcame their fears, climbed up on the log, and eventually in contempt, even started performing their ablutions on it.
 
After some time, they felt cheated by God for having given them a lifeless and inert ruler, regulator and Lokpal, and appealed once again to God (by popular demand) for a second better regulator or Lokpal, still oblivious of their own shortcomings to act responsibly. He then gave them an eel to govern them. When the frogs discovered that the eel was easygoing, non-punitive and non-judgmental, they were again dissatisfied.
 
They had not realized that they lacked the ability to restrain their worst impulses, discipline themselves and choose the path of probity, responsibility, decency and justice. They went yet a third time to God (or committees in the American case, to decide on budget cuts), to beg to choose for them still another regulator or Lokpal. By that time even God or Fate realized that they were doomed, and tired of their recurrent complaints without understanding of their own faults, sent them a heron, who feasted upon the frogs everyday, till there were none left to cringe and complain.

That was how India got serially colonized and why its uniquely historic cycle of government is different from the Polybius described Greek and Roman cycle of despot, guardian, tyrant, aristocracy, oligarchy, democracy.

Such follies of India’s ruling class with their internecine warfare and oppression of the population who became indifferent to who ruled over them, led to the invasions by the Scythians, Huns, Greeks, Persians, Turks, Afghans, Arabs, Mongols, Europeans and more recently China.

A strong military capable of defending the country and its borders is a must as is the rule of law and accountability of the rulers. It is necessary to have a coherent unifying and pride generating history (even if it is concocted and bogus like the Boston Tea Party - see the book American Tempest by Harlow C. Unger, also Madison’s Hoax called The Republic and The Constitution) and brainwash the children in school about American exceptionalism and bogus crony capitalism and imbuing the myth that everyone is destined to become fabulously rich even though they don’t have a job.

It means labeling the natives as insurgents in countries we occupy, while calling our occupying troops liberators. It means calling regime change by military force humanitarian intervention and drone bombing as surgical intervention accompanied by collateral damage with a responsibility to protect civilians.
 
For those of you still unconvinced, wait till Cameron and Sarkozy get this year’s Nobel Peace Prize for bombing Libyans, like Obama, Kissinger, Begin, Teddy Roosevelt got for bombing Afghans, Vietnamese, Palestinians and Philippinos respectively. Oh by the way, I haven’t heard Arundhati Roy, Praful Bidwai and their fellow enlightened wise crackers condemn the acquisition of nuclear weapons by India and recommend the glorious path of self abnegating Qaddafi, recently. Could it be that they like St.Paul or St. Assad are on their road to Damascus?