There is a insouciance prevalent in the unsophisticated, ignorant, apathetic and generally unthinking American electorate. They lack the sophistication of the Spanish electorate and are more like Argentina or such macho fools who keep electing crooks and liars who will lead the nation to bankruptcy. They are fed self-congratulatory hype and actually believe it confirming their intellectual handicap. The mirage of self-delusion lends legitimacy to a unrepresentative government by hoodwinking the brainwashed people to a semblance of control, while preserving the manipulation and misuse of power by the elite and corrupt biased partisans and their unfair agenda. This is the greatest indictment of a government of the people, by the people and for the people. The unsophisticated, instant gratification conditioned, totally confused American public with poor attention span is diverted from relevant issues to ephemeral irrelevances and fired up to be bogged down to spin their wheels in trivial paraphernalia unrelated to their welfare or national interest.

Lobbyists are not as benign as self-serving doctors or due process camouflaged lawyers with a distant but illusion-laden goal. They are not as decent as lying and crooked used car salesmen. There is no ethical hurdle that they are compelled or constrained to overcome or even stumble at, and no public service warning like Caveat Emptor. Lobbyists are the scum of the earth without any decency or honesty, whose main purpose is to benefit their client companies, irrespective of the common good. The worst nightmare that haunts the world and the bankrupt American electoral process, connived at by the self-serving media conglomerates, is the unquestioned abuse of its horrendous unrestrained military might and arrogance.  This leaves no room for reflection or real objectives and gain and certainly not for decency or morality. Lobbying and its resultant corruption thwarts the will and welfare of the people by turning the legislators into whores suborned by the power of pimps, who provide them with money to sustain and perpetuate their lust for power and illegitimate preservation of their undeserved status to the detriment of the common good. The pathetic state of the American Republic is that public knowledge raises no ire or stench to the numbed electorate, in spite of the fact that prior lobbyists have been campaign managers for McCain or even running for office like Wesley Clark.

There is not the remotest hope for a true democracy to survive with the corruption of elections and the disregard of the people for the honesty of the process. One is reminded of the prescient statement of Franklin, when accosted and questioned by a common man asking what form of government the powers decided at the Constitutional Convention. Quipped the unrestrained Benjamin Franklin, 'A Republic if you can sustain it'.

The shortsightedness, misfortune and gullibility of the electorate, is the cause of their failure to realize that all jobs, the economy and the future are hostage to campaign reform. Until this pervasive evil influence of moneyed vested interests is eliminated from the electoral process, no good, long range planning or the health of the Republic can be vouchsafed or sustained. It is convenient for the self-serving politicians and the corrupted media to shove this fundamental problem under the rug and out of sight, to obfuscate and mislead the non-thinking ignorant population by drawing their attention to
personality, electability, taxes and other non-sequiturs, while ignoring the crucial issues. The remarkable indifference of the people to the revolving door between retiring or losing congressmen, their staffers, regulators, lobbyists and industry employment is vitiating the process and corrupting the public good without even a whimper of protest from anyone.

The candidates confound and divert the attention of the adulation addicted public by harping on irrelevant and inconsequential issues like electability and other trivia, while ignoring their allegiance to special interests and thus bankrupting the Republic by promises that they cannot fulfill, and the unquestioning people are lulled into a false security by assuaging their paranoid fears or feeding their hubris for patriotism. The latter is the last resort of scoundrels, but beyond the perception of unthinking masses. Truly Thucydides was right, that the nature of government is altered only when the arrogant intoxication of power leads to enough oppression and economic deprivation to cause the rebellion of the masses and the whole cycle repeats itself in human history in spite of knowledge, because of the tragic constraints of human nature.