The Good Thing...

...about American democracy is that if one branch of the government fails, you could still try to look to the other two for some kind of remedy: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/28/opinion/28tue1.html?em&ex=1164862800&en=b3a92f26a97693b2&ei=5087%0A.

Oceans

I see the point about not bothering to vote in a State where the results are a given. As to the rationality of their behavior - I disagree. It may be true that the results of this election or any other, including presidential elections does not seem to affect their personal lives at the given moment, but for better or for worse - and especially on the long run - what happens in the United States affects the entire globe.

Perhaps it is the pregnancy thing, but a few weeks ago, an article I read in The New Yorker about the acidification of oceans as a consequence of global warming literally made me cry. Granted, I cry at the sight of any commercial that has babies in it and each time I hear the first note of pretty much any Damien Rice song, but still; the thought that my grandchild (and this future grandchild seems much less abstract to me now that its future father or mother is kicking my ribs so hard at times that it takes my breath away) will potentially never know what a coral reef is, let alone swim around one, filled me with unbelievable sadness and anxiety. And that, for example, is an issue where what U.S. policy-makers choose to do or not do matters more than what everybody else around the world, put together, does or doesn't do.

Elections

I did a poll. I asked about 10 of my colleagues (granted, not a statistically significant sample, but still) whether they voted. One answer was: "Why? For what?" - demonstrating a complete lack of awareness, let alone interest; most others just said they were "too busy" or they "didn't care."

Now my question is: if educated professionals with so-called high-flying jobs (and presumably half a brain at least) have no interest whatsoever in making their voices heard in the political process by spending a few minutes at a polling station then what kind of picture does that paint of the "greatest democracy" on Earth? What hope is there for pathetic little new democracies like Hungary or Poland? I find it sad and discouraging that these kinds of people care so little and do not even stop for minute to think of the consequences of their (lack of) actions.

There is one possible explanation: this job and the hours they spend here (there was not a night I left before 10 pm last week and most nights, including yesterday I leave closer to midnight and I am never the only one here) makes them brain-dead and opening your mind beyond anything other than the soulless, (mostly) mindless and (often) futile tasks you have to perform day after day, 12 to 16 hours a day would just require too much of an effort.