Vivid Opinion October 2005

Opinion
Are Romania's voters better informed than America's?

by Brittany Henderson
October 2005

While both can’t seem to get a shred of decent information from their own media machines, Romanians at least have an excuse – the majority of them don’t read or speak the world’s most dominant language. Americans on the other hand have no excuse for their blind patriotism in following of a bad leader. The fact that one of the world’s most educated countries has such a naiveté in politics, and convolutes its religion with its leader is just a disgrace. The fact that many Americans have said to me that not voting for Bush was not being a ‘good Christian’, sounds so much like the Middle Eastern theocracies that it is just scary. At least the bad leaders of Romania don’t confuse their actions with ‘God’s will.’

While both countries have incredible amounts of propaganda, mudslinging, and scandal for the election processes, at least the majority of Romanians don’t seem to believe it. What is incredible with American politics is that with the war in Iraq being so obviously the wrong move, and Bush’s unjustifiable international relations, people still believe in him and ‘pray for him to make the right decisions.’ Which in and of itself is not a bad idea, but when it is combined with accepting White House policy hook, line, and sinker as if it is directed by God, it becomes extremely dangerous.

Let’s not forget some important historical lessons about accepting leaders and their decisions as from God, for instance the Crusades, or the Inquisition, or the incredible abuses done by the Spanish to the South Americans with the full permission of the Church. This kind of reasoning is the antithesis of true democratic thought, as it led people to stop being critical, stop judging for themselves, and buy into the lies fed to them by the propaganda machines. The most important question for voters in both countries is, ‘Where is the money going?’ By seeing everything in the dollar signs that truly underwrite policy, voters won’t simply be swayed by the wind.

The fact that so many Muslims live in America, and that many Americans in major cities have Moslems for neighbours, does not encourage more understanding in them about the politics of the Middle East. It is a disgrace of my fellow countrymen to sit there and say that we are bringing, ‘peace and democracy to Iraq and the Middle East.’ Nobody seems to see the massive Bush family oil interests or the Halliburton interests of Cheney. Or the fact that the American companies stand to gain the business contracts for repairing a war-torn Iraq.

While the Romanian Orthodox Church has continually been a pawn used by successive Romanian governments, the people have never confused their faith in God with their belief in their leaders. Accepting your leader on the basis of faith provides dangerous ground for democracies and I believe eventually will lead to the downfall of democracy. Part of being a democratic people is to be able to freely criticise the government and think about the decisions they make. Many of my fellow Americans are content to follow the current administration because ‘they have much more of the information than we do, and can make better decisions.’ Oh really, they didn’t seem to have the Weapons of Mass Destruction information right before they based an entire war on it.

Now, coming into the final years of the Bush administration are Americans going to start realising that they have been led like sheep by their religious strings, and start asking for better foreign policy from the next president? Likewise, are Romanians going to start asking for more than just the same corruption-power game from their politicians? Are they going to start asking for justice for the crimes of their leaders? Is either country’s media going to start telling the truth and stop selling out to the corporate or government interests?

But the ultimate question for both Romanian and American voters is, ‘When are you going to stop being led like sheep and decide on a more objective basis than the politician’s propaganda?’

Brittany Henderson is a student of Azusa Pacific University in California,
and is currently working as an intern at Vivid.