DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA

Hooray for Egypt! The bravery and perseverance of the people have put Egypt on the road to democracy. Let's hope that it turns out to be fair, just and effective.

Meanwhile, our democracy is on a bad course. How bad is it when many candidates are chosen on the basis of their ability to raise money? Very bad, and a continuing corrupting influence. But neither party will do anything about it; so our legislators must keep spending time courting donors.

And misleading propaganda leads a large, undiscriminating segment of the public to oppose a health care law that is a benefit and to believe that a very helpful stimulus law was completely ineffective. (Shades of the lead up to the Iraq invasion!)

The Supreme Court, with Citizens United, now allows corporations to spend massively for Republicans and the increased numbers of Republican governors will skew redistricting; and so 2012 brings the threat of Republican control of Congress. Only re-election of President Obama can mitigate the damage of Republicanism.

Otherwise, our democracy may not be destroyed, but we face further erosion of liberty, more limitation of the rights of women and gays, lax regulation, no action on immigration, less of a safety net, more deterioration of our environment and danger to our planet, more tax cuts for the rich. and more economic inequality.

We may need our own Tahrir Square.