The Democratic-controlled Congress is forewarned to seek out The Road Not Taken by stripping those ridiculous add-ons out of the bill funding the troops in Iraq, which also includes language regarding a time table for troop withdrawal even though the specification of the time line is rather vaguely worded. It is incumbent upon Democrats to follow the mandate issued by the voting public in the last election, to uphold the implied contract the party made with the citizens of this nation to revise its approach to governance: eliminate epicurean tit-for-tat expenditures designed to guarantee/reward votes to pass controversial legislation; such tactics are an affront and will serve only to enervate the impetus the Democrats gained in the last election.
The point is not to find an appropriate soapbox, stand tip-toes on it to decry the evils of politics because the process itself is always about politics, it is politics! We can be mired in such exchanges indefinitely, or at least, until the next crisis explodes like a massive IUD: culpability will hardly matter when that occurs –the current stand-off between Britain and Iran ought to indicate the sheer unpredictable volatility in the middle east and the potential for rapid escalation of tactics and countermeasures by all nations involved. Democrats must find a better way to exemplify their standards of leadership; if resorting to the old business-as-usual methods of previously empowered politicos is their only option, the previous election will become a wasted opportunity to correct the listing of the ship of state which is in peril of capsizing with George W Bush at its helm. What is at stake is far more important than the hurly-burly of political badgering or one-upmanship. We often proclaim that the prestige we enjoy in the world results from the combination of our unique style of government and the democratic principles upon which our republic is based; in so doing, we must accept the broad scope of our responsibility, which nourishes participatory methods of problem solving; we should extend this practice as faithfully to our own institutions as we profess to be its benefactors to the rest of the world.
Our lives are moments constructed out of our choosing. Simplicity and complexity appear as overarching principles, antinomies, which at our lowest ebb may idle us but in our finest hours invigorate our search for justice. Frost has already stated this precept better than I ever could; and, it would be folly to dismiss his poem for the simplicity of its language as if it belied the depth of its meaning.
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost
