How Things Turned Out in 2014

WHEN I WAS A CHILD, in the nineteen sixties, I fantasized that by the year 2014 I would have the option of living on the moon or Mars, hunger and disease would be conquered, there would be no more war, and I'd be living in a very high tech, beam me down scottie paradise. Reckon it didn't quite turn out that way. The persistence of war, and the persistence of dictatorial, tyrannical governments around the world is another thing which surprises me, and which I would've hoped would be gone by now. The very idea of someone, anyone, gaining great political power, such as complete control of a country, at a relatively young age, and keeping that power throughout life seems, somehow, primitive, appalling, and inappropiate in a world which increasingly embraces democracy and equality, at least in name. Cuba, for instance. What Cuba needs, it almost seems, is some democracy and term limits. For one man to be in complete dictatorial power for fifty five years, without ever running for reelection, in this modern world seems a bit, shall we say, "extreme", or "anachronistic", doesn't it? In 1990, when the Berlin wall came down and the Soviet Union broke up into all the countries which comprised it, there was a sense of great excitement among advocates of democracy, and hope, that the newly independent Russia would embrace democracy, and the freedom of capitalism, and maybe retain a good deal of economic and political equality. Alas, 'twas not to be. The old autocratic spirit proved too strong and deeply ingrained to be so quickly evicted. Vladimir Putin rules Russia with an iron hand which is far more remindful of previouis Russian Tsars than modern presidents of progressive democtracies. He, like Castro, has been in power way too long, with no end in sight. One of the great things about the United States of America is that, for the most part, nobody is ever in power for very long. Our heads of state come and go. Our national legislators need to come and go a bit more often, but we're working on it. It would be nice to have a greater variety to choose from in America, politically, but at least we get to choose.