Real Middle East Elections or Just Regulating the Steam?

To read and watch the media of the United States (yes that means you Fox So-Called News), it would seem as if a democratic revolution is enveloping the Middle East. Elections in Saudi Arabian Municipalities, Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan (Is that the Middle East?), the Palestinians, Lebanon and Israel make it appear to be a regular Bastille Day in this area of the world. But upon closer examination, are democratic elections simply a mechanism to placate activist, identify opposition and corner democratic reforms before they even begin? Does voting as a corporate stockholder matter with 10 shares of common stock? Does voting in US Presidential Elections do more than just medicate our minds into a sense of security that the country will be better? I think not.

Buckley v. Valeo decided that "money is speech". If it is true and the law of the land, then we control much less of our nation with our votes than we ever even did when we had elections in high school. In that teenage epoch, we determined much more than we ever will when the stakes are higher, the elite rule capriciously and the amounts in question are in the trillions.

40 million people without Health Insurance, 30 million + in poverty, 1 in 4 children going to sleep hungry in the USA, Only 20% of our children being able to afford and to go to college, Yet the band plays and marches on to war. Is this really a democracy? Or is this just a rerun of high school?......
">Link