Who will take care of poor us?

Down with the politician. 

Fair enough. They are all fat and ugly. But who will rule us?

Why, we. You and me. The educated middle class.

We! We can't even run a housing society. Every housing society president acts as if he's god. While the rest of us simply refuse to follow any rule that our own society may make. We even make the security guard run personal errands, security be damned. 

Just see the sports page of any newspaper and you'll be nauseated the extraordinary amount of mudslinging and underhand deals that go around every sports body election. Who populate these bodies? There may be a politician at the top, but the voters are largely middle class fellows. (Not the economic middle class, but the self-declared real middle class, because class is perception that decides reality.)

We can't run a company without flouting laws and rules. Of course, we know that all laws that make us pay bribes were framed for the express purpose of collecting those bribes. But why begrudge the politician the same cynicism. He can just as well argue that conventional morality exists merely to turn him into a convenient scapegoat.  

Ok. Then let's outsource then. We'll get Israel for internal security, USA for external security, Chidambaram can run the economy, Narayan Murti will be made benevolent dictator to run the rest. 

Don't know about the last two gentlemen, but how is a country bogged down in two silly wars, and sundry even stupider civil wars qualified to look after us? What's their record? Ok, mainland USA hasn't been attacked since 9/11, but just too many people under US safeguard - in Europe, Iraq and Afghanistan - have been killed for any sane man to seek such safeguard. 

Moreover, if one looks at the cost of wars, and the stuff that money could have otherwise bought for the American voters, their government looks even worse. Can we afford such expensive security? At least, let them get rid of those Hummers, which, incidentally, didn't save GM from begging, before we say yes. Perhaps careful analysis would show them to be the best among alternatives, but lets at least look at China before choosing.

As for Israel, here's a police state with suicide bombings every month. This in spite of almost all their prime ministers being ex-generals. They may give the Palestinians a hiding from time to time, with helicopters, tanks and rockets (That's what we want to do to our minorities, don't we?) but they haven't been able to stop the killing of their own people, in spite of winning the War on Terror over the last six decades. 

Now, we are clever people. We don't care about hollow honour, do we? We think profit? So, do the Israelis run a profitable show in terms of protecting Israeli lives? For sure, we're buying lots of weapons and security systems from them, but should we give them charge to run our show as well? 

Again, we need some cost-benefit analysis. Reportedly, some Israeli security expert (and who isn't an expert these days) was quick to announce that hadn't Indian commandos blotched up, the rabbi family at Nariman House would have been saved. Now, how did he know they blotched up? Who told him what happened there?