Dear All,
Even though I have been here for a long time, the Humans never cease to baffle me.
Here in this place they call "United States," the big thing of the moment continues to be the strange circus known as "Presidential elections," in which the citizens get to choose their new leader, according to the rules of their democratic process.
At its core, that process doesn't seem that different from how we do things at home... people cast a vote for the person they support, and the most popular candidate becomes leader.
But it doesn't really work that way.... not exactly.
Instead, there's this strange and very convoluted process in which people actually vote for other people known as "delegates" who supposedly represent their interests (but not necessarily?) in the process of putting forth a candidate to become leader, after which the people (again) vote (supposedly) for their candidate of choice, but actually are voting for other people known as "Electors" to vote for that candidate (but not necessarily), at the end of which someone officially becomes the leader.
On the whole, it seems the entire intervening process serves little purpose other than to attempt to "entertain" the people and "consume resources."
For the most part, very little is done to highlight and explain each candidate's skills, experience and qualifications for becoming the leader of 330 million people. I have tried to get various humans to explain the process to me, with little success.
What I did learn is that there seems to be the underlying notion that people truly qualified to be excellent leaders tend to seldom-- if ever-- apply for the position...
The Humans don't seem particularly concerned about this, although they do complain a lot about "the system," and how they "wish things were better" but then turn around and immediately claim they are powerless to make a difference.
If you ask the average Human about this whole process it's disturbing how ill-informed many are about their own world and how it operates, and how many seem more concerned with "being entertained" than with being an informed part of and influencing the future of their society and their own lives.
As best I can tell, there are two main factions: One group calls themselves "Republicans" and the platform of the front runner to represent that group as potential President suggests they are the "intolerance and violence" faction. They are referred to as "conservative" but I am yet to understand exactly what it is they want to conserve, because their actions seem more about destroying and excluding than conserving.
The other group calls themselves "Democrats" but they have two candidates that seem so different it doesn't quite make sense that they are part of the same allegiance... but on the whole the candidates present themselves as more equalistic and inclusive.
A lot of things on this planet don't make sense.
It seems that the candidate who is most passionate about making changes to the system also seems very popular with a large number of people... but is also seen as "unelectable" because he wants to make changes to a system people really want changed. Sometimes it seems like the Humans really don't want to change their system, they just want to have a broken system so they have something to complain about. Haven't quite figured it out, yet.
The single most baffling thing I am still trying to grasp is the fact that a lot of Humans in this country don't actually seem to want all citizens to be OK and housed and fed and cared for. Many hold this very strange belief that anyone "different from them" should be denied the basic rights of existence, or excluded, or even sent away. Seems to me they are all very afraid, but I haven't yet pinpointed what they are afraid of, exactly.
As I have written to you before, the Humans still have a long way to go before this becomes a Class B-4 planet.
Of course, there are good things here, too. The biodiversity is stunning and there is great natural beauty, so I am sharing a few pictures of that, with you. You might save those for the historical records, because the Humans-- as a whole-- don't seem to care much about the beauty of their planet.
Well, I am going to end for this time around and say "till the next time." I will continue my studies and attempt to understand this place better.
