QUICK, THINK OF A WORLD LEADER YOU WOULD COMPARE TO THE GREATS OF THE PAST

Yeah, I couldn't think of any either. I suppose we always need our elected representatives to be the best we can find, but these times certainly are demanding some strong leadership skills and I don't see them.

There's some politically shrewd ones (Nethanyahu) and some smart ones (Obama) and some staunch ones (Merkel) etc.  But where are the leaders willing to lead on the climate change crisis (including the diminishment of fresh water sources) which is the gravest long term and soon to be short term catastrophe facing all of us, or smart enough to see that "austerity" measures are not working in the worldwide financial crisis?

Obama may have beliefs I agree with in these areas, but he has not done a good job of leading on them. of course if Romney wins in November it will be even worse. And yes, I do believe the lesser of two evils is a better choice than no choice at all.  Maybe in a second term, if he wins one, Obama will be able to achieve more in these areas, but even then he'd have to have the support of Congress, which means the Democrats would not only have to win the House but also win more than sixty seats in The Senate (since the right has somehow won the filibuster battle meaning they have overthrown The Constitutions stipulation that a majority vote in The Senate is all it takes to pass a law etc.).

There are those two women in South America (in Chile and Brazil) whose policies and stated beliefs seem pretty righteous, but whose leadership skills may not be great enough to help them change things in their own countries let alone the world.  And yes, it's clear that the best leadership may often come from masses of people forming movements that influence policy decisions, but obviously that only goes so far: witness the Egyptian elections where the beliefs of the majority of the demonstrators that brought down Mubarak are not represented in the top two choices in the runoff, or in our own country where the rightwing media brain washing machine works so efficiently that working people continue to mostly vote against their own interests and in the interest of billionaires and corporations that deprive them of their rights, their economic security and their futures.

Which is not to say that all times aren't challenging for those alive in them and that humankind doesn't improve over time at least for long stretches. But it feels like a tough stretch we're in now.