The Greater Jihad in American Politics

Today,
in the Senate, Democrats failed to secured enough votes to stop a Republican Filibuster.
The bill they were trying to slide through the Senate, the D.I.S.C.L.O.S.E. Bill, would shine light into campaign donations. 
The general response from Democratic leadership, as well as many party insiders showed the greater problem
in American politics:
Lack of Accountability. Personal and from Within the Party.
 The Democrats were quick to blame Republicans for not being bi-partisan, Republicans claimed the bill leaned too far Left for their Taste. And so the dirty little wheel of American politics goes through another turn, much like an ignorant soul caught in Sam-sara....

Both sides are guilty of this problem, and in-fact, our enemies in the War on Terror,
(re-branded under Obama as "Overseas Contingency Operations", clever huh?)
Fundamentalist Muslims, from both sides of the Sunni and Shia divide, have invoked Jihad against us.
While many  understand that there are moderate Muslims who don't hate us, who want Levi jeans, personal freedoms and maybe just a little free-market capitalism, in the context of their own culture, many don't understand that the Jihadist movement, is problematic, even from within its own religious context.
Let me explain. Within Islam, specifically the Qu'ran, followers are asked to engage in two Jihads, when the need serves. The Lesser Jihad, is in-fact, the one which has been unleashed upon the West, and even within the Middleeast, is to protect and spread the word of Islam, by the sword. When you see some bearded Iman, calling for Jihad against the American oppressors, they are invoking the Lesser Jihad.
However, the Greater jihad, which seems to have been left by the way side, it to make yourself a better and more rightous human, who is adverse to violence and has willfully submitted to only the rule of Alah.

Now it seems to me, that the fundamentalist Muslims and the politicians in our government need pull the same card. Turn inwards, and examine the self, purify that, and you will create a better world.

Or as a great poet than myself once put it: Be the Change you Wish to See in the World.

I am not suggesting that we need to purify the Democratic Party, or purge its ranks of people who lean right and or for that matter, I don't think we need that in the GOP either, (despite whatever the contradictory, racist and ignorant views of the "teabaggers", who called themselves that until someone revealed (mayhaps a log cabin republican) that teabagging was far different from what they wanted. Or was it?). What we do need is some good hard reckoning as a people. If this is what we want from Our Government. Fine. But this isn't want our founding fathers intended; this sort of bickering will bring us no where.