It Ain't Over 'til It's...Actually, It Is Over
Even if Deibold was absolutely diabolical in Ohio...that does little to change the fact that Bush won a 3.1% plurality of the popular vote. As tight as the polling has been throughout the election cycle and as split as the country in general is, this essentially is a mandate.
Bush has a mandate for four more years of "peace through superior firepower", for "a faith based economy", for "a government of the free market by the free-market and for the free-market". Abu Ghraib? Fine by us. No Problem.
This is not 2000 when a significant portion of the population could muse that if not for a Supreme Court decision the dam had held. This is significant proof that the American people's voting habits have been altered by a poor diet of over-processed, starchy political rhetoric, sugary evangelical ideology, and spicy red-hot fear. Just as Americans have grown flabby and feeble in body, the mind and heart have largely followed.
There is no putting a good face on the loss for the Democrats. The party was ineffectual in opening up new constituencies with new voters. With well enough money to get the job done, the message was weak. What we got was a constant drone of how gawd-awful George Bush was, but missing was a clarion call to stiffen our spines and imagine a better way of doing things; a call to action. George Bush ran on a record of needless, reckless war, historic job loss, and welfare for the wealthy...AND WON! What has the Democratic Party done for you lately?
Analysts (may their putrid drivel be damned) say that Americans are driven by fears of terrorism. Rather, they are driven by a manufactured idea of terrorism. The people living in the major cities are the likely targets of terrorists. We aren't scared. The people out on the rural routes and in the small towns think terrorists are all but lurking out behind the corn crib at any given moment. They need someone to say "We will draw a line. They will not pass." Well, they did pass. Quite easily. On Bush's watch. And he simply sat there. He did not even whisper to his Chief of Staff to call a meeting. He just sat there. Makes you wander what he will do when it happens again.
What will the rest of the world do when they realize that America has forever changed and is no longer the "indispensible nation"? My guess is that the EU will link arms with no further reservation; the Korean Peninsula will reunify to marry the military might of the North with the economic engine of the South and say "thanks, but no thanks for the 50 years of protective custody"; China and Japan will exert pressure on our economic system through their shared ownership of our debt; and Muslims the world over will either find common cause or risk seeing their traditions crushed by American power that knows no proportionality and cannot respond to reason. If Bush pronounced that for some obscure reason we are forced to bomb Medina with ICBMs, 40% of the country would have no question at all of the decision.
Yesterday Americans decided that we need not do anything meaningful about the national debt; our health care system is exemplary; our corporate bosses know what is good for us and have our best interests in hand; America will rain down hell-fire on any perceived foe and we owe no explanation to anybody. Yesterday, evangelicals who perhaps thought they were voting for a leader who understands the meaning of faith in Christ, voted for a non-practicing "Christian" who would, as a friend has noted, "sell their children's futures for a few more barrels of oil."
The media proved to be laughably inane. It was so transparent how the monolithic corporate apparatus functioned according to the will of various fixers, mavens, gatekeepers, and plutocrats that the courtly intrigue ceased to be mesmerizing and was merely sick and disgusting. Fortunately, amatuer journalists came forth as if called by the ghost of Jefferson himself to raise facts to the surface and to key the smooth, polished finish of the media machine with a jagged "GO TO HELL."
There is a brutal class war that is devastating lots of people out here. I am one of them. For those who would make a glib chuckle over the mention of "class war", you better be prepared to fight the fight dirty and bare knuckled. Are you part of the symptom or part of the cure? Corporatist hegemony will not prevail over the individual. The monied affluence that seeks to make the will of a class into law for all will not stand. Your fortunes will dim. Tools to make the fight fair are easily obtained and are intrinsically democratic. The next time there will be no compliant media, no big money donors able to create their own reality with the force of their lucre. There will be no Terry McAuliffe. There will be an informed, engaged electorate made wise by our errors and bold by our solidarity. Never again.
Bush has a mandate for four more years of "peace through superior firepower", for "a faith based economy", for "a government of the free market by the free-market and for the free-market". Abu Ghraib? Fine by us. No Problem.
This is not 2000 when a significant portion of the population could muse that if not for a Supreme Court decision the dam had held. This is significant proof that the American people's voting habits have been altered by a poor diet of over-processed, starchy political rhetoric, sugary evangelical ideology, and spicy red-hot fear. Just as Americans have grown flabby and feeble in body, the mind and heart have largely followed.
There is no putting a good face on the loss for the Democrats. The party was ineffectual in opening up new constituencies with new voters. With well enough money to get the job done, the message was weak. What we got was a constant drone of how gawd-awful George Bush was, but missing was a clarion call to stiffen our spines and imagine a better way of doing things; a call to action. George Bush ran on a record of needless, reckless war, historic job loss, and welfare for the wealthy...AND WON! What has the Democratic Party done for you lately?
Analysts (may their putrid drivel be damned) say that Americans are driven by fears of terrorism. Rather, they are driven by a manufactured idea of terrorism. The people living in the major cities are the likely targets of terrorists. We aren't scared. The people out on the rural routes and in the small towns think terrorists are all but lurking out behind the corn crib at any given moment. They need someone to say "We will draw a line. They will not pass." Well, they did pass. Quite easily. On Bush's watch. And he simply sat there. He did not even whisper to his Chief of Staff to call a meeting. He just sat there. Makes you wander what he will do when it happens again.
What will the rest of the world do when they realize that America has forever changed and is no longer the "indispensible nation"? My guess is that the EU will link arms with no further reservation; the Korean Peninsula will reunify to marry the military might of the North with the economic engine of the South and say "thanks, but no thanks for the 50 years of protective custody"; China and Japan will exert pressure on our economic system through their shared ownership of our debt; and Muslims the world over will either find common cause or risk seeing their traditions crushed by American power that knows no proportionality and cannot respond to reason. If Bush pronounced that for some obscure reason we are forced to bomb Medina with ICBMs, 40% of the country would have no question at all of the decision.
Yesterday Americans decided that we need not do anything meaningful about the national debt; our health care system is exemplary; our corporate bosses know what is good for us and have our best interests in hand; America will rain down hell-fire on any perceived foe and we owe no explanation to anybody. Yesterday, evangelicals who perhaps thought they were voting for a leader who understands the meaning of faith in Christ, voted for a non-practicing "Christian" who would, as a friend has noted, "sell their children's futures for a few more barrels of oil."
The media proved to be laughably inane. It was so transparent how the monolithic corporate apparatus functioned according to the will of various fixers, mavens, gatekeepers, and plutocrats that the courtly intrigue ceased to be mesmerizing and was merely sick and disgusting. Fortunately, amatuer journalists came forth as if called by the ghost of Jefferson himself to raise facts to the surface and to key the smooth, polished finish of the media machine with a jagged "GO TO HELL."
There is a brutal class war that is devastating lots of people out here. I am one of them. For those who would make a glib chuckle over the mention of "class war", you better be prepared to fight the fight dirty and bare knuckled. Are you part of the symptom or part of the cure? Corporatist hegemony will not prevail over the individual. The monied affluence that seeks to make the will of a class into law for all will not stand. Your fortunes will dim. Tools to make the fight fair are easily obtained and are intrinsically democratic. The next time there will be no compliant media, no big money donors able to create their own reality with the force of their lucre. There will be no Terry McAuliffe. There will be an informed, engaged electorate made wise by our errors and bold by our solidarity. Never again.
posted by obelus at 11/03/2004 08:35:00 AM
1 Comments:
Keep writing brother...we are on the lowpoint of a cultural and political cycle. Maybe this is Clinton's fault as well - we got too fat and lazy and comfortable and trusting. When life is good, and our leaders seem fair, nobody needs to care much about anything going on next door or down the street...it's all a big friendly barbecue in the backyard.
Today begins a New Deal.
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