Tara
La Freniere whinnies on behalf of the "liberal
left" about the "soft minded decisions"
made by her compatriots in electing Bush one more
time to the White House. But rather than blaming
the majority for their failures its really time
that the liberals (who are anything but left) reflected
on how they ended up, for the second time round,
with an unelectable dissembler running for the highest
office in the land.
To
my mind Americans chose the only candidate they
could have. Kerry's defeat was inevitable and because
liberals and self deluded democrats (who are anything
but liberal) refuse to take on the burden of responsibility
for the fiasco they have instead gone hunting for
someone else to blame. Last time round it was Ralph
Nader, this time its a veritable shopping list.
The fundamentalists, the red necks, the amorphous
working class who dont know their own interests,
even when its explained to them by liberals. Katha
Pollitt, the insuferable republicrat from the shameless
Nation magazine, had the nerve to blame youth in
general for not rolling out to the polling booth
to vote for Kerry, who has missed no oppurtunity
to harangue youth culture from the floor of the
Senate and who would happily send the young to die
in Iraq so as not to appear 'soft' on terror. At
least Bush knows how to have a good time.
La
Freniere is right about the ills of the contemporary
scene but she is slightly confused on the details.
This is a generalised problem among self identifying
liberals. Bush is a right wing lunatic surrounded
by neo fascists: the likes of Rumsfeld, Ashcroft,
Cheney and the liberal favorite Powell have a long
history of service to empire, criminal conspiracy
, mass murder and the rest. But so do Bill Clinton,
Al Gore and John Kerry. Kerry's candidacy was itself
an anti democratic imposition by Clinton and Terry
McAuliffe, boss of the Democratic National Committee.
His platform, what there was of one, was a mirror
image of Bush's. He distinguished himself primarily
on the issue of the deficit, something the American
people have repeatedly expressed no interest in.
The
elimination of the deficit was a shibboleth exploited
well by Clinton to convince conservatives that he
wasn't a tax and spend liberal. Unsurprisingly Bush
doesnt have to worry about convincing conservatives
of anything. He can just bash gays, and get Kerry
to join in. Liberals forget how exactly Clinton
got elected. Bush Snr's vote was split by Ross Perot,
who took 13% putting Clinton over the top. Four
years later the Republicans, quite happy with Clintons
destruction of welfare, genocidal attacks on Iraq
and his careful neoliberal architecture projects
globally ran the old crock Bob Dole against him,
ensuring his
reelection.
That
is key to understanding why the liberals in the
US are the serial losers when confronted by republicans.
They detest and fear their base while the republicans
embrace theirs. Kerry did not have one idea, not
one, that could be regarded as progressive or liberal.
He was against gay marriage (as if homophobes would
vote for this dilletante aristocrat from New England),
for chasing down and killing terrorists, for the
death penalty, against welfare, for 'winning' the
Iraq war (with the help of the foreign legion and
the luftwaffe), against universal healthcare (market
fundamentalism in all things), the sorry list goes
on and on. He is to the right of even Bill Clinton
which might explain why few liberals actually tried
to argue for him rather than against Bush.
What
exactly they were expecting to happen is a mystery.
Liberals and progressives sabotaged the anti war
movement to allow Kerry run a pro war campaign,
the social liquidation unfolding in Iraq now can
be creditied in part to these efforts. La Freniere
and her double thinking pals should consider how
they got duped again by a right wing clique within
the democrats and why they went out and tried to
fool everyone else with this pathetic charade, one
more time, only to be remined by joe public why
they are mistrusted. Chosing to ignore the facts
about Kerry is their fault.
