<$BlogRSDUrl$>

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

Riverbend, with some reticence, endorses Kerry 

Riverbend, of Baghdad Burning, in a curiously ambivalent, almost schizophrenic post, acknowledges what I will call the banking and globalization forces behind the electing of a president, and American national politics in general, and then goes on to endorse Kerry. I hope her statement, "It cannot get much worse", isn't actually an inadvertent curse of some kind.

It sometimes seems, from this part of the world, that democracy in America revolves around the presidential elections- not the major decisions. War and peace in America are in the average American’s hands about as much as they are in mine. Sure, you can vote for this man or that one, but in the end, there’s something bigger, more intricate and quite sinister behind the decisions. Like in that board game Monopoly, you can choose the game pieces- the little shoe, the car, the top hat… but you can’t choose the way the game is played. The faces change but the intentions and the policy remain the same...

...Who am I hoping will win? Definitely Kerry. There’s no question about it. I want Bush out of the White House at all costs. (And yes- who is *in* the White House *is* my business- Americans, you made it my business when you occupied my country last year) I’m too realistic to expect drastic change or anything phenomenal, but I don’t want Bush reelected because his reelection (or shall I call it his ‘reassignment’) will condone the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq. It will say that this catastrophe in Iraq was worth its price in American and Iraqi lives. His reassignment to the White House will sanction all the bloodshed and terror we’ve been living for the last year and a half.

Sounds like she's been feeling something similar to my own ambivalence, and yes, schizophrenic reactions to the American political scene. Yea, rah rah for kerry, yah, but oh my god he's going to expand the war in Iraq and finish off Falluja. Yea but his election will mean the return of reason into the national political dialogue, okay, but that doesn't mean that all of Kerry's decisions will be reasonable, but maybe the sheer force of his good will would end the war without any more bloodshed. I have aquaintances who believe this. The American political system, as it is now, encourages the election of idols whose responsibility it becomes to mute criticism of catastrophic decisions.

# posted by scorpiorising : 9:06 AM |

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?