11.5.04

Election Trainspotting

Is it just me, or does anyone else have the distinct feeling that The Shrub and his poodles, i.e. Messrs. Bush, Blair and Howard, might just get re-elected this year? I don't know but I can feel in my waters, Kimmie. In order for them to actually bite the ballot bullet, the following would have to happen:

1. American voters would have to objectively assess their government's performance and not believe their sorry excuse for a media and/or their own inbuilt ignorance and national chauvinism.

Oh, and they'd actually have to vote.

2. Australian voters, for once, just once, would have to not kowtow and suck-up to either Great Britain or the USA and actually vote for a self-confident and uniquely Australian foreign policy.

Alright then, cynics might say that since Australians see their self-confident and unique Australian position up the Brits' and Septics' backsides, they've already done this. Repeatedly.

3. British voters would have to actually care about parts of the world that do not speak English and realise that no amount of anti-European Union posturing will bring the empire back.

So you see, right there... The coalition of the willing shall triumph once again. And in the old black-and-white telly of my world view, this looks like quite an appealing prospect: it's time to see who's who. After all, the us vs. them theory is espoused ad nauseam by Blair, Bush and Howard, and I quite fancy a showdown between them and us. Just to see what will happen.

However, when turning on my newfangled colour telly world view, I realise that this strategy of, shall we say, forced polarisation of the masses is in essence that of the German Communist Party (KPD) of the 1920's. The KPD at least tacitly welcomed the rise of Nazism as the inevitable clash of classes in Germany, the bringing out in the open of irreconcilable class contradictions and the spark that would surely ignite the imminent victory of the progressive working classes against the forces of reaction.

And that worked out really well.

So maybe one should support Australian Labor, American Democrats and (brrrr....) the Tories, alas, hope in the electorates has gone AWOL. Somehow this all reminds me of Trainspotting; the scene where Tommy takes the gang out to a Scottish moor and Renton loses it: "Some people hate the English, but I don't. They're just wankers. We, on the other hand, are colonized by wankers. We can't even pick a decent culture to be colonized by. We are ruled by effete arseholes. It's a shite state of affairs and all the fresh air in the world will not make any fucking difference."

Just sounds familiar: some people hate Bush, Blair and Howard but they're just your run-of-the-mill lying, cheating, pondscum figureheads of capitalism and neo-imperialism.

We, on the other hand, vote for these people...

In this context, just a little tip for those with a Flash Player and a bit of time: Bushflash, especially for the great animations - which include my current (and, I suspect, soon-to-be-perennial) favourite, Idiot Son Of An Asshole by NOFX.