 |
|
Daniel Patrick Welch - So what’s a thinking American to do? Metaphors from Alice in Wonderland don’t even cut it any more. Bizarro World is too comical, and “Beam me up, Scotty..” too hopeful. At least the good men and women of the Enterprise had somewhere to beam to. Alas, in the current pundit-, oil-, and money-swamp that is the US, there seems truly to be no escape. Daniel Patrick Welch comments on the surreal quality of life in the US during election season. With the Iraq war playing almost no role in the election debate, Welch fears that American voters have become totally unhinged from reality, and wonders if there is any escape from the current crisis.
If the only reason you are holding out on voting for Nader is your conviction that he can’t win – then you are merely reinforcing the religion of the War Party. You have become a major part of the problem. A generation ago, the American peace movement voted for McGovern even though they were certain he would lose. Liberals voted for Carter knowing that Reagan was the likely victor. America Firsters voted for Buchanan as a matter of principal – not because of his political prospects. Besides, whatever happened to voting for the political agenda that would best serve the nation. This is not a horse race. It’s an election. There is more at stake here than a two-dollar bet. We shouldn’t be expected to vote on the odds – any more than we should consider voting for the candidate with the largest campaign coffers.
Following a recent protest march in Boston prior to the Democratic Convention, I confided to a Pro-Palestinian activist that I am supporting John Kerry as President. He stared at me in disbelief. Shiny with sweat from the heat and exertion from the march, he immediately flew into a litany of the pro-Israeli stances the Senator has announced in recent months ? his support of Ariel Sharon, the Gaza Disengagement Plan, and the racist Apartheid Wall. He railed against my hypocrisy spouting off against the incongruity of my articles, my poetry that reveal the horror of the Israeli-Zionist policies on innocent Palestinians that contrasted so sharply with supporting such a man.… Genevieve Cora Fraser explains her continued support for John Kerry.
The Democratic National Convention, which opened Monday in Boston, is the culmination of a drive by the most powerful forces in the Democratic Party, the media and the USA ruling elite as a whole to banish from the November presidential election any real debate amongst opponents of the present administration. This effort to exclude from the political process all voices of serious dissent, and suppress the most vital concerns of the vast majority of the people - not only the war, but also the assault on jobs, living standards and democratic rights - testifies to the organic incapacity of the two major parties in America to address, let alone resolve, a mounting social and political crisis of historical proportions.
Former Baltimore Sun journalist Frank Kent considered, “The evils of government are directly proportional to the tolerance of the people.” The government formed is the result of citizens having cast votes in an election. If recent polling results are accurate, then to the extent that the American citizenry are aware of the murderous events in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Haiti, and elsewhere, sociopathology might be considered to be societal and reflected by the government. A vote for either Bush or Kerry in the upcoming presidential elections could be construed as a sociopathological attitude to non-Americans, since a Kerry presidency would only mean a change of face and little significant change in foreign policy except to invite allies to share in imperialistic plunder.
Hal Crowther
I used to take a drink on occasion with a network newsman famed for his impenetrable calm--his apparent pulse rate that of a large mammal in deep hibernation--and in an avuncular moment he advised me that I’d do all right, in the long run, if I could only avoid the kind of journalism committed to the keyboard “with trembling fingers.” I recognized the wisdom of this advice and endeavored over the years to write as little as possible when my blood pressure was soaring and my face was streaked with tears. The lava flows of indignation ebb predictably with age and hardening arteries, and nearing three-score I thought I’d never have to take another tranquilizer--or a double bourbon--to keep my fingers steady on the keys. I never imagined 2004.
 |
Get free membership of the World Crisis Web, entitling you to post your own views on the articles published here, and to receive email summaries of the best articles on the site, as well as analysis and comment from other key sites.
Your privacy will always be fully respected. No-one's details will ever be given, sold, or otherwise traded to anyone else.
The World Crisis Web gives you automatically updated RSS news feeds for desktop newsreaders, or to add to your web site.
Amnesty International - Global Justice Gap Condemns Millions to Abuse
The PA's Disingenuous Boycott Campaign
A Shameful War: Israel in the Dock
Somalia: Bad Policies of Strange Bedfellows
The End of Hypocrisy: Crime's Gleeful Abandon in Gaza
Contact the editor without having to bother with e-mail.