1 for the Donkeys
It soothes my filthy Leftist soul to see what has happened in the US over the last two days.
It's been a rough few years for those of us who refuse to bay for the blood of random Arabs, for those of us who feel that creating a war under false pretences is a wrong thing to do, for those of us who think that the First World should lead by example on issues of judicial process and transparency, on the environment and social policy.
Not that I'm convinced for a moment that all this will now come to fruition. The US has dug itself an enormous hole that it now has to start climbing out of and this country is still led by the rat-cunning of JHo and the Australian pater-cons.
But for the first time in many years there is a flicker from the Light on the Hill. A reminder that politics is about swings and roundabouts and that however much democracy can seem to kick you in the guts, it all evens out in the wash.
The question now will be how this is really going to change things in the States? Will their foreign policy be significantly altered? With George W a lame duck President, will the Democrats actually move to make the changes the voting public has so clearly demanded, or will they slip quietly into power and allow the situation to bubble along as it has for the last few years?
Some have even questioned if the Dems winning Virginia is actually a desirable outcome. The next few years will require a significant amount of 'correction' and having the Democrats in power of both Houses may simply damage the Democratic Presidential nominee (whoever that may be). Perhaps it's better to let George have his way for the last two years of his term so that the blame for the state of the country can be attributed solely to the Republicans when it next comes time to vote for the leader of the Western World.
If nothing else, it just makes me smile to look at an electoral map of the US and see no hard red Republican 'gains'.
[via]
It's going to be an interesting couple of months…
It's been a rough few years for those of us who refuse to bay for the blood of random Arabs, for those of us who feel that creating a war under false pretences is a wrong thing to do, for those of us who think that the First World should lead by example on issues of judicial process and transparency, on the environment and social policy.
Not that I'm convinced for a moment that all this will now come to fruition. The US has dug itself an enormous hole that it now has to start climbing out of and this country is still led by the rat-cunning of JHo and the Australian pater-cons.
But for the first time in many years there is a flicker from the Light on the Hill. A reminder that politics is about swings and roundabouts and that however much democracy can seem to kick you in the guts, it all evens out in the wash.
The question now will be how this is really going to change things in the States? Will their foreign policy be significantly altered? With George W a lame duck President, will the Democrats actually move to make the changes the voting public has so clearly demanded, or will they slip quietly into power and allow the situation to bubble along as it has for the last few years?
Some have even questioned if the Dems winning Virginia is actually a desirable outcome. The next few years will require a significant amount of 'correction' and having the Democrats in power of both Houses may simply damage the Democratic Presidential nominee (whoever that may be). Perhaps it's better to let George have his way for the last two years of his term so that the blame for the state of the country can be attributed solely to the Republicans when it next comes time to vote for the leader of the Western World.
If nothing else, it just makes me smile to look at an electoral map of the US and see no hard red Republican 'gains'.
[via]
It's going to be an interesting couple of months…
But this is the most positive outcome of all.
ReplyDeleteI agree, it's nice to the see the Ds get up there in both houses.
ReplyDeleteI'm also happy to see Rumsfeld sent on his way - the research I've been doing on Iraq recently has seen me become increasingly frustrated with the way he managed stuff at DoD, particularly the hardcore turf war he fought out with Colin Powell when Mr P was running the State Department. Sure, it's probably in Rummy's best interests to head off now before things get any worse, and it gives the White House a nice scapegoat, but it's nice to see him leave, even if it is on their terms.
I'm curious to see how it affects policy, though. CNN business international was reporting with a bit of surprise the next day that markets didn't seem to take much of a stumble. As CC pointed out, given that it was reasonably expected that the Dems would win heaps of seats, the new political environment had probably been accounted for in the market already. I tend to agree. Plus if so many people were voting dem, surely at least some of them were investors too; why would you vote dem and then panic and sell your stocks?
But, crude and rudimentary share market analysis aside, what if the markets aren't fluctuating much because, like the financial and economic folks often love believe, the information content of markets is greater than the sum of its parts? What if it's assuming that there won't be major policy shifts? Stocks in defense contractors like KBR, a subsidiary of Haliburton, have continued to perform strongly throughout the election, indicating that the market doesn't believe dems will cut defense spending.
George Soros has this whole theory of big stuff based on the relationship between reality, perception, and mob mentality, where he basically argues that the further away perceptions, bias and belief get from reality, the bigger the crash when an undeniable truth emerges.
He's written a book called The Bubble of American Supremacy about the war in Iraq being one such case where US foreign policy and Americans in general are deluding themselves, and that there'll be a correction when a reality check brings them all back to earth.
So here's my question. What if the recent shift in US politics represents a bursting of Republican supremacy, rather than American supremacy?