Why the World Won't and Shouldn't Give a 'New' U.S. President Any Honeymoon

[Guest guest]

http://www.strike-the-root.com/4/welch/welch6.html

 

It's the Policies, Stupid

 

Why the World Won't and Shouldn't Give a 'New' U.S. President Any

Honeymoon

 

by Daniel Patrick Welch

 

As Americans gather to exercise their god-given right to pick the

leader of the free world, that world huddles anxiously in the

far-flung corners of the planet to see what comes next. This has all

been posited as good news for John Kerry, who is poised today to take

control of the massive house of cards left behind by one of the most

criminal organizations since the Nixon White House.

 

But even if the Republicans manage to fall short in their racist and

anti-democratic quest to steal enough votes to cling to power, a new

president can't expect a free pass. Whoever takes the oath in

January—giving the current administration, by the way, another two

months of Rump Parliament leeway to ruin everything even

further—whoever wins the Big Prize will inherit a free world so angry

and fed up with US policies that no amount of finesse, charm or

tweaking can force the genie back in the bottle. Score one for the

people of the world.

 

The one thing George Bush has done right is to unmask the darker side

of US imperial dreams. For this, he is routinely excoriated even by

" true " conservatives, stalwarts of his own party, by liberals,

moderates and blind, left-handed pipewelders—in short, everyone—all

who decry the loss of US " influence " in the world at large. Please

allow me to thank God. [Note: this is not a Grammy acceptance speech.]

In an earlier piece before the US invasion, I wrote, " Mark my words:

this war signals the beginning of the end of the US as a world power. "

[Fair Warning, March 2003.] Following the axiom that only a pompous

jackass quotes himself (those who know me well can opine, both friend

and foe) let me elaborate further:

 

There is not a single war in history where the aggressor does not

claim to have been provoked. Nobody cares what kind of forged

documents we can cook up, or how many Americans the government can

dupe. All the childish, macho, swaggering crap, all the " freedom

fries " and " liberty toast " in the world won't wash the bad taste it

leaves it the mouths of world opinion . . . . Over the next few

decades, our standard of living will slide as the world community

recoils. Why should it be otherwise? As Paul Simon sang of a different

war a generation ago, " You can't expect to be bright and bon-vivant so

far away from home/so far away from home. "

 

The right wing, of course, is desperate to hold on to power, trotting

out all the tricks they can muster to intimidate, obfuscate, bluster

and steal their way to a second wave of unmitigated destruction. They

are well on their way to succeeding, as 200 million bucks buys a lot

of neat stuff. [see Palast's expose, An Election Spoiled Rotten] But

despite the ouija board polling industry, the phenomenally

uninterested and incompetent press, and a largely comatose US

population, it seems obvious that Bush is also hated by his own

people, though certainly not by the margins seen in the rest of the

world. There's enough mistrust to ignite a civil war and fuel a new

axiom, " if he wins, they stole it. "

 

The problem is what happens next. If Bush is booted today, there are

precious few safeguards (fewer than ever, thanks to the work of this

administration) against the US war machine. The trouble is that in the

Ponzi scheme of US politics, voters are asked to choose between

shapeshifters, magicians, sound bites and teams of spinmeisters

equally prepared to argue that their man did and did not mean whatever

it is that he did or did not say. Hey diddle-diddle, she's the one in

the middle. Absent enormous political courage, it leaves little room

for a mandate; the winner simply sits at the helm of a huge, unwieldy

ship that dangerously steers itself, its rudders fixed and sails

rigged by corporate interests unresponsive to anything but their own

power.

 

The antiwar movement, the vestige of the US " left, " has promised a

sort of November 3 Movement, aimed at sustaining the opposition to US

policies that victimize the world's people. However, it has been an

outgrowth of the stampede toward Anybody But Bush; the logic was that

it is so essential to get rid of Bush that these forces should hold

their fire against Kerry until Satan is safely out of the way. The

trouble, of course, is that the myriad variables that make this avenue

appealing to a certain crowd will also conspire in the same and

different ways to make it essential to hold off in the future.

Tomorrow is when the November 3 movement will begin to break down, its

collapse fueled by the internal contradictions that have brought it

about.

 

The clock is ticking on US empire. What the world needs is a

sustained, vigorous, coherent and unyielding opposition to the

policies that have brought us to this point. None of that will come

from any new administration. It will be forced on it by challenge from

below and from without. The US left can get on board if it chooses;

for much of the world, however, it seems that the train is already

leaving the station.

 

 

 

November 3, 2004