Going to Bat
The parallels are fascinating, but it does leave you wondering how we’ve come to this pretty pass, that the Democrats are turning the next election into a battle between what John Edwards calls the “two Americas,” highlighting George II’s kleptocratic assertion of the privilege of the privileged in the U.S. economy, and that here in Australia, Mark Latham is asserting a similar agenda, describing that the Howard government has done more in Australia to create “battlers” while doing less than any previous administration for them. The anger and activism of the Left in both countries is a great relief – in the U.S. after less than four years of blatant pandering to corporate interests over those of the lower and middle classes, while Australia has suffered John Howard for nearly a decade longer. But that’s the worry: can the U.S. unseat Bush on the present Democratic agenda? Is the example of Howard getting in time and again an augury of how easy it may yet turn out for the Bush-Cheney ticket to renew its presence in Washington D.C.? Perhaps it’s wrong to allow my fear of November back in the States to color my expectations in my new home, and vice versa. I’d like Mark Latham to get the top spot here and to be able to hold on to it for long enough to put a halt to some of the present tendencies of the Federal government, just as I’d like to see Dean or Edwards or Kerry or, well, no, maybe not Kucinich, but a Democrat get the White House back, but it’s tough to unseat an incumbent, especially when there’s so much fear and it’s so easy for them to keep us alert if not alarmed.