On 30 Aug., 17:51, BB47 <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Yes, you have good points except that Guantanamo went on for seven
> years. There was plenty of outrage, yet It is still not over.
>
I'll just quickly take up one point here. Yes, the USA needed 7 years
to tackle the Guantanamo question. In this period there were two mid-
term elections and two presidential elections - only after the last of
these did things finally start to move. The basic "facts" pertaining
to Guantanamo were generally known from the beginning. There were also
figures who presented themselves (more or less) as alternatives to
Bush's politics and measures. The US electorate decided in 2002, 2004
and 2006 not to give them practical majorities. Like it or not, those
of us living in systems which organise themselves according to the
principle of representative democracy have to accept election results
(as long as they are generally regarded as being fair). The
unfortunate fact is that, despite the question of legitimacy regarding
Bush's first term (I'll leave it to Chris to educate us in the
peculiarities of Florida election procedures, should he wish), the
majority of those who voted in November 2004 in the USA gave Dubya a
second term. Confused, misled, lied-to, foxxed as the electorate may
have partly been, the majority of US Americans who bothered to vote
chose to ignore the alternative views being presented and confirmed
Bush, his regime and his policies for a second term.
It took so long, because it took so long for the majority of voters in
the US to finally look at what was really going on. But, seen in a
purely US context, that was as much the responsibility of "us" (the
voting electorate, who gave Bush a continued mandate) as it was of
"them" (the politicians who carried on doing what they were doing).
Try as we may, we cannot abdicate responsibilities - or pass them on,
like a blank cheque, to someone else.
"If we have this power you speak of, why do these things not only
> occur, but carry on for years and years?"
Because it often takes that long for us to realise our
responsibilities and do something about them, that's why.
Francis
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