Jim wrote: "I think the Bushmasters are arrogant because of their long experience with having power (as part of the economic or military elite). Bush and the like went to elite schools, etc., etc."
Quite. You say it very succinctly. But here's some additional comments, for the more patient readers: "At Harvard Business School, thirty years ago, George Bush was a student of mine. I still vividly remember him. In my class, he declared that "people are poor because they are lazy." He was opposed to labor unions, social security, environmental protection, Medicare, and public schools. To him, the antitrust watch dog, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Securities Exchange Commission were unnecessary hindrances to "free market competition." To him, Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal was "socialism." Recently, President Bush's Federal Appeals Court Nominee, California's Supreme Court Justice Janice Brown, repeated the same broadside at her Senate hearing. She knew that her pronouncement would please President Bush and Karl Rove and their Senators. President Bush and his brain, Karl Rove, are leading a radical revolution of destroying all the democratic political, social, judiciary, and economic institutions that both Democrats and moderate Republicans had built together since Roosevelt's New Deal. "President George Bush and the Gilded Age" by Yoshi Tsurumi (Professor of International Business, Baruch College, the City University of New York ).http://www.glocom.org/opinions/essays/20040301_tsurumi_president/ "Republican gerrymandering of electoral districts has created a Congress where a Republican majority is virtually assured as most seats become permanently 'safe'. Experts now believe there are only 25 contestable House seats left. At the same time, a Bush win would mean that by 2008 a Republican President would have controlled the appointment of senior judges for 20 of the past 28 years. By the end of a second term, Bush would be likely to have named three more Supreme Court judges, locking up the court for cultural and political conservatives for a generation. 'There is something dangerous at work here. The Republicans, if they win again, are in a position to change the structure of American democracy,' said Robert Kuttner, editor of US Prospect magazine." Source: http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/2-21-2004-50835.asp?viewPage=2 MSNBC: And [John Kerry] becomes the anti-establishment candidate then? [Tim] Russert: That's exactly what he's hoping for. Someone wants to be the alternative to the front-runner. First it was Dean, now it's Edwards. (...) MSNBC: All in all then, what are we hearing in all these Democratic primaries, beginning with Iowa? Russert: They oppose the war. They think the economy's in bad shape by a margin of 80 percent and over 80 percent say they're angry or dissatisfied with President Bush. The one interesting thing that's been so striking to me is the way the Democratic Party has united. And, at the polls, if you ask about the war, every state -- Arizona, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina; north, south, east and west -- there is overwhelming opposition to the war. When it comes to the economy, in Oklahoma, Missouri and South Carolina, over 70% say the economy is not good. And there's anger and dissatisfaction with George W. Bush. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4146741 It looks to me, that there's no way at all in which Kerry could match the Bush team in campaign funding, in which case the image of being "anti-establishment" is really the only way to go, and then you hope for a large anti-Bush default vote (at the very least a lesser evil vote). The problem in these elections is really is, that they are about nothing, because nobody seems to have any comprehensive constructive policy which genuinely aims to resolve the social, economic and environmental problems of American society itself. The Federal Government basically functions as a technically bankrupt corporation which, unless some genial financial policies are devised, can only survive by "selling off the family silver". One thinks of what Marx wrote in Capital Vol. 3: "Accumulation of capital in the form of the national debt, as we have shown, means nothing more than the growth of a class of state creditors with a preferential claim to certain sums from the overall proceeds of taxation. In the way that even an accumulation of debts can appear as an accumulation of capital, we see the distortion in the credit system reach its culmination. These promissory notes which were issued for a capital originally borrowed but long since spent, these paper duplicates of annihilated capital, function for their owners as capital in so far as they are saleable commodities and can therefore be transformed back into capital." Marx, Capital Vol. 3, chapter 30 (Money capital and real capital, I), Pelican edition, p. 607-608. How could Kerry deliver a "New Deal" or social contract of any sort, if he couldn't actually finance that, but is in reality forced to balance the budget by taking more money away from American citizens ? This is the problem really. The ordinary American voter has to believe, that he has something to gain by a Bush win or a Kerry win, but what is it ? What could either candidate deliver on, that would actually benefit the ordinary voter ? Alice Cooper, who had an interesting career, wrote a song once (it don't sound like J.S. Bach !) that went like this: I'm your top prime cut of meat, I'm your choice, I wanna be elected, I'm your yankee doodle dandy in a gold Rolls Royce, I wanna be elected, Kids want a saviour, don't need a fake, I wanna be elected, We're all gonna rock to the rules that I make, I wanna be elected, elected, elected. I never lied to you, I've always been cool, I wanna be elected, I gotta get the vote, and I told you 'bout school, I wanna be elected, elected, elected, Hallelujah, I wanna be selected, Everyone in the United States of America. We're gonna win this one, take the country by storm, We're gonna be elected, You and me together, young and strong, We're gonna be elected, elected, elected, Respected, selected, call collected, I wanna be elected, elected. "And if I am elected I promise the formation of a new party A third party, the Wild Party! I know we have problems, We got problems right here in Central City, We have problems on the North, South, East and West, New York City, Saint Louis, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, Everybody has problems, And personally, I don't care." Jurriaan
