Jill Rees: Welcome Press

It wasn’t a great surprise to me that Florida was yet again incapable of holding a legal election for the primaries. It seems someone made the decision that the Florida poll should take place ahead of the others, which is outside the rules of the election system, so Florida’s vote will be invalid. To organise an election within the clearly stated and well-established rules seems  to be quite beyond the Democratic Party. Ho could this happen?  According to the Conspirators’ motto, we should be asking ourselves, ‘Who benefits?’  The Democrats have made themselves look like an incompetent Party who has little respect for the electorate.  This is potentially a large vote loss for the Party during the election itself, whichever candidate wins the nomination.  Democrats fear that, come the Presidential election, many Democrats in Florida will be too disillusioned to vote, giving a greater chance of success to the Republican candidate.   The Democrats may be shooting themselves in the foot.

In the Presidential elections of 2000, the Democratic rival to George Bush, Al Gore, won the popular vote but, because of irregularities in Florida, many of his votes were discredited, allowing the present incumbent to enter the Whitehouse, with the disastrous consequences the world is suffering today. George Bush’ refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol and reduce US emissions has enabled Climatic disaster to continue on a global scale. The increasing support for oil producing regimes, interference in democracy in South America, warmongering with China and the war in Iraq and Afghanistan that can be for no other reason I can see but to maintain the US weapons industry. The world’s citizens now live in a general fear of what America does next. When you see the subsequent  influence, intelligence and moral rectitude of Al Gore’s recent work for ecological action, you just weep at the thought of what might have been.

Whatever George Bush’ weaknesses, at least he’s got contacts in the Arab world. This new Republican candidate is not likely to be any better and might be a lot worse.  It will require more than a fair campaign to get him elected. This may, however, be the plan. Usually with Republican Presidents you get the strong feeling that they don’t really know what’s going on, but that they are just the patsy for the dark forces who really run America. With Democrat Presidents, on the other hand,  the back room men are conspire and plot to block all their initiatives and re-establish the status quo. As E.M. Forster said, ‘Two cheers for democracy’.

If there is a Democratic President this time, there is plenty of scope for bullying tactics, for it will be either a woman or a black man, both types no stranger to attempts to ride roughshod over their opinions. Instead of the back room guys being the main obstacle to the Presidential projects, the President will be more like the obstacle to their plans for the 21^st Century international redeemer America.

Inevitably, it seems people behind the scenes are the ones who are really running the scene. In Kenya it turns out that, far from being a sporadic response to the elections, the first attacks on the Kikuyu community of President Mwai Kibaki were well-organised reprisals on rival groups. There are calls for those who organised the original attacks to be prosecuted forcausing the death of 1,500 people. These secretly organised events employ  ‘Rent-a-mob’, people who can be called upon to turn up for some ostensibly genuine protest. Whenever Sadam Hussein turned up in public followed by a pack of frenzied followers, the TV used to comment that they were his relatives, or people paid to turn out for him. Everything is a kind of movie nowadays, directed by unscrupulous individuals with their own agenda.

Elections in the more established democracies are proving to be increasingly problematic. Though usually fair and legal, there is increasing dissatisfaction among voters. Young people, in particular, aren’t bothering to use their vote.  The last two elections in the UK had less than 65% turnout, only 56% among young men. The reasons cited are varied and depend on circumstances locally. People in areas of high employment and greater social stability tend to vote less. Stability tends to lead to voter apathy. Where there is an important local issue, or a national crisis, turnout increase.  Voters may feel that their vote won’t count, for example where there is a long-standing popular candidate and the result seems to be a foregone conclusion.  This seems fairly normal and harmless. More disturbingly, young people often don’t bother to register to vote, and this is also prevalent among ethnic minorities. These groups of people don’t think there is anyone in politics who can represent them.

If you are a poor black working class person in the US, can any of the candidates really represent you? Until the recent poll in Nevada, there was no real race split in the voting. Working class people tended to like both candidates, with some men expressing concern about a female president as a reason to favour Obama. Obama is so intelligent, worldly-wise, in every way the best candidate, and is increasingly in the lead for the popular nomination. In the world generally, his race will stand in his favour, especially as the next President will have to repair the damage the present administration has created in the world. In truth, however, he is not so much different. The policies of Obama and Clinton differ little from al the other Democratic candidates, and Democrat politicians. Although the skin of one is dark, the gender of the other feminine, they aren’t typical Americans, and they don’t represent the American myth that everyone has equal opportunity, if only they could manage to get a break. Both middle-class, from advantaged homes and with elite education, they will back the interests of the white middle class, like politicians always do.

Because everything is a movie now, we can feel hope and excitement about these unusual-looking candidates. it looks good on the screens of our TVs, which is where today’s reality is played out.  But the sad, cynical truth is that everyone who grapples their way into any position of power or influence, supports the global capitalist system which has led to the dramatic widening of an already appalling poverty gap in the last 40 years .

Currently a fifth of the world’s population live below the official poverty line in their respective countries. It is estimated that 18 million people, mostly children, die each year from poverty related illnesses.  Poor Americans are included in this, white as well as black. The number of extremely rich people has also increased dramatically, as if the money is being transferred from the poor to the rich, and indeed this is what is happening, and is the true meaning and the true cost of global capitalism. Neither Obama nor Clinton seem even aware of the increasing wretchedness of the world’s peoples.  Yet the poor will vote, because where there is life there is hope, and where there is high mortality rates, there is even more hope, for hope is the only secure possession the world’s poor has, when no politician exists who claims to represent them.

©   Jill Rees

19 March 2008

1217 words

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