Tony Blair
We haven't paid a lot of attention to Britain's general election that is underway today. Perhaps because they campaign only for several weeks rather than years as we do.
But the results will show much about our own nationa political life. Blair is suffering from his loyal friendship with President Bush, particularly in the mattter of Iraq. The British electorate, much as ours did last year, has come to believe they were lied to about the real reasons for invading Iraq. The stated reasons have all been shot full of holes. One wonders whether the electorate will punish Blair in ways they did not punish Bush for his lies.
One commentator has said that if Blair wins, it will be Margaret Thatcher's eight electoral victory, meaning that the British Labor Party has adopted much of the old Conservative Party agenda. In the eyes of many, the interests of old Labor, a better deal for lower class and working people, has been set aside for the so-called Free Market agenda that seems to have co-opted political discourse in so much of the world.
I am a Clinton fan, but I made a like criticism of him, especially after he signed the Welfare Reform package that has knocked so many truly impoverished people into despair. It may be that the impetus for this view of life and government; that free markets are the most effective way of benefitting the entire society, and that the bottom line trumps all other matters, is so strong no one can run against it.
The economic disaster gathering in our country and perhaps the whol world, is, I suspect, a result of our enslavement to an ideology that ignores many dimensions of reality.
It would be heartening if today's British election gave some hint that the world is beginning to return to its sense. But, since no party in that election has proposed a plan that would return government to some attempt to manage the economic welfare of its poorest, it would be hard to see how that might happen. One wonders the same about our country. Would a Kerry victory have been really good news for those who struggle at the lowest economic places among us?
But the results will show much about our own nationa political life. Blair is suffering from his loyal friendship with President Bush, particularly in the mattter of Iraq. The British electorate, much as ours did last year, has come to believe they were lied to about the real reasons for invading Iraq. The stated reasons have all been shot full of holes. One wonders whether the electorate will punish Blair in ways they did not punish Bush for his lies.
One commentator has said that if Blair wins, it will be Margaret Thatcher's eight electoral victory, meaning that the British Labor Party has adopted much of the old Conservative Party agenda. In the eyes of many, the interests of old Labor, a better deal for lower class and working people, has been set aside for the so-called Free Market agenda that seems to have co-opted political discourse in so much of the world.
I am a Clinton fan, but I made a like criticism of him, especially after he signed the Welfare Reform package that has knocked so many truly impoverished people into despair. It may be that the impetus for this view of life and government; that free markets are the most effective way of benefitting the entire society, and that the bottom line trumps all other matters, is so strong no one can run against it.
The economic disaster gathering in our country and perhaps the whol world, is, I suspect, a result of our enslavement to an ideology that ignores many dimensions of reality.
It would be heartening if today's British election gave some hint that the world is beginning to return to its sense. But, since no party in that election has proposed a plan that would return government to some attempt to manage the economic welfare of its poorest, it would be hard to see how that might happen. One wonders the same about our country. Would a Kerry victory have been really good news for those who struggle at the lowest economic places among us?
posted by Blayney at 1:39 PM
1 Comments:
No, they'd be much worse off because Kerry would not be able, politically, to deliver on a single one of their meager expectations.
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