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AbortionI'll hold up my hand and admit that it isn't as much as a dealbreaker for me as it is for Vicki and many others. As I'll expand on in a moment, I view abortion as an unpleasent symptom of a wider problem, and that the abortion problem will be addressed by addressing that problem. I also think that Bush is making the abortion problem worse not better, which is why even if abortion WAS an outright dealbreaker for me, I wouldn't vote for Bush.
In short, I don't see any place for abortion in progressive or conservative politics. Abortion is at least partially a symptom of a society that puts women in a position where they see no other option than killing a child. A lot of Republicans see abortion as a problem, but they don't seem to have any comprehension of WHY its a problem, and therefore their solution (ban abortion outright, without any measures to address the WHY) will make the problem worse; by contrast, a lost of Democrats get so tied up in the whole "woman's right to choose" argument that they lose sight of the fact that abortion isn't a choice: it's a symptom of a lack of options. It needs to be dealt with, and it needs to be dealt with progresively, seeing the cause being as morally indefensible as the symptom. I don't expect politicians to agree with me on every issue, and I wouldn't say that abortion is the only thing I don't agree with the democracts one, by a long way. But my view is that we should seek to elect the politicians who most closely match our views from the options available, then influence them to ever more closely match our own agenda. Gore endorses DeanI think that a joint Dean/Clark ticket is a winner. It's certainly a runner, although I don't know how likely it is. My problem with Clark is that I'm not convinced that he's an ideas man - certainly, on most issues, his heart is in the right place, but something just hasn't rung true on his ability to come up with solutions. Nor does he have Dean's track record of trying out ideas on a "big" (!) scale. Nor does he have Dean's undoubted rhetorical skills or charisma. What Clark does have, that Dean lacks, is a cast-iron, absolutely unassailable, bullet-proof armour against Karl [Rove]'s "unpatriotic, weak on national security" campaign). And he's at ease with the media. He seems like someone who can play Falstaff to Dean's Prince Hal - and that's the nature of a balanced ticket. A wall of separation?It's sometimes argued that there is a wall of separation betwen church and state - and while that may be so, it's impossible to erect such a barrier between faith and politics. A frequent sparring aprtner of mine noted recently: But you know, in reality, an avowed atheist or agnostic simply could not be elected to public office in the vast majority of the country, whether there were laws against him/her running or not. And that's pretty fucked up, too.I don't think there's anything fucked up about that. People have to make judgements about how candidates will behave in office based on something; if they prefer to vote for candidates who (at least on paper) share their beliefs, it logically (if not always in practice) extends that those candidates will also share their values and thus govern in a way consistant with how they would like to be governed. Isn't that part of how democracy should operate? People voting for the people that they conclude - based on what limited information is available to them - will best represent them? These people have values and their values are as tied up in their beliefs and preconceptions about the world as yours or mine. My point is this: say you're a socialist. You might not like some of the things that socialists have done historically, and you might not label yourself that in public, but deep down, let's say you're a socialist. At elections time, I suspect that you will vote for candidates who say that they are socialist as a matter of preference, because the fact that they are a socialist implies things about their belief system - what they believe, and far more importantly, WHY they believe those things, and thus from which perspective they will evaluate new situations - that aren't covered in their manifestos. That's not to say any jerk can call themselves a socialist - deeply unfashionable though that term is - and get the vote of socialists - the substantive always trumps a mere label - but it is without question something I imagine socialists consider. Likewise, George Bush didn't make any campaign promises about how he would handle a massive terrorist attack on the United States, and no-one thought to ask him at the time; it just didn't seem relevant. But one could make an educated guess about his reactions to various hypotheticals based on the information that was available about the kind of man he is. I don't see people voting based at least in part on religious labels as being any different to me voting based at least in part on political labels. You don't just vote for a person's manifesto - you vote for that person to be in office for a period of time. That means that it's just as important to know what kind of person they are as what they intend to do. All any of us can do is make educated guesses, but if someone subscribes to the same ideology as us, that's as good a way of making that judgement as any. "A Nation divided"A nation riven between those who adore President Bush and those who abhor him is in no mood for reasoned discussion. Having rallied around the flag after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and then again (though less so) when the troops went to war, people are now retreating to their political affiliations. And all the indications are that they intend to stay there until polling day. The presidential elections of 2004 will be decided not by who can sway the centre but rather who can shore up their base. "The bottom of the barrel"Story. |
    
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