Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums chang'd to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Shakespeare, Richard III
So it’s done, and for anyone who witnessed last week’s Prime Minister’s Question Time, you’ll be feeling like we did right by the rest of the world too. The relief was real, and the British response was by no means unique; there were similar parliamentary love-ins throughout the world.
For millions of Americans the experience was intoxicating, after suffering so many years of humiliation, as that (not so) ex-drunk playboy, John-Wayne’d his way through his presidency, wandering the globe shooting from the mouth, and diminishing the hard earned reputation of this once revered nation.
Follow me over the hill the green is grasser anyway...
Apparently, the great sigh of relief could be heard from space, there were celebrations, and for some perhaps even...
Grim-visag'd war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;
Shakespeare, Richard III
But, for this English Baracktivist, and many of my progressive brothers and sisters, the taste of victory was soured, and by Wednesday we'd been given a stark, yet timely reminder of just how far we have left to travel...
- 60 million adults in this country were prepared to risk an Alaskan with a double digit IQ becoming the most powerful person on earth.
- A substantial minority (perhaps even a majority) of voters in one of our united states were content to see a federally convicted criminal elected to represent them in the Senate.
- Saxby Chambliss and Norm Coleman still have extremely good chances of holding onto their Senate seats.
- Bachman.
- Prop 8(?) etc.
All champaign flatners, but for me there was another reason why my celebrations were tempered, and it’s because I’ve experienced a similar sensation before. No, not the election of an African American as President, but that which Barack Obama represents for the rest of us -- hope.
Hope that we can bring about real change.
Hope that, one day we can believe in our government again.
Hope that, one day we can trust in our democracy.
Hope, that finally, we have a leader worthy of leading us.
Consider this my warning from history...
Some of my compatriots will remember a sunny spring morning back in ‘97. It was a fine time, we were about to step back into the warmth after 18 years in the cold political wilderness, everything was going to be OK, our inspirational leader would see to it.
Like BO, Tony Blair was legally trained, and smart. Like BO he would be a young leader, rising to the top in his mid-forties. Both men were elected despite their opponents warnings that the world would end as we knew it if they prevailed, still, they both prevailed and in landslides. There was one (perhaps) key experience Blair didn't share with BO, he certainly never knew what a food stamp looked like, Blair had enjoyed a privileged upbringing.
Blair and his team worked hard to 'prepare' the party for power. To make the party 'electable', he set about further marginalizing the power of the trade unions within the party, lurched first to the center, then took a quick-step to the right. He rapidly distanced the 'modern' labour party from its socialist roots, they dumped Clause IV quicker than you could say Prince of Darkness Peter Mandelson, socialism became a dirty word under Blair, he referred to himself as a 'social democrat' mmmm nice.
They traded beer for white wine spritzers, sandwich meetings for cheese(y) soirées.
The heart of Blair’s Labour Party was no longer to be found in the embattled working men’s clubs of the north, but the swanky wine bars of Islington. As the working-class were now referred to as the middle-class(!), it seemed the mere inference of toil was to be avoided, the Labour Party no longer perspired, it aspired.
Many of the loyal ‘old-guard’ (read honest brokers) were left confused, caught in a whirlwind of Westminster whiz kids, they were left to look and feel awkward. Their tatty jackets, leather elbow patches and polyester ties were replaced on the back benches by custom cut suits, leather soles, and silk waist coats. Backbench Labour MPs no longer emitted a comforting tang of Old Spice, stale tobacco and too many left-wing meetings, but a sickly smug scent of Paco Rabanne and too many potpourri fragranced air fresheners.
Unlike, the speed in which the dark clouds of Thatcherism had lour'd upon our house, the let down many of us felt under Blair was a long painful process of collusion.
After 18 years under the leadership of Thatcher and the followers of her ism, Brits had actually began to believe the great conservative lie spun relentlessly by their corporate media pals, that they were a nation of 'center-right' voters(!). Blair’s Labour Party looked (and smelt) more Tory than the Tories, but sadly, it was no camouflage, it was the surreal thing, and it had all been done in the name of getting elected. What had began as the party adopting an electable (read Tory) façade, ended with the party adopting f*&*#d up Tory policies too.
We’d been out of power and in the political wilderness for so long we were ready to believe/become anything to capture it. I mean for all we knew this was what we had to do, this was how political party’s won power, this was necessary this was called compromise, but this was bullshit.
I’m not suggesting that this is what a Barack Obama administration will become, but I can’t say that I haven’t seen reason to question, because I have.
I just want to remind fellow progressives to please keep your eyes wide open, and stay true to your core beliefs.
If something looks, smells and feels like Republican policy, in my experience it usually means that it is Republican policy.
I’m just sayin’...