The best asset of a controversial policy is for it to appear uncontroversial
As for the "bitterly divided" U.S. election, try this. Imperial policies beget a kind of domestic imperial politics, which is not about resolving differences via democratic debate, but is modelled on conquering versus conquered, rulers versus ruled, winners and losers. Things get tenser when the empire itself is challenged and, most of all, when it bogs down as it has in Iraq. If the imperial mentality makes people haughty, mean and unwilling to deal with contradiction, then a threatened imperialism will make them more so, because now they're scared and their basic sense of superiority and power is under stress. And so the current "season of mean" in the U.S. All the normal political nastiness gets augmented.
Many on the left are nursing a certain whimsy about John Kerry in office. "My guess is," wrote my friend Linda McQuaig, "he would behave less aggressively in the world than Bush." I respectfully scoff. My guess is, in the Kennedy or Clinton mode, he'd be as or more aggressive, as he has promised. But I also think the theopolitically blinkered Bush team is more likely to lead us all into nuclear catastrophe than the "reality-based" John Kerry. For me, global incineration is the tipping point. I'm hoping for a Kerry win.
Rick Salutin/rabble/Globe and Mail May.15.04
