It was an odd time to hit adolescence, both physically and politically: in the middle of the Iraq war and the subsequent re-elections of both the parties who perpetrated it. In the United Kingdom, cynicism was loud in 2005. The Bush/Blair master-and-poodle meme was rife even before the weight of the realisation had dawned on most of us. Our governments had lied to us. Innocent men and women died because of those lies.
Today, Tony Blair’s Labour party has never recovered from the mere association with the current President of the United States. That party’s demise in 2009-10 is inevitable.
But what of America? Citizens suffering similarly the abuse of civil rights, the projected fear of terrorism, what would they do? What precedent would they set for, not just the U.S, but the world? This question became increasingly important when news of the primaries first trickled into public consciousness. A woman and a black man running for President! Surely this was an opportunity for American citizens to oust the guilty Government as stylishly as possible.
As the primaries have gone on, however, the reality of the opportunity in Americans’ hands has grown more poignant. I shall hope to shed some light on the issue in this diary.
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