A year ago exactly, I wrote one of my most heavily discussed diaries: Impeachment: you think the world is not watching? (storyonly linky). My simple point was that it was not just an internal matter that impeachment be pursued, but that it would be watched with attention in the rest of the world as a sign of what kind of behavior to expect from the USA on the international scene in the future.
Well, as it turns out, the world does not really care.
Iras has receded from the attention of the public in both the USA and elsewhere. In the US, this has come from three things: the success of the selling of the surge as an effective tactic (and the apparent relative lull in casualties: a steady number of deaths is not news), the lack of action by Democrats on stopping the war, and the focus on Iran.
Iraqis are still dying or fleeing the country, the region is in chaos with no prospects in sight, treasury is being drained at record rates, but this is no longer making headlines. Instead, the prospects for an agression of Iran seem to be receding, which makes news coming from the region sound positive rather than the unrelenting mess we might otherwise see.
Two out of three of the above causes are created by successful propaganda/spin from the White House, but the third one, the most depressing to us all, shows that the Establishment is still unable to untagle itself from George's Grand Adventure.
In Europe, this is compounded by our own leaders following the same path: Sarkozy, who has been elected in the meantime on the strength of an hateful anti-immgrant platform (when you wonder about what the police is doing about the events in the suburbs in France, never forget that Sarkozy was minister of the Interior for most of the 5 years before he became president: he CAN be blamed for the mess, it happened on his watch, and he has done nothing to solve it, quite the opposite) and is now busy looking like he is inserting himself as deep as he can in Bush's rectum, starting on Iran and Afghanistan. Brown, despite some misgivings, is making every effort to keep his status as the First Poodle and is similarly supportive of continued efforts to demonize Iran, even after the NIE has come to light. Merkel is less gung-ho, but is seen as progress by the White House after the years of open hostility from Schröder.
But beyond the politicians, we see similar economic policies being pushed forward, and a similar vision being promoted everywhere - call it the globalised corpocrat one, or the "Anglo Disease" as I have been wont to, but the label makes no difference: it is the vision of the West as the good guys (and, within the West, the US as the undisputed leader to look up to, whoever is in the White House). That vision has two sides to it:
- one is the willingness to intervene in the affairs of others across the world, with striking tolerance for authoritarian but friendly regimes, and harsh words for those that do not toe the line (cue Iran, Russia, Venezuela, or Spain), because, clearly, "we" know better, and disagreement is a sign of treason or unacceptable hostility - and where good news about Iran's lack of nuclear programme are a cause for dismay, because it takes away an excuse to pontificate and posture;
- the other is the economic equivalent of this - with interventionism, in this case, focused on eliminating anything that can threaten corporate profits, because, as we know, corporate profits, and the accompanying giddy stockmarket valuations, and the corresponding skyrocketing financial profits, are the only way to know that an economy is doing well. This is backed by massive propaganda, permanent competitivity or openness or freedom rankings that all point in the same direction, and a discourse that ends up saying in all seriousness that an optimist for our economy is someone who expects lower wages..., and a supposedly neutral MSM which unquestioningly supports the notion that a drift to the left in policy is something to be blamed for...
So impeachment is the least of it. Nobody serious cares about it, and seriousness is nicely spread around the world. There are more people, both in Washington and elsewhere, aligned on today's White House, supposedly at its weakest, than at any other time in the past few years. (Just in case you wonder: there is nobody serious in the netroots, obviously). Which goes only to show one thing: Bush is not the disease, he's just the symptom. And our work in the netroots to bring about a different world is barely begun.