Monday, November 29, 2004

James Galbraith has a Jacksonian moment

James Galbraith is comparing the election experiences in the Ukraine, where the US government is raising a stink about it for foreign policy reasons, with experiences closer to home: Democracy inaction Salon 11/30/04.  He says:

But if the Ukraine standard were applied in Ohio -- as it should be -- then the late lamented U.S. election certainly was stolen.

And why is there not a bigger stink about the events in Ohio?  Galbraith's take:

One reason, of course, is that the U.S. government gives direction in these matters, here at home as well as around the world. And our press, like that in "Putin's Russia," follows suit. ...

Another reason is that in Ohio, pissed-off voters are well behaved. They are working the hearings process, the recount process and the unhearing, unseeing courts. In Kiev, by contrast, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators are on the streets, staying there overnight in the bitter cold, bringing the government to a halt and the world to attention.

We'll get our democracy back, one of these days, when the Democratic Party has a mass base and is prepared to use it in the same way.

What good Jacksonian could argue with that?

Maybe in 2008, we should require the Democratic candidate to pledge that he or she will not concede to Jeb Bush until at least two weeks after Election Day.  It would be a terrible travesty of history if democracy in America becomes no more than a cynical slogan for "wars of liberation" conducted by the Bush dynasty.

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