world's newest Banana Republic: USA

Still compiling leftist blog reaction to last night. In the meantime...

And what does it say about us as a nation that the Abu Ghraib torture story now garners less attention than the Scott Peterson trial? I have to search for the stories in order to blog about them; they are often not front-page news in general news websites so you won't see them unless you look for them.

Zeynep post

It says pretty much exactly what the 2004 election results say. The rest of the world knows us. Time to recognize ourselves.

International elections monitors report

The global implications of the U.S. election are undeniable, but international monitors at a polling station in southern Florida said Tuesday that voting procedures being used in the extremely close contest fell short in many ways of the best global practices.

The observers said they had less access to polls than in Kazakhstan, that the electronic voting had fewer fail-safes than in Venezuela, that the ballots were not so simple as in the Republic of Georgia and that no other country had such a complex national election system.

..."The United States has long been a model for the world," said Richard Williams, a poll watcher officially designated by the Democratic party. "If we allow international observers, we will continue to have a leading role."

Not everyone agrees. Jeff Miller, a Republican congressman from Florida, considers the monitors an insult and has publicly urged them to leave. "Get on the next plane out of the United States to go monitor an election somewhere else, like Afghanistan," he said.

International Herald Tribune

Iraqi news commentary

Given the talk in Washington about whether it is possible to reform the Arab world, I found the discussion this evening on al-Jazeera amusing.

They had an Iraqi analyst on, who said that if there wasn't a clear break for one of the candidates in the next few hours, the whole process was likely to go into the hands of the lawyers and would be decided in the courts.

The al-Jazeera anchor asked, "Do you believe the American electoral system can be reformed?"

The Iraqi analyst said he thought the problem lay in the dependence on an electoral college rather than direct democracy.

Juan Cole

The cult of Bush

[S]ince late 2003 George Bush has been in a desperate race to beat catastrophe in Iraq to the electoral finish line, but the forces his administration has set loose in the world, as in Iraq, will only gain momentum from any victory of his here. As they do, both at home and abroad, traditional conservatives and so many others will become more disillusioned and that disillusionment will reach ever deeper into America. Hunters who care about the pristine nature of their hunting grounds will be yet more disturbed; young people fearing the draft and military families fearing for their loved ones will, as the Iraq War grows yet worse, become both more fearful and more active; fear of one-party statism among conservatives will continue to percolate, and so on. In other words, George Bush's victory will only generate more and deeper versions of what we've already seen.

But I'm afraid we'll also have to acknowledge another reality -- that we now live at the heart of an enormous imperial power, with an increasingly frightened population, many of whom are understandably shutting their eyes and hanging on to what they have for dear life. And I suspect as well that we'll need to give stronger consideration to something Lew Rockwell brought up in the quote above: We may be dealing with what is, in effect, a growing national cult....

"Americans love toughness. They love swagger. In a world of complexity and uncertainty, especially after Sept. 11, they love the idea of a man who doesn't need anyone else. They even love the sense of mission, regardless of its wisdom. These values run deep in the American soul, and Rovism consciously taps them. But they are not democratic. Unwavering discipline, demonization of foes, disdain for reality and a personal sense of infallibility based on faith are the stuff of a theocracy -- the president as pope or mullah and policy as religious warfare."

...Obviously not every Bush supporter is a potential cultist, but enough of them may be to provide the basis for yet more dangerous developments in a second term in office.

Tom Dispatch

Or, maybe it's not a Banana Republic. After all, this is the land where you have to take a loyalty oath to attend a speech given by the emperor.

All officers of the SS were required to take the loyalty oath. Raising their right hand and their left hand placed on their officers sword the oath went as follows. "I swear to thee, Adolph Hitler as Fuhrer and chancellor of the German Reich, my Loyalty and Bravery. I vow to thee and the superiors whom those shall appoint, obedience until death, so help me God."

source