Bash bash sorted
Given the fabricated evidence and Galloway's rhetorical skills I was expecting it to go well, but not that well. An excitable acquaintance reckons Galloway's opening statement was the "best speech delivered in the US for 25 years". Excitable, as I said; though the speech stands not just as a defence of Galloway's own conduct, but as a defence for the real accused in the Senate hearings, the entire anti-war movement. Galloway, until his re-election at least, represented little without the millions of protestors against the Iraq war. It's because the new MP for Bethnal Green and Bow can deliver the goods - carping about his ego, flash suits and crashingly ill-judged use of "indefatigability" aside - that he's in a leading position within that movement.
And never mind this British Parliamentarian vs. US Senators clash of cultures pish. This is political. As the swoons from leftish North Americans indicate (one example amongst many), it's been a while since the left there was able to produce credible representatives for itself. The Republican administration is corrupt, presides over a creaking economy, and has led the US into a bloody adventure in the Middle East on the most dubious pretexts. It shouldn't, all things considered, be that hard to give the Bush gang the odd kicking; yet after years of sheep-like bleating for an increasingly right-wing Democratic Party, and obedient herding behind the banner of the Lesser Evil, the so-called leadership of the US left has proved singularly incapable of even raising much concern amongst the Republicans. It is telling that in recent weeks, the only significant strikes against Bush have come from a maverick Republican and a dissident Scottish MP.
The nadir of Lesser Evilism was achieved in the Presidential elections last year, when an anti-war movement was shackled to an incompetent dullard of a pro-war candidate barely distinguishable from his erstwhile opponent. Reams of newsprint were expended on trashing a principled anti-war campaigner under the ludicrous theory that he was "taking votes" from the proper politicians, whilst the closest the Democrat's grey blur for President came to striking a blow against Bush was in parading himself as more militaristic than man who invaded Iraq. "John F. Kerry, reporting for duty." They still bloody lost.
So, my long-suffering US lefty comrades, you want politicians like Galloway? Stop voting for politicians like Kerry.
(Here's Lenin, and a quick plug for the London Respect rally with Galloway and John Pilger, amongst others - 7.30pm, Friends Meeting House, Euston Rd, this evening. That's more than enough of this for now, I think.)
And never mind this British Parliamentarian vs. US Senators clash of cultures pish. This is political. As the swoons from leftish North Americans indicate (one example amongst many), it's been a while since the left there was able to produce credible representatives for itself. The Republican administration is corrupt, presides over a creaking economy, and has led the US into a bloody adventure in the Middle East on the most dubious pretexts. It shouldn't, all things considered, be that hard to give the Bush gang the odd kicking; yet after years of sheep-like bleating for an increasingly right-wing Democratic Party, and obedient herding behind the banner of the Lesser Evil, the so-called leadership of the US left has proved singularly incapable of even raising much concern amongst the Republicans. It is telling that in recent weeks, the only significant strikes against Bush have come from a maverick Republican and a dissident Scottish MP.
The nadir of Lesser Evilism was achieved in the Presidential elections last year, when an anti-war movement was shackled to an incompetent dullard of a pro-war candidate barely distinguishable from his erstwhile opponent. Reams of newsprint were expended on trashing a principled anti-war campaigner under the ludicrous theory that he was "taking votes" from the proper politicians, whilst the closest the Democrat's grey blur for President came to striking a blow against Bush was in parading himself as more militaristic than man who invaded Iraq. "John F. Kerry, reporting for duty." They still bloody lost.
So, my long-suffering US lefty comrades, you want politicians like Galloway? Stop voting for politicians like Kerry.
(Here's Lenin, and a quick plug for the London Respect rally with Galloway and John Pilger, amongst others - 7.30pm, Friends Meeting House, Euston Rd, this evening. That's more than enough of this for now, I think.)
posted by Meaders at
10:52 am
