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The re-election of Bush: NO Mercy - the Winner takes all!
Forecasts are forecasts but one day everyone dies. Right now the world press is focusing on Arafat. Will his death matter, will it be remembered as the outcome of resistance? After all, he was virtually under house arrest for the past two years while everyone joined the chorus in Washington to denounce him as potential terrorist. Even Sharon wanted to put him on the list of subjects possible to be killed by a rocket shot from a helicopter or by letting the car explode if taken for a ride while the informer had done his dirty work.
Indeed we live in a world of contrived logics and always power games are being played out sooner or later.
The crucial question after the election victory of Bush is not who but what was defeated?
Defeated was an attempt to restore some decency in public life.
Defeated was the need to question war as sign of using just violence to push through vested interests.
Defeated was the need to reflect upon historical lessons.
As pointed out by Constance de Volney the historical lesson has to see what religion has done over centuries. Thus he gave a recommendation to the Assembly which was formed after the French Revolution that religion should not be included in the constitution, in order to avoid war. He came to the conclusion that whenever religion dictates political decisions, then war is the outcome. Why? Religion is like the suicide bombers having been manipulated in believing his sacrifice will earn him a place in heaven, a skill of using people's willingness to sacrifice their lives for something greater. Truth is based on the simple deduction: what can be greater than the willingness of a human being to give his or her life for a worthy cause?
What is not seen in such religious fanaticism is that a fallacy exists: the religion itself is not alarmed by the irrationality of such action but takes it as proof of its own validity. Religion means death: the unresolved question for man ever since he has been confronted over the ages with the finite sense of life. Life is precarious, but death is not. No wonder then that Hegel named death as 'the unmoved mover'.
So let us come back to political reality. I read a long time ago, or so it seemed when the Democratic primary was going on and Howard Dean seemed to be on the road of winning the nomination, that Senator Kennedy appeared and endorsed John Kerry. Today it can be said that the defeat of Howard Dean was also the defeat of Kerry and of the Democratic Party.
Why I say this? Clearly Howard Dean was a challenge to how America is governed, a challenge from below. He is most articulated when it comes to name issues. He could have challenged Bush on moral issues which would have warranted a long time ago resignation. Bush and Kerry are not of that political kind. Both subscribe to the insight that the main drive should be first of all to restore to the American system of Democracy a legitimacy and for Bush to overcome the stigma that he was elected the last time more by means of the Supreme Court rather than through the voters. To recall there was this controversial close call of votes in Florida but at that time Gore conceded rather than contesting the way the votes were counted alone in that state. Moreover the president is not directly elected by popular vote, but through the electoral college, itself a representation of states with a certain amount of votes respectively. In that sense, Kerry was willing to sacrifice also his reputation as a looser, in order to uphold the key understanding of American politics, namely that the winner takes all. There is no mercy.
Hatto Fischer
15.11.04
This article was first published in heritageradio
http://www.stream.heritageradio.net/reflections-single-view/article/no-mercy-after-bush/
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