Bush-Whacked

Democrats win House, on brink of Senate power�|�Top News�|�Reuters.com

I went to bed last night as reports were pouring in about all sorts of dirty tricks and faulty ballots in the great amerikan election machine. Yet, the obsticles aside, I woke up to news that the Democrats has still managed to take the House with almost double the 15 seats they were chasing. A sign maybe that the tide is turning as the homeland despairs of its incompetent emporer. We still await a recount to see if his Senate control falls too.

The elections involved more than the two principal houses of government. Local governors changed and so did some legislation on the ballot. It was a night for women too - the House now has its first ever woman speaker, Hillary Clinton swept New York, anti-abortion legislation failed to pass and the Democrats probably owe much of their success to the mobilisation of previously uninterested single female voters.

How much the testosterone-fuelled ape is tempered by all the changes remains to be seen. Just because they've put a condom on him, the rape and pillage he practices on the international stage could be just as painful for the next 2 years as it is now. Still, it's an agenda dictated by ignorance, arrogance and greed - something a newly invigorated government might have it within its power to curtail. The harder part will be to repeal the draconian legislation and appointments already in place. That will take time, but at least the prospect of John Bolton continuing at the UN will almost certainly be an early welcome casualty of the change.

Another welcome sight is the fragmentation of the religious power-base. The indications are that corruption in both government and the churches are what stirred the voters most - foeign policy, the war in Iraq and the failing economy actually played a lesser part in people's decisions. Elections are all-too-often a reflection of the sheer self-interest of modern-day western voters and less to do with conscience, idealogy or concern for the future. Yet last night it was that same self-interest of the Bush Regime and its cronies that got called into question and ended up hi-jacked by its own promotion of the same fallacy.

For five years we've been peddled a culture of fear. If the next two can halt the slide toward totalitarianism so much the better. But the real test will be the mood went Amerika next elects its executive branch - the future needs not only a change of the presidency, but also a change of the entire mindset that goes with it.

Later.