What a Long, Strange Trip it’s Been
The US primary campaign is horribly long, and around 18 months ago I realized that I’d been distracted by shiny things and the drudgery of plodding through the dreg end of Bush II’s reign, and it was time to refer for guidance to my in-house politics wonk and life partner, Ms. YAFB, an ex-pat American who actually had a vote in the election.
Me: So bring me up to speed. I know Hillary’s in the running, but who else is there on the Dem side?
Ms. YAFB: Well, there’s one guy who’s quite interesting. He’s raised a lot of money from small donors so far.
Me: Yeah?
Ms. YAFB: He’s black.
Me: Riiiight. That’ll be interesting.
Ms. YAFB: His name’s Barack Obama.
Me: Oh God. You know what the wingnuts’ll do with that - sounds like “Osama.”
Ms. YAFB: His middle name’s Hussein.
Me: *facepalm*
My reaction probably wasn’t unique. In fact, a bunch of commentators and bloggers, including the you-know-whos, never got much beyond that stage, albeit from different perspectives.
I was pretty apolitical as a callow 20-year-old, and remember saying to a very earnest socialist, who was appalled at the prospect of Mrs. Thatcher being elected, “What does it matter? They’re all as bad as each other.” Ashen-faced, she tried to counter this in-depth analysis, and I did listen. But after the 1979 election, I was to learn a very hard lesson indeed.
I’ll need to romp briefly through the 1980s because I doubt anyone here’s in the mood for a history lecture and you’ve all got your own stories, but let’s just say the UK went through a very rocky period of an unrealistically strong currency plus high inflation, and industrial and social unrest in the effort to combat it. From where I was sitting, it seemed she decided that if whole sectors of the electorate were never going to vote for her party anyway, then she might as well do her best to abolish them, or at least try a little culling (Some reading this will see this period differently - Thatcher is a divisive figure to this day, and dominated my earlier life quite enough, thank you, so I’ve no intention of rehashing arguments where no one’s mind’s likely to change at this late stage, you’ll have to forgive me any bias, and I’m happy to agree to differ).
Finally paying attention, it was the raging of the Cold War that really caught my eye. The UK had long served as one of the US’s unsinkable aircraft carriers, and it was announced that nuclear-armed cruise missiles would be based at Greenham Common, not far from where I lived and worked. When Reagan came to power in 1981, the much-vaunted UK-US special relationship grew even more special.
Then 1982’s Falklands War gave Thatcher a popularity boost and helped her win re-election in 1983, and things got heavier all round. Some got rich, some felt they were getting a bit richer, and others - quite a few of us - in fact, a fair proportion of a number of generations went - in modern parlance - Galt, Ms. YAFB and me included (that’s how we met and ended up living together in Scotland, but that’s another story).
It may be hard to believe that some of us thought that Thatcher and Reagan wanted to blow up the world. But the saber-rattling on both sides didn’t do much to dispel this idea. In fact, maybe we weren’t so far wrong.
Anyway, that all panned out, as you already know - Bush I took up the reins after Reagan, eventually handed over to Bill Clinton, Thatcher fell, then Tony Blair took over, on the platform that he wouldn’t change much at all, just run it better, and we’re sat here joyfully reaping the peace dividend that the end of the Cold War unleashed. The US and UK still enjoy close ties - economic ones arising from that earlier period, for instance, a few bits of intelligence hardware, and some of our politicians and other notables even go on regular jollies together. The End.
Oh, wait. There was that little matter of Bush II getting elected (or not, but I don’t want to reopen old wounds) and the horror of watching neocon after neocon crawl back out of the woodwork of the Reagan and Bush I years when we’d hoped or assumed they were all dead. I won’t labor this as it’s part of all our recent history, but that was one heck of a white-knuckle ride, folks.
And that’s roughly where we were when I had my little discussion with Ms. YAFB up top there. I really, really didn’t want to see those bastards continue as they had been going. And I’m afraid that Senator McCain didn’t really give me any confidence that history wouldn’t repeat itself and that he would be in a position to withstand another neocon zombie resurgence. The clincher was his pick of Palin, heralded by some as a “hail Mary pass.” From a British perspective, it looked more like what we call in Rugby football a “hospital pass” - you’ve got the ball, you see one of your team’s players with a pack of the opposition’s 220-pound forwards thundering towards him, and you let him have the ball, and all the fun.
I’d never paid much attention to blogs before then. I’d surfed plenty of news and activist sites, done long and tedious battle on a number of forums, but the few blogs I’d visited resembled the endless comment sections of online media articles where people seem to mainly rant to themselves. Advances in artificial intelligence have made these all but redundant, but luckily I happened upon an exceptional blog called Yes To Democracy while trying to figure out what in the name of Harry Hill PUMA was, and why commenters from an international sportsgear firm kept cropping up regularly on other blogs, spouting invective and calumny about Senator Obama and his crew.
Our Rumproast host, Kevin K., was one fairly regular YTD visitor like myself, along with a number of others who nowadays blog or comment here. Through them and my own searches, I eventually ended up with a blogroll as long as one of Michelle Obama’s arms. But once the election ended and YTD focused much more on the activities of the birfers, I felt it less appropriate for a non-American to comment about US constitutional matters, so I followed Kevin and the crew here. And they haven’t been able to shake me off since.
And now, for some reason, my name’s in lights and I’m all of a sudden a co-blogger! Somebody fan me, please.
Oof. Well, I’m obviously quite intimidated by the talented company I’m in, and I’ve no idea what I’m going to offer as post subjects for as long as I have a roof here. I’m very much a “more to life than politics” type nowadays, but it keeps thrusting itself under my nose, so it’ll no doubt feature at times. But you’re already well catered for there by my co-bloggers.
Maybe I’ll offer some snippets from the UK political scene. Now, my problem there is that US politics is so damn colorful. But we do have our own brand of outrage, and indeed poutrage, that may occasionally give you a chance to point and laugh.
Expenses and fat cats seem to be flavor of the month over here in recent times - always a sign that whatever the outcome, a general election is LONG overdue. And yes, I’m nowadays disturbingly close to regressing to that snotty 20-year-old and declaring “a pox on all their houses” again.
Fresh from hauling UK bankers over the coals in a similar fashion to you folks, now it’s our politicians who’re having to say “Sorry” - thanks not least to the efforts of one Heather Brooke from South Carolina, whose Freedom of Information Act inquiry into the money our MPs get as living allowances stirred the pot, until somebody leaked most of the details she was after to one of the daily papers anyway.
As a taster, and just to shore up the stereotypes some of you may have about us Brits, an MP called Douglas Hogg has been embroiled in a hoo-ha over whether or not he had his moat cleaned at taxpayers’ expense. - Outrageous, of course. The rest of us in the UK have to clean our own moats. (And yes, yes, by all means yack it up at his name. We already laughed our fill over here about his dad, the positively Dickensian-sounding Quintin Hogg, Lord Hailsham. I have just two words for you - Newt Gingrich - glass houses much?)
Consider this an open thread. Share a bit about how you came to be here, or wherever you are, or just take this as only the first opportunity to hurl brickbats at the noob.
Meanwhile, here’s a bunch of hippies whooping it up in a field somewhere. For old times’ sake.
UPDATE: Douglas Hogg, 3rd Viscount Hailsham, has now announced that he will stand down at the next election. Presumably to spend more time with his moat.
Posted by YAFB on 05/18/09 at 03:37 PM • Permalink
Categories: Messylaneous • Politics • Election '08 •
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