Got Democracy?

As the dust begins to settle, and I reconnect with the news media after a period of ignoring it – I decided this morning to see what’s up with the US mid terms.

Well it appears that the Republicans took a beating, and that Bush is now a ‘lame duck’ president as they say. My initial feeling about this was, great – now violent action against Iran will have to come off the timetable. I don't see any solutions to the Iraq debacle coming out of Democrats taking some power though.

Anyway, that was about as far as it went, I don’t understand enough about US politics to really make much more sense of the whole affair. Then I thought – well let’s look at this a little harder and see if we can learn anything else from this election.

Only 40 % of the electorate bothered to vote, another great success for Western democracy! Is anybody asking how we can try and engage the USA with the idea of democratic politics? Not that UK/Europe is much better - everyone is sick with professional politicians.

I was intrigued by the ‘independents’ who achieved success, who are these people? what do they represent? It’s so below the radar of news coverage here – it’s very difficult to get much sense. Today’s Guardian reveals some interesting facts in its Election Roundup. Not least that this election sees a socialist voted into Senate – heaven forefend! Bernie Sanders seems to have the right kind of campaigning issues, if only there was more of this in the USA.

There have been some successes for the Green Party of the United States in municipal and mayoral elections. The first Green president, or indeed Green revisioning of governance, still seems a way off.

Ralph Nader’s comments on the election are available in an interview on the Democracy Now site – which, whether you like Nader or not, gives some insights to the US political process that I otherwise would have missed.

I couldn’t find much of interest in US Indymedia’s coverage of the elections, but it’s worth checking the site for a feel of what else is going on stateside.

Ran Prieur expresses the deep cynicism about the whole affair which I imagine is much more representative of grass roots feeling than these 'democratic' charades generally reveal.