USA Must Learn From Australia's Loss

It's good to "vent": the emotional release can be very therapeautic, I am told.

Here in Australia, many of us are busy venting our frustration at the weekend re-election of Little Johnny Howard, the USA's regional "Deputy" (yep, Bush really called him that, much to the chagrin of our Asian neighbours). Take this professional post-election hiss from Alan Ramsey, one of the grand old men of Australian journalism:

"This time we've really buggered things. A politically immoral man who, by any civilised measure, disqualified himself from public life, has been given a pat on the back and even more power. This time the people's will has got it dreadfully wrong...

I thought we had more brains, more self-respect. I was wrong in thinking enough voters 'just might' see through the confidence trickery of John Howard, master illusionist and toad of a human being. I apologise for nothing."

Does that sound eerily like a version of the future you don't want to see? Anyone desperately hoping for the removal of George W. Bush in the USA should consider that they themselves could be venting similar frustrations come November 3rd.

Ramsay's sentiments are not unusual over here. Nobody I know likes John Howard. Even those who vote for him tend to joke about his obvious inadequacies. He is a squinting, sneering, diminutive excuse for a human being, bloated with delusions of self-importance, a worthless, soul-less man who has dragged our once-proud reputation as a free and fair society through the mud. Sounds familiar?

There is one major dissimilarity between Bush's USA and Howard's Australia which should be kept in mind: Australia's economy has been strong for eight years under Howard, while Bush has taken the USA from a massive surplus to an unimaginably huge deficit in just four years.

But aside from this, there are many frightening similarities between Howard's re-election and the Bush campaign. So-called "Bush-bashers", eager to vent their own frustrations with an emminently hate-able man, should keep the following facts in mind.

Howard's re-election was fuelled by a massive scare campaign. In Australia, this was based on his opponent's weaknesses (primarily inexperience) and the prospect of increased interest rates. These fears were totally unfounded, as even the Chairman of the Reserve Bank admitted. But that didn't seemt to matter to the voters, many of whom have huge mortgages in an uncertain employment environment. The scare campaign was very, very well targetted.

Then there were the bribes. Howard promised electoral bribes worth $6 billion. That's a lot of money in a country with a population around 20 million. Mind you, he's not talking about fulfilling those promises today - he's talking about privatising the national phone company, tossing more people off welfare and even removing Australia's long-standing compulsory voting law. Anyone who believes the promises of a proven liar cannot complain when they are deceived.

Finally, there were the outright lies. Howard lied to win the 2001 election, claiming a boatload of refugees had been throwing their children into the water when - as was proven after the election - his own people told him that was not true. He lied again to support Bush's invasion of Iraq, even when Australian intelligence officers warned him that the "proof" being proffered by the US and Britain was not reliable. He lied again to say he was not informed of the Abu Ghraib torture scandal before the media broke the story. All these lies - plus many more - were exposed to the Australian public well before last Saturday's vote.

Amazingly, it just didn't matter. Our Prime Minister lied to us repeatedly, it was proven beyond doubt, nobody was ever held accountable, but still it did not matter.

In the end, perceived self-interest and fear won out over altruism, common decency and even self-respect. In the privacy of the polling booth, Australians voted for Howard. Many of them will probably never even admit it.

So if it's all getting a bit too much and you feel like a bit of Bush-bashing, go ahead and vent your spleen. But just be aware that even the most colourful, venemous and even humorous anti-Bush prose will not be enough to vote him out of office. Even proven facts may not be enough.

As an editorial at One Thousand Reasons says, the fact that Bush is still even being considered for office is astonishing.

Consider all the things that have gone against American values but have gone virtually unnoticed by half of the country:

1. An illegal war against Iraq.
2. Hyped evidence of Iraq's danger.
3. A failure to plan for post-war Iraq.
4. A record deficit that will haunt our children and grandchildren.
5. An environmental record many have called the worst in history.
6. Tax cuts that favor the wealthy and increase the gap between rich and poor.
7. The imposition of religion into government.
8. Unfunded mandates for the states, including the NCLB act.
9. A very unpresidential demeanor during campaign debates.
10. The isolation of America from its former friends and allies.
11. A refusal to participate in efforts to reduce global warming.
12. A refusal to join international treaties against small arms trafficking, nuclear proliferation, and war crimes.
13. An inability to see complex issues in anything other than black and white.
14. A failure to acknowledge any -- not a single one -- mistakes during his presidency.
15. A consistent disregard for the truth.

What cannot be overlooked is that none of this matters: bad policy has not translated into a weakening of Bush's support among half the country... We must, therefore, assume that none of these issues are important, or that they are overshadowed by American's fear. The source of this fear, which Bush has chosen as the cornerstone of his campaign is the terrorist attacks of 9-11. But let's add a few more items to the list of Bush failures:

16. Failed to take the threat of terrorism seriously before 9-11.
17. Failed to respond effectively to the attacks of 9-11 (Osama bin Laden is still free. Resources have been reallocated to the war in Iraq.).
18. Heightened American's sense of fear by failing to capture bin Laden, constantly referring to the danger in public, and by creating the childishly ineffective terror alerts...

But, again, none of this matters. All these issues have been written about endlessly, and half the country still supports Bush.

As I have said before, Bush is just a symptom of a much wider social malaise afflicting the USA (not to mention Australia). Ultimately, the battle for truth, honesty and justice will not be won in polling booths, but in the flickering darkness of our souls.