Elections 2012, Here and There

It is my privilege to be a dual citizen to both the United States and France, and it was my privilege to participate in my second ever Presidential election for France this past Saturday. I will write about this later, in another blog. Of course, this was just the first round, and the second round is in a couple of weeks. I intend to participate in that as well, of course. Because I believe that citizenship requires certain responsibilities, and that includes voting. That may seem a hopelessly old-fashioned value (it seems I hold a lot of those, according to some people), but it just seems to me that you are required, on some level, to contribute in some way to helping advance the nation, and to make it a better place. Voting really is a minor inconvenience, after all.

Yet, in many countries, and particularly in the United States, it is all too often taken for granted. People have fought and died for that privilege in some places. I still remember the first elections in South Africa back in 1994, when blacks first got the chance to vote in a real and free election after decades of white minority rule. The lines were incredibly long, and the image of whites and blacks and other races standing in line together, all of them waiting for the opportunity to make their voices heard, proved a powerful statement. Even in the United States, people have struggled to practice their right to a vote. In the South, not all that long ago, very few blacks were allowed this right that they were legally entitled to. And let's remember that in 2000, there were all sorts of voting irregularities that led to apparently thousands of voters not being able to vote on that fateful election day in November of 2000, when Bush ended up "winning" the election despite not having a majority because he had a majority of a few hundred votes in Florida, and that after all of those strange and disturbing things that seemed to get in the way of a truly fair election, and all of it seemingly mysteriously favoring Bush, who's brother just happened to be governor of that state at the time. We all remember the eight long years that followed, right?

It just seems to me that if you do not actually participate in elections for no better reason than you simply do not want to, for whatever reason, then you forfeit any legitimacy in complaints about how bad things are, or how screwed up the nation is. If you make minimal effort to try and change such things and making your voice heard in an election, then why should you be taken seriously when you want to have your voice heard in a complaining session?

Now, I understand that there is a lot of discontent – and legitimate discontent at that – regarding elections these days. We are often left with "choices" that make it feel suspiciously that we have no choice at all, and especially here in the United States. We live in a country where the conventional wisdom is that one party ruled by money poses as a two party system, which itself is limiting, and this is what is accepted as diverse enough political range to suitably represent a nation of over 300 million. Yes, that seems like a ridiculous notion to me, and the fact that the two parties are so eerily similar on so many issues, and that they rather suspiciously agree with each other on so many damn issues, really irks me. A lot is made about the differences between the two, but really, all I personally see are the similarities. Much is made of their points of contention, but these are few, and relatively minor. In fact, they seem to be two branches of the same party, for all intents and purposes. There is the conservative branch, which tend to be the Democrats. In most other Western countries, this would be the conservative party. Then, there is the radically conservative branch, which tend to be the Republicans.

They agree on the bulk of issues, and perhaps vary in their dialogue and the scale to which they see things, and how far they seem willing to go to implement their world view. But they essentially seem to agree on the same basic principles, and have now for a long, long time. I remember Bill Clinton being called "Republican Light". Now, President Obama, who seemed a beacon of hope for liberals starving for a President of their very own for decades now, has proven to be, predictably, a huge disappointment. He quietly signed the NDAA into law, citing regrets in his announcement that he was signing it into law, which effectively eliminates habeas corpus. This, after he explicitly and adamantly voices his disapproval of the measure. His administration has been defining and redefining the environmental policy for years now, and it is election year now, and not seen as prudent to try and aggressively pursue a measure that many – although nowhere near a  majority – of Americans view with a high degree of skepticism. So, three years and change have passed, and he has given us next to nothing in terms of a coherent and competent environmental policy. Just some talk, and some measures designed to look good, while already lax environmental regulations remain suspiciously lax. This was similar to the Clinton years, when the most impressive and sweeping environmental legislation came in the final 72 hours of the eight years of Clinton's White House rule, knowing full well that Bush would waste no time in getting rid of these changes. It was all window dressing. Clinton was infamous for such things, and in that regard, he seemed to represent the Democrats very much. He held up a pen before Congress, saying it would be the pen that he would use to veto any healthcare measures passed by Congress that did not meet his own basic requirements. Sounded great at the time. But his measures were compromised and not met, ultimately. Same with his policy on gays in the military. Same with his stance on a whole wide range of issues that I have not yet mentioned. He was good with speeches, fine, and spoke of his record in a very impressive manner, making it seem like his Presidency was truly beneficial for the country. He spoke about having reduced the national debt by 60%, and technically, it was true. Sounds great in speeches, where he poses as a scholarly and serious figure. But what he does not tell you is that those debts were paid by taking out other loans, which is similar to paying off credit cards by transferring the balance to other credit cards. Yes, you can take credit for having paid them, and it sounds great. But the debt is still there, and you still need to pay it. Very politically savvy, but not what is best for the country.

Obama seems to be following in those footsteps. He comes across as serious minded, even intellectual at times (like Clinton). He talks about principles and responsible leadership. Yet, what leadership he shows is strictly and exclusively politically profitable. He has shown an unwillingness to take any real political chances in favor of what is best for the country. Like Clinton, he had very clear and definitive ideas for healthcare reform, and like Clinton, he had to water down those proposals, and pass something that was quite compromised form what he had wanted. Amazingly, that passed through Congress, so he was able to sign it into law, although the Supreme Court reviewed it and may, or may not, have struck it down as unconstitutional. The decision has yet to be publicized, and will be made public in June. If it passes, it will wipe out Obama's single most successful legislative success, and the health care issue overall, which has been dragging on and on in this country, will remain severely, even criminally, flawed. It will be flawed anyway is it is allowed to stand, because his stance, which did not really go far enough to begin with, was quite watered down by the time it actually passed Congress. A tiny but very vocal minority voiced their displeasure and slapped a Hitler moustache on the image of Obama, and they got all the press, and this fueled the impetus to challenge the healthcare bill, derisively labeled as "Obamacare".

So his seeming biggest success was riddled with failures. He has also failed to make the case for a change from disastrous Bush policies, most notably the tax breaks for the richest and most privileged of Americans. It helped to bankrupt the nation not long ago, yet Obama, whatever opinions he may have voiced at whatever time, nonetheless signed them back into law. It was claimed as a political move, and that this was a battle he would fight at another time, when the political climate was more conducive. Right.

He claimed to be against the concentration camps and detainment, and would close Gitmo. Somehow, that also has not happened on his watch. In fact, he has in some respects gone farther with sweeping Presidential powers of detainment than Bush ever got. Amazing, isn't it?

You can bet that he will be posing as the liberal candidate in the upcoming election, though. Never mind that he is conservative, even perhaps alarmingly conservative. He will be officially be seen as the 'liberal" option in the upcoming November election.

So, what about France, or elsewhere in Europe? Is it any different? Is it, perhaps, even any better?

Well, there are similarities to here, as well. Remember in recent American election, how the names of the two major candidates were combined, to illustrate the lack of differences between them? There was Bore and Gush in 2000, there was little to distinguish Kerry and Bush in 2004, and now, already, the two candidates have been lumped into one with "Obamney". Well, in 2002, France's two seeming major candidates, Chirac and Jospin, were similarly labeled "Chispan" and "Jorac" by many. They took minimal political chances, and tried each to appear as the centrist candidate with the most widespread appeal.

There are differences, and some of these I personally prefer. I like the idea of a 1^st round and 2^nd round, for example. You can vote your conscience in the 1^st round, and wait to see who emerges in the deciding second round, where you vote for one of the two remaining candidates – whichever one appeals to you most or, perhaps as the case may be, offends you the least..  I certainly prefer that, and wish that Americans would implement this change. But when has America ever not been stuck up enough to actually learn from the examples of others? One of the problems with a superiority complex is a refusal to see anyone else, or their approach or their ideas, as legitimate. This is to the impoverishment of the nation as a whole, and nothing will ever change in the United States, as long as they continue to believe that they are superior to everyone else, and the example of others cannot teach Americans anything.

I don't know what exactly will happen in the French elections next month, or even in the American elections later this year. But I do know that, despite my complaints in this post, I do intend to participate. No, I did not vote for either Sarkozy or Hollande, although I will have to choose between the two in the second round, which I fully intend to participate in. Since there is no option of a real 1^st round here in the United States, I can guarantee that I will not be voting for either major party in the elections here later on. Some people would claim that I am throwing away my vote. I have heard that many times. But I myself wonder how they think that they themselves are not throwing away their vote when they are choosing the same old same old, time and time again, and how perplexed they are when there never seems to be a viable other option.