Riders On The Storm

[poliphilo]

Individual politicians don't make that much of a difference, really. I was always impressed by Tolstoy's thesis- in War and Peace- where he argues that the Napoleonic wars are to be explained in terms of the migrations of peoples and Napoleon was just the figurehead, not the prime mover. The French were restless, felt the need for lebensraum and Boney went along for the ride.

That's an extreme position. I don't really believe Napoleon was quite such a cipher. Once in a while- very rarely- you get a politician who is also a genius- and he impresses events with the force of his personality. Napoleon, Lincoln, Churchill come to mind- but I can't think of any others in modern times.

So, Obama or McCain? I doubt it'll make much of a difference. Obama is livelier; he sends the better message- at least as far as the outside world is concerned. But the comparisons that are being made with Kennedy should give us pause- because we know now- if we care to dig- what a gap there was between Kennedy the myth and Kennedy the man.

Here in Britain we suffer under Gordon Brown. Brown gets credit for being Chancellor when times were good and is now being slammed as Prime Minister because times are bad. He's been the beneficiary and now the victim of events beyond his control- and his party and the public want rid because he's graceless under pressure and has a face like a collapsing wall.

Whoever takes over from him will be subject to the same forces and will follow the same policies- because politics these days is about management not ideas. And maybe that's not such a bad thing.  But let's not kid ourselves that any real change will be effected. A British Prime Minister is merely a rider on the storm. It may make us feel better about ourselves to have matey Mr Cameron or clean-limbed Mr Milliband in that position, but it'll only be the face we're changing.

Comments

[mummm.livejournal.com]

George Bush the second - unfortunately has made a HUGE difference in our country

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Him personally- or the inchoate powers for whom he worked as front man?

And will either McCain or Obama pursue a radically different set of policies?

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

Agreed. Bush provides an obvious, stumbling target for people to direct their wrath. But I have a difficult time believing he was the mastermind behind the last 8 years. More like a leaf caught up in a tornado. Not that that absolves him one whit, mind you. Just that he gets a disproportionate shame of the blame for the mess.

I think you're spot on in your assessment re: genuine transformation vs. business as usual. When Clinton was elected, doe-eyed idealists saw the end of the Republican stranglehold on the White House, and the beginning of a golden age. What they got was conservative-lite. So far, there's been nothing from the Obama camp to convince me he'll offer up anything different. Whether that has more to do with Obama, or the forces that would surround/influence his administration, is largely irrelevant.

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

shame = share, sorry

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Obama has already swung to the centre and is making threatening and cooing noises very much in accord with existing US policy. It might be nice to have a smart, literate man in charge of things- instead of a stupid one- but I don't see a new age dawning.

[nostoi.livejournal.com]

Me neither. More of the same is what it looks like, both in the US and in the UK.

Scottish politics is quite interesting at the moment though, I think.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I very much wish- as an English voter- I had the option of voting for the SNP. They seem to be doing a grand job.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

Obama? McCain? I dont like - or trust - either one of them? So what am I to do? Not vote? It sticks in my craw to think that the only choices I have are to pick one of two people I dont endorse or to give up my franchise temporarily. Maybe I'll just write something in. Ther was one year that I did just that - I wrote in "none of the above".

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I feel much the same way about the choices available to me in Britain.

As Neil innes wrote, it doesn't matter who you vote for because "the government always gets in".

[mummm.livejournal.com]

Only the phantom knows.

And I believe that he himself has had a LOT to do with it, though he sure had lots of help.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

What you say is sobering but has the ring of truth.

Obama probably does hope to bring about a sea change, but it won't happen--as you say, "whoever takes over...will be subject to the same forces...politics these days is about management not ideas."

He's about to pick his VP. This morning, NBC said Obama didn't ever call for Hillary's vetting papers, something required apparently before a thorough investigation of a possible VP. Obama said recently that he wants someone who will share his vision for "remaking the way politics is done in Washington." Unless Jesus plans to return to earth, I'd say he's out of luck.

In fact, that's not a good example. Jesus didn't do so well reshaping the politics of his time, and he had more "vision" than Obama...

I feel sorry for Obama--right now he's like Icarus, flying around and getting ready to get his wings burned.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Don't they all come out with that line about "remaking politics"? Isn't that McCain's schtick too?

It'll be interesting to see who Obama chooses.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Not that Jesus tried to reshape politics.

[nostoi.livejournal.com]

I agree that every now and again someone with real presence comes along and the populace gets swept along on the accompanying wave. Hitler, for instance. He got people fired up and successfully tapped into the zeitgeist of the country. Force of personality isn't always a good thing.

In 1997 we all (mostly) were swept up in the spin of Tony Blair; who didn't think then that wonderful things were about to happen? As for Gordon Brown, I feel a bit sorry for him (well, as sorry as I can be for a politician which is fairly minimal!) as Blair jumped ship at the right time and left his replacement to pick up the pieces. I don't think he was as good a chancellor as we have been led to believe but nor do I think he's as bad a PM as we are told either.

[nostoi.livejournal.com]

Just want to differentiate between the politicians who are in it for the career advancement/power etc and the ones who do it because they genuinely want to work the best they can for their constituents. I meant the former in my first post.

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

Hitler was the first historical figure I thought of while reading this as well.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I avoided Hitler on purpose. What a can of worms!

Was he a genius? An evil genius? Did he ride the public mood or create it?

I've never fully understood how such an unprepossessing little man managed to swing the German nation behind him.

[nostoi.livejournal.com]

I think you've answered your own question. ;)

Personally I think he managed it because the mood was there, created in part by the Allies and the repercussions of the Treaty of Versailles.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I believe I agree.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The Blair experience has made me wholly cynical. I didn't ever have that much faith in him, but I could never have guessed he'd take us into that war.

I'm a little sorry for Brown- but not that much. He so desperately wanted the job!

[nostoi.livejournal.com]

Be careful what you wish for! :D

I'm a sad cynic too; I don't want to be but I am seriously thinking that the only option for me at the next general election is to spoil my ballot paper, especially as through boundary changes we will be in another constituency with an MP who doesn't do much of use as far as I can see.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

In the US, the president sits at the top of the executive, heading up one-third of the governing authority set up by the Constitution. There's really no comparing the office to that of PM. What you say is true, insofar as any politician must bow to prevailing conditions and the powers that brought him or her to office, but that does not necessarily preclude the possibility of significant change.

For one thing, we cannot understate the sheer depravity, constitutionally speaking, of the Bush White House. I don't think any sitting president since Lincoln has governed with such fundamental disregard for the rule of law. Some can and plausibly do excuse Lincoln, given the circumstances, but there is no such plausible excuse for the Bush-Cheney junta. What they've done is born of an ideology, a brazen contempt for our form of government that they brought to the office, not something adopted of necessity. So, if Obama substantively returns the executive to the rule of law, we here in the States will have realized a major sea change.

For another, I think it important to look carefully at the forces that will win the White House for either candidate this season. McCain's campaign is being nursed along by Karl Rove, the same "Mayberry Machiavelli" that brought us Bush and Cheney. Big Oil has recently signed on and opened the monetary spigots on McCain's behalf, after he reversed himself and now supports offshore oil drilling. The man who deregulated the financial industry, enabling the Enron fiasco and leading our economy to the brink of collapse with the latest mortgage crisis, has also authored McCain's economic policies. And of course due to his support for perpetual war wherever and whenever the opportunity arises, the military-industrial complex is behind McCain 100%.

By contrast, Obama has got as far as he has by running an exceptionally good ground game, organizing people at a local level to support their candidate, register voters and get them to the polls. If successful in getting their man to the White House, this grassroots organization can cut both ways. If, once in office, Obama goes back to "business as usual", the people who made him president will already know how to organize effectively against him and make their voices heard. That, I think, is indeed a real change.

One must also bear in mind that the main-stream media is working hard to paint this race as much closer than it is, smudging both candidates to smooth out the differences. They airbrush McCain, figuratively speaking, to make him seem more presidential and less like a dottery old man raging at clouds. They exaggerate every flaw and misstep by Obama to make it seem like there's a real reason to watch their coverage and listen to the talking heads drone on and on and on about it. If it looked like Obama will take November's election in a landslide, as indeed several reputable political analysts are saying right now, there would be no reason to pay attention to the media and that's bad for business.

Hope for change and a better tomorrow is the last thing we need right now, in my opinion. Forgive me, but in the words of the late great George Carlin, "F*ck hope!" What's needed, if we really want change, are people with the courage and stamina to work intelligently and effectively and make it happen.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Bush is almost certainly the worst president of modern times.

My cynicism is fuelled by the British experience. In 1997- disillusioned with a weary and sleazy Tory administration- we elected a "New" Labour government, led by the young, charismatic and seemingly idealistic Tony Blair. We expected some kind of improvement. Instead we got more of the same- a continuation of conservative fiscal policies, sleaze as usual and a Prime Minister who shamed us by fawning on Bush and involving us in a disastrous, immoral and arguably illegal war.

Barack Obama looks a lot like Blair to me. I hope he's got more substance, but, well, we'll see.....

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

Your cynicism is entirely understandable and well justified, as is your casting a wary eye toward Obama. Blair is something of an embarrassment, even at this distance.

I think there's a certain similarity between Blair and Bill Clinton, both products of the same era. I voted for him first term, but sat on my hands during his second run for the presidency. I still like "Bubba", love to hear him speak and think him probably one of the finest orators of his age. Clinton's a truly brilliant man too, but in the end, I think he proved himself to be first and foremost a politician, a master at compromise and triangulation, supremely ambitious, charming and vain, a man who upheld the law when it suited and flaunted his transgressions when it didn't.

When he was questioned under oath and, with a straight face, answered a simple question with, "It depends upon what the definition of 'is' is", I laughed, too. But I think in truth, it really was a sad day for the Republic.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Too many of our top politicians have trained as lawyers. It means they have a very nuanced relationship with the truth.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

I think you've put your finger on it.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

" a face like a collapsing wall" LOL
Better than my friend Samantha from Manchester's line;
"a face like a smacked arse"
your description is so apt.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks. My first choice was "angry pudding" (see today's post).

[currawong.livejournal.com]

...and here we have Kevin Rudd taking the ride, and not looking nearly so pristine as he did in December, but he has the advantage of a particularly inept opposition ...we are now in the proces of seeing "centrepice policies" being wound back to being timid stabs at intimidating problems.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's so sad.

Brown had a brief honeymoon with the electorate- maybe we were all just so glad to see the back of Tony Blair- but he quickly got into his stride and became all timid and dithery and emotionally disfunctional. He had a decade to prepare for the top job- and yet when he finally got it he seemed entirely bereft of ideas.

[currawong.livejournal.com]

Rudd is beginning to show signs of being all tip and no iceberg ... he does have a couple of formidable ministers however, like the Chinese Australian lesbian Penny Wong, who eats her pusilanimous opposition for breakfast ...she is extremely smart and very ... no, intimidatingly serious ...God, I'd love to see HER as an Australian Prime Minister ... talk about a new broom.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I better go Google her.

David Milliband just made a coded bid for the New Labour leadership- with a speech full of platitudes.

[currawong.livejournal.com]

Nothing but platitudes are possible any more, when both sides of politics are really the same side of politics and every area of policy is just managed spin from the same bureaucrats and PR people that work for whoever is "in" at the moment.In most modern democracies, political differentiation is so minimal as to be illusory.