Angry White Man

I was reading Micheal Moore's Stupid White Men this weekend, (yeah, I know it's been ten years since it was first published, but that's pretty topical by my standards), and was struck by the similarities between his account of Bush Jr's seizure of power in 2000, and Cameron's here in the UK ten years later. Both came to power having failed to win an election. In Bush's case, his 'victory' hinged on the dubious result in Florida, (then governed by his brother Jeb), and the willingness of conservative judges in the Supreme Court to stop the recounts in that state once it looked as if Gore was gaining ground. Cameron, as we all know, sidestepped the little matter of having failed to persuade the electorate that he should be Prime Minister by bamboozling the Lib Dems - desperate for a taste of power after nearly a century in the wilderness - into an unholy alliance. In effect, both gained power through a political coup, supported by the right wing media, (in both cases the Murdoch empire featured prominently in spreading disinformation about the opposition).

The consequences of these coups has been the same in both countries: an illegitimate government embarking upon a highly partisan right wing programme designed to help the rich get richer at the expense of the poor, and boost the profits of their corporate masters. To do this the public sector is asset stripped by big corporations and social services for the less well off pared to the bone. The parallels between Dubya 2000 and Cameron 2010 don't stop with the governing parties. Moore also notes the apparent inability of the Democrats to mount any kind of effective opposition, instead being too concerned with fund raising from their wealthy friends. Similarly, today's Labour Party seems too concerned with not upsetting their erstwhile friends in the city and the right wing media, to be bothered with actually reconnecting with their core values and voters. Consequently, Moore's introduction for the first UK edition of his book, (which I picked up from a charity shop on Saturday), in which he urges us Brits not to follow the US' political lead highly poignant. Anyway, if just reading the first chapter has wound me up this much, God knows what I'll be like by the time I finish the book. Brace yourselves for some more mega-rants!