Political Ideologies

Just as a new term has been established in Malacañang, things are only beginning to heat up on the other side of the world. It’s election season in the United States once again, and everyone’s getting down and dirty in the battle for the presidency.

On November 2, American voters will decide the rightful victor to lead their country. Will George W. Bush’s hopes for reelection be granted, or will John Kerry emerge triumphant as the nation’s 44th president?

So far, no one knows. The race has been called ‘dead heat’ - a term that describes the uncertainty of the frontrunner. Both candidates are tied in virtually every poll, and as campaigns and propagandas loom in the weeks ahead, anything can happen. Kerry’s much-applauded speech at the Democratic National Convention in Boston last month gave him a considerable boost, but wait until Bush gets his own Republican show - come September, the numbers will be crunching.

But given the ‘dead heat’ and the impending circumstances, will America find her leader?

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Champion for the Cause

John Forbes Kerry is the anointed candidate of the Democratic Party and the main challenger in Election 2004. Besting eight other contenders vying for the party’s nomination last summer, Kerry boasts an impressive record of service. Among his credentials, he is a decorated Vietnam War veteran and has been a senator for the state of Massachusetts for the past 20 years. Kerry is being touted as ‘the last, best hope’ of the Democrats who are desperate to drive Bush out of office. Kerry is the second Roman Catholic presidential nominee in history, much like his idol (whom he incidentally also shares the same initials with) - John Fitzgerald Kennedy. His stirring speech at the DNC spoke of optimism and change, to re-establish credibility to the government and to rebuild the integrity of the country; and if elected, become a Commander in Chief whose means of war are justifiable.


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‘His Fraudulency’

George Walker Bush, the incumbent, was not even the validly elected president to begin with. Remember 2000’s Bush vs. Gore election fiasco in Florida? His transition to the White House was not fully legitimate - it was a result of manipulative scheming from the campaign trail down to the Supreme Court, with a little help from his father, former President George H.W. Bush, and his brother, Governor Jeb Bush of Florida. Well, who do you think would the Bush Sr.-appointed justices side with in a dizzying charade of ‘butterfly ballots’ and ‘hanging chads’? Would Jeb be so unkind as to declare that his brother lost in his own state?

GWB’s record isn’t at all that stellar. He went AWOL during the Vietnam War - saying that he was serving that time in the US National Guard (an obligation he didn’t even bother to complete). Before his ascent to the Oval Office, Bush was the governor of Texas - a term marked by executions and poor environmental records. Having no experience in the executive arena, his cabinet was composed of remnants of the Elder Bush administration. He was being ‘baby-sitted’ into making decisions, and therefore went on to create his own principles. In four years, the rich got richer (due to the tax cuts that favored them), unemployment swelled, and the economy never got to equal that of the Clinton years (which could also be a deciding factor in the ballot-tallying).

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Secrets and Lies

And we thought Bush would’ve changed for the better and made a good president in the wake of 9/11. But in the months after that fateful day in September did we realize that this was all a product of shadowy deceit. The Bush government has compelled us to believe their misinformation and brainwashing, coercing us to foment false images of terrorists and creating enemies out of nations -the “Either you’re with us or you’re with the terrorists” philosophy precisely says so. The Bush administration has spawned a culture of fear among us, putting us into a state of paranoia and helplessness that desperately calls for Mighty America to save us all.

Bush’s top influential advisers (the VP and Defense bureaucrats, among others) were officials during the Reagan era and the Gulf War years. But we don’t just stop there. They are ‘neoconservatives’ - coined during the ‘80s that meant conservatives on the far right of the political spectrum… semi-Fascists, or simply, pro-war. They concur with the aggressive military establishment. They, the militia, and Bush are the ones responsible for planning the immediate attack on Afghanistan and the recent Iraq incursion, giving plenty of reasons, dubious or otherwise. We need to capture Osama bin Laden. The Al-Qaeda network should stop its proliferation of extreme radicalism. Saddam Hussein is a dictator and he needs to be incarcerated. Iraq is a threat to world peace. The weapons of mass destruction must be found.

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Lost in the Sahara

So, the Afghan regions were bombed to near oblivion, yet until now Osama has not been found. The Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups still continue its operation. Though Saddam was captured, Iraq became a wasteland. And where are the elusive WMDs? The key issue that has led to severed diplomatic ties and bruised egos was nowhere to be found in The Invasion of Baghdad.

Moreover, this ‘war’ has done more harm than advantage. Thousands of soldiers are dead, opposite a faceless enemy. Americans (like Nick Berg) and other innocent nationalities begging for the mercy of their captors, beheaded in front of the camera. Civilians perished in a conflict uncalled for. Taxpayers’ money burned up, along with the missiles that fell on barren ground. And these unfortunate things are still happening everyday, often swept under the rug. What you see in the media is just a pixel of the big picture. Michael Moore, the director of “Fahrenheit 9/11” (a documentary exposing the truth about the Bush war machine) said it aptly in the Oscar podium that the war in Iraq “is a fictitious war (by a fictitious president)”. There was nothing to fight for, and if there was, it’s the oil.

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Now that I’ve stated my case, is change inevitable for America? I only hope that the president to be inaugurated in January will be one she deserves.

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Note: This article appeared in The Judenites, June-August 2004 issue.
(as Associate Editor, “Relativity”)