by El Zorro Viejo (aka; Jim)

What are they thinking? It has to be totally true that the country is titled to the west because that's where all the loose nuts end up. Californians have just allowed the political right to deliver a serious blow against democratic (not the party) government. And while I would laugh if Arnold gets recalled next year when it turns out he is also unable to do anything about the myriad of crises afflicting California, the joke would ultimately be on all of us. Democracy means that we elect fellow citizens to provide the framework necessary for our society to exist. If we find that the person we have elected is not doing a good job, we fire him in the next scheduled election. That's one reason why electoral terms are sharply defined.

Personally, I think George Bush has done more to harm this country than any president in recent memory. Even Ronald Reagan didn't do as much damage to the fiber of the country as George Bush has done. However, even given that, I would not support a recall or impeachment proceedings against him primarily because he has, in fact, done what he said he would do. And now we are seeing that what he said he would do is not the right path. Sobeit. We'll have our chance to remove him next year. That's the way it should be done.

However, the political right does not subscribe to that philosophy. In fact, the political right are fascists in their political orientation. They would like nothing better than to see democracy fade away and for them to become the de facto ruling class of the United States. One has to remember that the political spectrum is not a straight line, it is, rather, more like an unclosed circle. The extreme right and the extreme left have many things in common especially when it comes to the actual form of government. We only have to go back 60 years to see that Stalin and Hitler were very close in the way they governed. Their major difference was that Stalin wanted the state to control everything while Hitler was content to let the rich get richer. In fact, fascism and oligopoly tend to go hand in hand, and most of the political right in this country get their lead from...oligopolists.

So, congratulations California. You have managed to both undermine our democracy and screw yourselves in one fell swoop. I, for one, will oppose any effort to get the rest of us to bail you out until Ahhhh-nold is no longer your governor. So, you should have about 4 years to contemplate the error of your ways...

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. ©El Zorro Viejo 2002-2005