Reflections on the recent US elections

This is the first real opportunity I’ve had to blog about the outcome of the US elections. Everyone I know is gutted, and the best anyone could come up with as a “silver lining” is that Bush will mess things up big-time over the next few years, and the Democrats under whoever will be able to step in once the Republicans have destroyed themselves. I’m not sure if Americans can really take comfort from that, including Muslim Americans.

A lot of the pro-Kerry sites are saying the election was rigged: Daily Kos, and Bushflash among other places. This may or may not be so, but I wonder how much people underestimate the ability of people to stop thinking at times of crisis. Eric Raymond, the computer expert and historian best known for coining the term “open source” (to popularise what had previously been known as “free software”), produced a series of angry diatribes in support of American actions after 9/11, notably the so-called Anti-Idiotarian Manifesto, which alleges that western civilisation is under threat from terrorists with access to weapons of mass destruction placed in their hands by “rogue states”, that they are “pursuing a war not against the vices of Western civilization but against its core virtues: against the freedom of thought and speech and conscience, against the life of reason; against the equality of women, against pluralism and tolerance; against, indeed, all the qualities which separate civilized human beings from savagery, slavery, and fanaticism”, that “they have sought, and on plausible evidence found, alliance with rogue states such as pre-liberation Iraq, Iran, and North Korea; states that are known to have active programs working towards the development and delivery of weapons of that would multiply the terrorists’ ability to commit atrocities by a thousandfold”, and that “at this time, using the state to carry the war back to the aggressors is our only practical instrument of self-defense”. The fact is that people like Raymond are not “using the state”, rather, the state is used by big business, and is using people like them.

(It was through Raymond that I discovered the even more rabid anti-Arab blogs like Little Green Footballs and Jihad/Dhimmi Watch. The latter was started only in late 2003, and LGF took on its present form only after 9/11, before which it was purely concerned with technical subjects. While people were no doubt traumatised by the events of 9/11, it appears that some of these people relished their opportunity to make fame for themselves by stoking bigotry. It’s worth noting that some of the anti-Muslim pundits had been stirring up similar bigotry long before that, as after Oklahoma which turned out not to be the work of Muslims.)

I would also like to know if any allowance was made for disabled voters. Given the record of Boy George’s favourite judges on supporting the right of disabled people to the law, this should be taken to apply to all physically disabled people, but this blog entry by a blind woman in Tennessee suggests that blind people have difficulty getting accessible (i.e. Braille) ballots. The author also reports that she had to answer to her family who bombarded her with “facts” culled from “Calamity” Sean Hannity’s show. I’m sure you’ll all agree that this is no way to ensure a reliable and private ballot.