I write as the sunrise
marches west across the USA, and voters are choosing between Obama and
Romney. Any Kiwi who has ever been on a
flight east to west chasing the dawn gets the drama. Poll booths are opening like dominoes falling
across the States, and Americans are making their choice.
One writer in the NZ
Herald commented that if it were up to New Zealanders, Obama would romp
in. What is it, with these
Americans? Romney might be a very nice
guy, rich and hospitable, exemplary family man and kind to animals. But he manifestly doesn’t know much and,
worse, he is surrounded and guided by serious right wing fanatics, oil
interests, and religious loonies. We had
all that with George W Bush. This would
be worse. Whatever faults Obama might
have, Romney is simply not up to it.
But we are told that
the polls are close. It’s neck and neck,
evidently. I for one have cold chills
about this. The President of the United
States, despite all the ambivalences, which are many, still exercises power
which affects us all. What they call Democracy,
which they think they invented and exemplify, is horrifyingly negotiable. They use torture. They run concentration camps. They think it is OK to circumvent the law and
human rights if it is America that is doing it.
They think American lives are somehow worth more than other lives when
they are lost.
Most of the free world
is heartily tired of America. There is
something called the American Dream, which makes most of us fall about
laughing.
But still, these
people could have made Romney president by tomorrow. It’s chilling. We are driven to resort to prayer.
