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Posted by Jackuk on 14/11/2006, 17:29:41, in reply to ""Pen Pal" request to British or European readers"
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Gunny,
for sentimental reasons, I guess, I was cheered by the results of your mid-terms - but your comment about US party-politics seeming like a mere change of "wardrobe" to Europeans is both true and telling.
Since the emergence of the so-called Third Way under Clinton and Blair, US and UK politics have been systematically denuded of any ideological burden whatsoever. This is why I was perplexed by your earlier post in which you expressed bewilderment at the failure of large sections of the population to vote at all.
In this country, Blair and his acolytes freqently the bemoan the sort of voter "apathy" that is typified in electoral participation rates of 50% - 60%. What politicians here refuse to acknowledge is that "failure" to vote ought more accurately to be characterised as "refusal" to do so - and that such refusal arises not from apathy but from a degree of engagement and commitment that is at once sincere and intense.
As befits our status as the fufty-first state, the UK now has two Tory parties who vye for power on grounds of managerial competence rather than ideological conviction. Economically, both parties are radically committed to late Capitalism, differing only in the degree of their commitment to social justice. In certain areas, the Tory Party is actually more committed to re-distributive policies than "New Labour".
In these circumstances, I have not voted myself in any election since Blair's acension to the labour leadership lead to the abolition of Clause 4 of the party constitution. (The Clause which committed Labour to "social ownership of the means of production".) Under Tony Blair, it would revolt and shame me to vote for the "Labour" Party - and it's obviously out of the question to vote for anyone to the Right of that far-right party.
Your bemusement at people's failure to vote, Gunny, implicitly endorses the far-Right's denial of a basic UK/American truth: the Left have been effectively disenfranchised since the Wall came down.
cheers
Jackuk
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