2005 2
US Democrats: People Who Want Things to Stay the Same
Published by MartinVarsavsky.net in General with No Comments
I am a progressive. In the US I identify with the democrats. Over the last two US elections I have watched in pain as Bush defeated Gore and Kerry. How could America elect such a conservative leader? I wondered. But after attending the Clinton Global Initiative two weeks ago in New York City and listening to some token right wingers who were invited to attend I realized that things have changed. Nowadays, it is the Democrats who are conservatives, in the sense that it is them who want things to stay the same, and paradoxically it is the republicans, traditionally seen as conservatives, who want things to change, sometimes radically. Abortion is legal, they want to change that. Prayer is not allowed at schools, they want that changed as well. Evolution is seen as the only accepted science, they don´t buy that. There´s one rule in politics, people who want things to change organize themselves better than people who want things to stay the same. For example, creationists are well organized, evolutionists (who probably make 100% of the biology teachers in the world), are not. Why are you going to organize to fight for what you have? I think that people of a democratic spirit in America will begin to wake up only when they realize that their status quo…is no longer.
Both in Europe and America the press tends to be more progressive, or leftist, than the rest of the population. In America, conservatives have been very good at mounting a counterattack on the liberal media, but the liberal media still has the upper hand. The country votes republican, the media overall is democratic. Why is this the case? To me this is simply a function of income. Start giving journalists investment banking salaries and they would certainly write more conservative articles! As it is they make very little money, and empathize with other people who do as well.