"How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?"
- Page 1 of England's Daily Mirror.
George W Bush re-elected. You know what this means don't you? The benefit of the doubt is now gone. "Embarrassingly ignorant American": until now that classic stereotype famous the world over was always mentioned with a hint of hope that they were a minority. After all, last time Bush lost the popular vote but still got in. Well it turns out now that the South has indeed risen again. That horrible stereotype is in fact the majority and they have re-elected their tool.
The shock was prevalent around the world. Especially since the man started a war in Iraq for reasons that appear to be false. There seem to be no WMDs and Bin Laden looks to have more ties to Rumsfeld than Saddam. Yet, as Bush all but says "I lied," 73 per cent of those polled prior to the election said "No, you didn't."
I suppose anything is possible when you have a civilization in which 11, count them, 11 states made queer marriages illegal. That's insane. If you didn't choose to be straight what makes you think they chose to be gay?
That's only one flashpoint topic that is widening the great social divide, making many ready to run true north fast and free. In that case utopias like our own would be wise to prepare for the Sane Drain. For years now the "Brain Drain" has seen our talented Canadians fleeing to the south for the brighter lights and bigger dollar. Now the Sane Drain is in full effect with Immigration being flooded and constant calls finding out just hard it would be to pack up and move to greener Canadian pastures. That's encouraging until you stop and think - if all the good ones come here, who does that leave driving the bus?
But I suppose people in grass houses shouldn't throw goats and we've got our own troubles up here. For those eyeing our provincial neck of the woods, be wary for we have a Bush of our own. Granted, ours doesn't have the crazy right-wing religious angle. But Gordon Campbell's B.C. Liberals are as big as Bush when it comes to gutting social programs to pay for tax cuts.
It's that scary ideology that depends on the growing gap between the rich and the poor. It's estimated that originally the difference between a CEO and the low man's salary was 14 per cent. Now, it averages well over 400 per cent.
Luckily, with that much cash you can buy one hell of a publicist to put ads in every paper (even this one) telling us that everything is great. I'm sure those that can still afford a paper will be comforted.
With our provincial election a scant few months away, it will be interesting to see just who buys this round of promises. If nothing else, I suppose we'll see once and for all if we are indeed smarter than our global roomies to the south.
