at last, some good political news

[miriam_e]

The tables are turning for Bush and his hateful mob.

I get regular email from the Human Rights Campaign in USA, who are largely concerned with GLBT rights. Here is a part of their latest mailout:

Tonight we saw a stunning victory for fair-minded politicians and GLBT equality...and a stinging rebuke of anti-GLBT politics in this country.

Here's what we know so far:

* A fair-minded majority has swept into the House of Representatives. With victories for strong pro-equality candidates like Florida's Ron Klein and Arizona's Gabby Giffords, we now have the most fair-minded Congress in history.

* We are on the verge of a historic victory for equality in Arizona where a discriminatory constitutional amendment could be defeated. The American people are tired of attempts to undermine equality for political gain. We'll be keeping a close eye on the results of this initiative in Arizona.

* With defeats for some of the most anti-gay voices such as John Hostettler, Rick Santorum and others, the era of gay bashing as a political tactic is coming to an end. Out of the 228 candidates HRC endorsed, we've seen 204 of those candidates win with only 11 losses, and 13 races still undecided.

Comments

[annie-lyne.livejournal.com]

Our elections next year are going to be very interesting, especially following this pleasant result...

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

I hope so... though I find myself wondering...

They have the technology now to steal any election they want. The electronic voting machines let them make any result appear that they choose. So why did they let this one go? Perhaps it doesn't matter to them. Perhaps they are using the pendulum to gain momentum -- let it swing this way so that when it swings back it will be so much stronger and much easier to hide a corrupt result.

Or am I just being pessimistic?

[annie-lyne.livejournal.com]

You can't swing something too far without drawing excessive scrutiny. The groundswell against the Republicans was probably too great to hide.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

From what I've been hearing it has been pretty massive. Even a lot of the republicans have become sick of Bush and his scary theocratic power-politics.

[greylock.livejournal.com]

Without being a wet blanket, and assuming your are Australian, a prediction:

The Libs in the next two years will roll NSW, WA, the NT and the Commonwealth elections.

I don't know enough about Tasmania and Victoria, but I suspect Tas will fall.

South Australia and Queensland are too close to call - if I had to guess.

NSW and WA Labor are stuffed (two ministers in two states in one day - one for kiddie fucking, the other for WA Inc II?).

[annie-lyne.livejournal.com]

State politics doesn't interest me all that much, but the "neatest" (not necessarily most probable) situation is that the current state-federal situation will flip: instead of State Labor holding all the states and Federal Libs holding federal, Labor will hold federal and State Libs will hold the states.

Probably won't happen though. The outcome of the Senate, however, is going to be the most interesting thing to watch come election time.

[greylock.livejournal.com]

See, Statewise I went from the WA Inc era to the Court Era... to the current...
I fear state politics.

Also, being in WA, I know that should the Libs get in we'll get uranium mining and exorts to China and India.

If you ask me to guess, I expect the Libs to hold the Senate next term.
I can't call the Reps, but I expect it will be a Howard/Costello win.

[annie-lyne.livejournal.com]

If they hold the House, it's going to be with a reduced majority. I don't think they're going to go on with the numbers they have now.

[greylock.livejournal.com]

Takes but one seat to govern in the House, and I am pesimistic.

The Democracts are spent, Labor pointless, and the Greens lack a rallying point.

Australian's don't care about Iraq or uranium... I'm not even sure if they care about interest rates.

Again, I am pesimistic by nature.

[annie-lyne.livejournal.com]

I don't think the Democrats are dead quite yet. Though I must say, I am a member of the Democrats ;)

[greylock.livejournal.com]

I considered joining the Dems... and didn't.

[cranky--crocus.livejournal.com]

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

I sure hope 'yay' is in order. If USA finds itself out of the darkness there is a very good chance our weak, Australian politicians might follow.

Random thoughts

[greylock.livejournal.com]

In the GLBT sense "fair-minded" is a weasel word.
Like "climate change" instead of "global warming".

You might not agree, but use of the term "fair minded" implies anyone who does not subscribe to the GLBT line is "unfair".
If we fight against weasel words on the right, we should do so on the left.

Plus, I understand Rick "frothy" Santorum (R) was defeated by an anti-abortion (or "pro-life" if one is so inclined) D candidate.

heh.

Re: Random thoughts

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

The meaning of the term "fair" in this context is pretty clear. It means even-handed. The fashion for decrying political correctness is beginning to do what many fashions end up doing: throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Political correctness, like anything, taken to an extreme can lead to absurdities, but talking about being fair seems a valid thing. Those who would apply discriminatory rules, effectively criminalising a large part of the good and honest population for the sake of their sexuality are not being fair. Just like those who want to own other humans as slaves are not being fair. Seems pretty clear.

I'm not very keen on the terms "climate change" or "global warming". Much better, in my opinion is one that a Melbournite friend uses: "climate roulette" (alluding to russian roulette). It describes very well what our dopey "leaders" are involved in. More coal-fired power stations [click], no Kyoto Protocol [click], bigger more thirsty cars [click]...

[sleepyaardvark.livejournal.com]

There's a major point the email fails to mention:

Gay rights had absolutely nothing to do with this election. The election was for the most part a referendum on Bush's handling of the Iraq war and that is all. The Democrats did their best to make it that way because they found out through focus groups and other research that that was the number one issue to strike a chord with voters. Yes, some of the most anti-gay voices in Congress lost, but those voices were all Republican and voters pretty much tossed all Republicans out of office. Some of the new Democrats who won seats are from more conservative areas of the country and they oppose gay marriage. In addition, several states had amendments on the ballot to ban gay marriage and in every case, those amendments passed overwhelmingly--most notably in Tennessee with 81% of the vote, but there were substanial majorities in every other state that voted on the question as well.

This election was a great thing for many reasons, but unfortunately, gay rights was not one of those reasons. Yes, the cause of gay rights will benefit from some of the political fallout of having a Democratic Congress, but at most it is just the tiniest of first steps.

As for why the election was not stolen again--it is quite possible that it is an instance of strategic short term retreat on the part of the Republicans. Obviously there was a lot of anger about Iraq and it is quite possible that the Republicans decided a good long term strategy would be to concede control of Congress this time around. That way there is two years for Democrats to take the blame for a lot of things and Nancy Pelosi to be the face of the enemy. It could be a good strategy to pave the way for John McCain to win the next election, which is a rather frightening prospect.

Don't get me wrong--I consider Tuesday a huge victory. But it is ONLY a first step and we can't allow ourselves to forget that. This war is not over yet and won't be for some time. For the activist community to celebrate and then go back to sleep like they were in the Clinton years would be akin to the Allies being satisfied with retaking Sicily instead of pushing all the way to Berlin.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Well, that's depressing... but I think you are probably right.
[sigh]