how is Kerry doing? (diatribe on modern democracy)

I'm torn on this one. On one hand, I appreciate that Kerry is an old-school democrat who likes to talk idea and ideals and prefers to take the high road in arguments. On the other hand, he seems to be getting his ass handed to him by the dirty, say-anything-to-get elected campaign strategy of his GOP opponent.

I have been on the Kerry bandwagon from the beginning. And while I admit I wavered in my actionable support when he was so far down during the primary, I stuck with him and always thought he was the best choice, primarily because of what he believes in: protecting the environment, universal healthcare, tax relief for the poor and middle-class, but cutting off the giant tax-loopholes for the very rich and giant corporations, etc. Unfortunately, however, these issues are not ones that decide elections - they are not ones to swing swing voters to his side.

Instead, for some reason I can only guess at, people and the media are fixated on tax cuts, terrorism and Iraq. Certainly those are important issues and Kerry, I believe has decent, thoughtful, but nuanced stances on them all - and people today seem to me to be generally too lazy to look into anything that can't be understood via a catch phrase or simple turn of words.

To me, the reason Bush is ahead in the polls and why so many normally peaceful and normal people seem to unwaveringly support him and his politics of exclusion, bigotry and financial elitism is that he has a simple, instinctual message: we are good, everyone against us is evil and we must remain steady and strong in order to win. That simple mantra gives some cover to everything else his administration has done to the detriment of its citizens since he took office.

The problem that people don't realize is that by talking (and accepting such talk) in such black and white, good vs. evil terms, by painting all Islamic countries as potential harborers of terrorists, and all muslims themselves as potential terrorists, we are not only doing the wrong thing morally, but we are making far more enemies than we are picking off with our inept actions in the "war on terror."

How many of these "wars" on ideas have we won by the way? Drugs? - worse than ever before. AIDS? - still spreading like wildfire around the world. Poverty? - undoubtedly worse than ever before in the modern era, even here in the US. Nuclear proliferation? - our government's actions have spurred more countries to seek them because they see that if you have even just one, we won't dare invade you and can't so easily threaten and bully you into what we think democracy (read: capitalism) and freedom is about.

I fear it may take another 4 years of political-corporate cronyism and gutting of civil liberties to wake us up enough to realize that our country and its cherished ideals are dissappearing before our very eyes...