Hring-iða/ekja stjórnmálanna

Það þarf góðan tíma til að fylgjast með og vita hver er í hvaða flokki og hverjir fara í framboð fyrir hvern í Íslenskum stjórnmálum þessa dagana.  Svo ekki sé nú talað um hverjir ætla í framboð og fyrir hvað þeir standa. 

Ef marka má þær fréttir sem ég hef séð er Frjálslyndi flokkurinn byggður á stefnuskrá Framsóknarflokksins (sem Framsóknarflokkurinn fer ekki eftir, ef marka má fréttirnar) og getur sömuleiðis komið í stað Samfylkingarinnar, ja alla vegna svona málefnalega séð ef marka má sumar yfirlýsingar.

Hverjir eru til vinstri og hverjir eru hægrimenn virðist verða óskýrara og óskýrara, flokkar eru of pólítískir (bara sagt í gríni) og allt snýst í hringi.

Er það furða þó að stór hópur kjósenda sé óákveðinn?

En það er víðar en á Íslandi sem menn hafa orð á því að skil á milli flokka og stjórnmálamanna séu að verða óljós og jafnvel að mönnum þyki hin pólítíska veröld hafa umpólast eða snúist í hringi.

Ég bloggaði fyrir nokkru um bók eftir Nick Cohen, sem heitir What´s Left (sjá blogg hér) þar sem hann fjallar um hvernig þessir "snúningar" komu honum fyrir sjónir frá sjónarhóli vinstri manns.

En nú las ég dálk í Kanadíska tímaritinu Mcleans þar sem breskur blaðamaður er að fjalla um sambærilega hluti frá sjónarhorni hægri manns.  Bæðir virðast þeir vera þeirrar skoðunar að Bresk stjórnmál hafi í það minnsta að hluta til "umpólast".

En hér er dálkurinn, skrifaður af Martin Newland:

"My wife has forbidden me from talking about politics at family meals. If I nevertheless manage to navigate myself into an argument over Israel or the importance to global stability of a strong U.S., she leaves the table because she knows the bread rolls will soon start flying.

My broadly pro-U.S., pro-Israel stance has relegated me to the cultural and ideological fringes. The hatred of the U.S. and Tony Blair is so intense here in the U.K. that many sections of the right have found themselves in an unlikely alliance with elements of the hard left. Thus, the Daily Mail in London seems to be in competition with the left-wing Guardian and the BBC to see who can heap the most ordure on the U.S. and Mr. Blair.

It is strange that, as a conservative, I feel more politically in tune with the outgoing Labour Prime Minister than with the new-ish Conservative leader. The latter, David Cameron, finger held aloft to test the political wind, has made a point of criticizing U.S. foreign policy, and has attacked Mr. Blair for being too "slavish" to Washington's dictates.

The Conservatives took advantage of the recent war in southern Lebanon to adopt the language of "proportionality" when speaking of Israel and to talk up their "soft power" credentials. Malcolm Rifkind, a former minister and a bit of a "Tory wet," was dispatched to speak to the media about Iraq as a greater foreign policy disaster than either Vietnam or Suez. I don't remember any such talk when the party, its new leader included, voted to invade Iraq in the first place. The Conservatives were fully signed up to "shock and awe" tactics then, as were the British military.

There has always been a streak of anti-Americanism in British conservatism, which probably has something to do with the replacement of British world hegemony by American influence in the last century. Many conservatives now adopt an air of patronizing exasperation when talking about the U.S., as though Americans were well-meaning rednecks with more power than sense. This is pure idiocy. It is likely that the Conservatives will gain power soon. They clearly do not realize that the Americans have long memories, and that any new administration of either political hue will expect public solidarity from its English ally across the water, or at the very least complete discretion.

For my part, I think Cameron is a good politician. But I simply do not trust him as an international statesman. If I wanted Jacques Chirac-style international isolationism I would move to France, where the quality of life is in any case better than in the U.K. For the first time since I turned 18, I think I will be staying away from the polls the next time around. My country has lost its cojones.

The post 9/11 world appears to have firmly rejected what George W. Bush and Tony Blair, for all their blunders, saw as a fundamental truth: we are locked in a cultural and military engagement with resurgent world Islamism, and that unless we defend Western principles -- the rule of law, democracy, the separation of the judiciary and the executive, the separation of church and state, and a fundamentally Judeo-Christian system of ethical behaviour -- we run the risk of becoming culturally and morally overrun. Already our moral sense has become disordered. Conservative commentators are writing about the "calm and dignified" way in which Saddam sought to meet his death. Dinner parties and the media remain obsessed with the invasion of rogue state Iraq, but seem quite relaxed over our handing of the Olympics to China, which suppresses democracy, the flow of information and religious freedom.

We seem incapable of discerning the difference between theocratic Iran possessing nuclear weapons, and democratic Israel possessing them. EU polls have named Israel as the greatest threat to world peace. What about North Korea? What about the fact that the closest the world has come to nuclear exchange since the Cuban Missile Crisis was when India and Pakistan threatened deployment a few years ago? What about Pakistan specifically, whose "father of the bomb," A.Q. Khan, disseminated nuclear know-how to unstable regimes?

When allied to Western interests, U.S. power is a good thing. Instead, we celebrate Washington's weakness and gloat over the humiliation of Tony Blair, who, despite his many failings, has proved himself the most effective British leader since Margaret Thatcher. We appear to welcome the political misfortunes of our Western leaders, and seem ready to place our faith in the hope that myriads of differing and divergent national interests can somehow magically align themselves toward a common purpose should something nasty happen to Western interests, or should the West identify a reason, as it did in Kosovo, to engage in some global policing.

We do not recognize the pacifying influence of American global power, backed by the most formidable military machine in history. Its carrier fleets sit off troublesome coastlines, as reminders to volatile, expansionist states such as Pakistan, China and North Korea that the above-mentioned "Western principles" will be defended to the hilt. Until the pundits and the politicians come up with another formula for the global defence of Western interests and values, I will stick with the Americans.

It will mean eating in another room at family dinners, but that's okay by me.

Dálkinn má finna hér.