By Joshua
Daniel Hershfield 11/13/06
European
countries and citizens reacted overwhelmingly positive to the Democratic
victory in the midterm elections in the House and Senate. A common sentiment was that US voters are
coming around to the truths that have been realized by the majority of the
world for years.
In a joint
statement, over 200 members of the European Parliament hailed the US election
results as “the beginning of the end of a six-year nightmare for the world.
Juergen
Trittin, deputy head of Germany’s
Greens Party said, “The (election) will put a strong damper on the one-sided
and dogmatic policies of George W. Bush.”
Despite
Tony Blair’s consistent support of Bush and US
aggression, his Labour Party is still split on the issue of war in Iraq. Ian Gibson, a Labour MP said, “I”ve never
needed any convincing it was a mistake and many people in this country felt the
same. We feel bitterly angry about
marching on the streets and being completely ignored.”
Jean-Pierre Charpemtrat, a 53 year old teacher in France said it was about time US voters
figured out what much of the rest of the world already knew. “Americans are realizing that you can’t found
the politics of a country on patriotic passion and reflexes.”
Italian foreign minister, Massimo D”Alema stated, “The cycle
of preventative wars, of unilateralism, has ended in a great failure that even
the American public has acknowledged.”
For a country that considers itself to be the leader of the
world, the US
public is grossly under-informed. US
media, which often just trumps the Party line, falls far behind the
informational accuracy of European media.
As a country, we value the rule of the United States
over international law and world opinion. This attitude is partially responsible for the
continuous atrocities, those of war, torture, violations of human and civil
rights, and environmental degradation, being carried out in our names.
Our government has disregarded climate change and the toxification of the environment, a reality that much of the world has been trying to tackle despite US incompetence, for
years. Our government has passed laws
that erase our civil rights and openly legalize indefinite detention and
torture, crimes that our government shares with those of Stalin, Mussolini, and
Hitler. Our government has invaded and
decimated two countries and is planning on doing the same thing to a
third.
The Democrats aren’t planning on ending the Bush agenda,
only giving it some adjustments. But
viewed as a vote against the Republican Party, the elections shed a bit of
light into the dark room of the United
States.
Perhaps, as a country, we are finally coming around to what the rest of
the world has been saying. Perhaps the US is finally
doing a bit of growing up.