Why the Worldwide Left NEEDS Kerry

[liberalpragmatist]

From the UK's Observer: Shows from a British point of view how a revived American Liberalism would help the left all over the world, with this article focusing, of course, on England.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/comment/story/0,14259,1248388,00.html

... Would Britain, for example, have so readily retreated from its long-held view that prison is essentially a last resort and rehabilitation of offenders must be the centrepiece of any penal policy if it had not been engulfed by the American conservative view that both propositions were wrong?

Equally, would our readiness to stand by progressive taxation have been so weakened without the view from the US that high rates of income tax on the rich are morally and economically wrong?

We had Mrs Thatcher, but arguably her dominance in British politics would have been less secure had it not been for the succour she took from American policies and conservative ideas. Britain is not a slave to American influences, but it cannot ignore the international common sense which the US more than any other nation shapes.

Britain may have elected two Labour governments in succession, but the extraordinary caution of New Labour in championing even a modest social democratic programme is itself tribute to how difficult it is to declare independence from the international consensus. Progressive politics in Britain will gather no momentum until that begins to change - and that requires change in the US.

...

But opinion is moving. My bet remains that it will carry John Kerry to the White House - just. Of equal importance is the fact that neo-conservatism is on the defensive and that American liberalism has its best chance to regain ground for the first time in a generation.

It is not just American politics that could be transformed by Iraq, but our own. To believe in universal rights and fair societies might become respectable again.