Four More Years

I suppose most of the world's blogs will be on this subject today. As I write this it looks like George Bush will be re-elected. Even allowing for the fact that Kerry is hardly an inspirational figure this is very hard to understand. So how could it happen?
I think Bush is both a symptom of and a contributor to America's decline. A symptom because only a dysfunctional state could elect such a leader, and a contributor because so many of his policies encourage and accelerate that decline.
Earlier this year, I was working for a very large American company and I had the dubious pleasure of attending a sales convention in Las Vegas. 17000 attendees from all over the world, and what struck me more than anything else was the huge gulf in attitudes and understanding between the Americans and just about everybody else. Despite the language issues, I felt much closer to the continental Europeans than the Americans who in many ways just seemed incomprehensibly alien.
At the heart of it all is a very peculiar relationship with the truth, which inevitably reminds me of the advice attributed to Adolf Hitler to tell big lies very forcefully. This attitude permeates the whole of society and business, and lies behind scandals like Enron, and the unlawful invasion of Iraq. Facts which don't fit the current view of how things are are simply ignored, and the media colludes in this by not reporting them. Bush's ability to lie repeatedly to the American people without anyone pointing out what he is doing to them has amazed watchers on this side of the Atlantic, as has Blair's willingness to collude in some of those lies. The willingness of the American people to lap up the lies has been even more amazing and even more worrying, as it suggests that there is little hope of things getting better.
Look at yourselves guys! Stop chanting about Truth, Justice and the American Way and see where it has taken you. Massive poverty, a failed education system, healthcare in crisis, an unbelievably uncaring (and un-Christian) attitude to the less fortunate in society, a corrupt and collapsing economy...and all the rest.

What's the name all about?

There's a cartoon that has just stuck in my head for about the last 30 years, since I saw it in something like Mayfair or Penthouse (historical reference: these were soft-porn magazines) when I was a teenager. It is drawn in a very ornate style, showing an eastern potentate consorting with one of his concubines, in one of the more obscure positions from the Kama Sutra. He's looking towards the reader, with an expression on his face that is almost wistful. The caption reads "In the final analysis, what can we do but tend our garden?".
I think it is a reasonable question...