Watched Barak's acceptance speech the other day.
I have to say he has a talent, that man.
Don't mean a thing, when he has to apply his rhetoric if he gets the job. Still, he has a powerful voice.
But you know, I also got a very creepy feeling.
We have a university in our town, and there is currently a big fight between the Chancellor who is a business man, and wants to turn the uni into a business model, and the Vice-Chancellor who is an academic, and is supported by all the students, staff and academics. There is likely to be big trouble, because the Chancellor is usually an honorary position, but this man is extremely aggressively pursuing a neo-liberal policy, and is not about to be pushed aside. He is due for re-election to another 3 year term by the Uni Council.
Today I read in the local paper, a letter promoting this Chancellor's agenda. It reeked of that neo-liberal, business/money/privatisation mind frame. I realised these people are not going to give up. The population in Australia has turned, and I can see the main population in US is also fed up with this mind frame.
There is no real philosophical alternate position that has the clout of the neo-liberal economical agenda. People are turning away from it out of a deep sense of nausea.
But as I say, the powers that are pushing the agenda of multi-national interests do not care for the sensibilities of the public - they are convinced of their rightness, to the extent they will do anything to stop those who stand in their way.
An articulate, charismatic, highly popular leader from the Left, is a red rag to a bull - the thing that will raise the hackles on the backs of their vermilion necks. They are in no mood for another idiot like Kennedy, and especially one without clay feet.
it bothers me...