Why I Can't Go Home

[Kellanved]

I am sickened. I want the cavalry to come in and take these pretenders away. Or better, I want the extras in this bad film to burn down the stage.

But, this is no B-movie. George W. Bush is back in office and that means for the next four years I cannot go home. For good and for bad, I will remain an ex-patriot in Germany. My reasoning is simple: If there is enough support for someone like Bush to get re-elected, I simply do not belong in America. I don't even fit into my notoriously flip-floppy home state of California, where stem cell research can get affirmed, but the Terminator governs. After four (Bush) years in Germany, my perspective has shifted so much that my home has become foreign to me.
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Then he showed me his garage, which would easily earn him a blue ribbon from Tom Ridge: In it, he had -- and still maintains -- plastic sheeting and duct tape, enough food and water for a week, three high-powered flashlights and a portable radio. The Bush administration -- and the US media -- fatten such fear like Thanksgiving turkey. Nothing like it exists in Europe, which has also had its share of terrorist bombings and kidnappings.

Wednesday night I watched the Bush team take the stage and my heart stopped. These men -- these fear-mongers who will lead the world for the next four years -- are as banal as doorknobs. And they rule the world like a comic strip. Bush the swaggering Bandito, Laura the timid Librarian who is also a Good Christian wife and Sinister, Archly Secretive Dick. The government they advocate is a fantasyland of the Puritan past, where fear and salvation feed off each other and where church and state blur beyond distinction. We will certainly see more religion in Bush II. After all, it is the Christian fundamentalists and the fight for American "values" that put the Bushes back in office. And now that he doesn't have to worry about re-election, whatever fire and brimstone he held back the last time will come out like a bucking bronco. Does that mean abortion will be overturned? I hope not. The mere fact that it is being discussed is chilling. There is, of course, the off chance Bush could prove to be like Ronald Reagan and be a healer in his second term. I doubt it. Even if he does reach out, the world will be suspicious. His gestures might be soft and loose as hair, but they will be shaped like a weapon. It's unavoidable. Iraq is Bush's mess to clean up. How he will do it remains a mystery.
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http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,326400,00.html