Year of the Pig - A year of hope?

As I shepherd my son toward the commencement of his new life as a uni student I wonder whether there are signs of hope this year of the pig.

I get the impression that the middle ground of politics in America, UK and Australia are waking up to the neocon con. Governments that have governed for narrow sectional power elites are losing public support as their policies are seen to have put their citizens in harm's way, violated their rights and the rights of many non-citizens in the name of national security. The hyperbole of the 'war on terrorism' has dominated the polemical air waves, whilst the crunch issues of global warming, poverty and international debt levels have taken a backseat.

We urgently need governments that govern for the common good, and that take good international citizenship seriously. We have to jump off Howard's 'good ship...mateship', as it thrashes about for more groups to exclude and to demonize and before it sinks from sight in a quagmire of hubris and rhetoric.

Now Howard and Downer are hectoring America over the troop pull-out platform of Obama, the most charismatic of the Democrat candidates for the Presidency. Obama has been right all along, and Bush and Howard are looking more and more like bunnies in the spotlight. The right-wing polemicists who have fueled this dark period in international affairs should be feeling uncomfortable because the greed, stupidity and ignorance of the neocon mindset will be subjected to forensic analysis when the key instigators are no longer in power.

May it be a great 'Year of the Pig' for my son and all the other young people yearning for renewed hope...