Politics and power
Luis Eduardo Garzon, a media-savvy crazy-like-a-fox leftie, was just elected Mayor of Bogota, Columbia.
Garzon’s triumph also dealt a serious blow to Alvaro Uribe, Colombia’s hawkish, workaholic president, who was still enjoying his political honeymoon when Garzon irreverently stepped into the limelight
<Garzon says the left> “never prepared to govern. The left would discuss everything. The color of a lightbulb was a debate. And when it was time to act, they’d lost the moment. I’m different from that.”
He has a point. Some of the left is conflicted about power. It makes them queasy. Anarchists and Greens in particular tend to view =any= political structure as inherently untrustworthy, fearing it could lead to oppression, other mischief, or, God forbid, someone might give them an order.
However, if you are in politics in a serious way, then power is what you want, so you’d best be prepared to wield it once you get it – otherwise, why be involved in politics at all?
The fear of soiling oneself by entering the context of history is not virtue but a way of escaping virtue, Jacques Maritain