Quote:
Originally Posted by Trumanator
considering that the arctic ice cap GAINED mass over the last year I think that the US position on GW might end up the most prudent.
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I don't know where you got this from, but it's outright false. The Arctic sea ice has been consistently losing overall mass, even if there has been some localized increase in isolated places. The Greenland glaciers are receding at an alarming pace.
As far as the US elections go, a vote for McCain can most charitably be characterized as utter irresponsibility. His campaign promises aside, a closer look at his actual platform has made it clear that he intends to continue the same policies Bush and Cheney used for the past 8 years to drive the US to the ground. He has run a campaign of outright lies and character assassination while avoiding giving any kind of factual positions on issues. He is old and in poor health and stands to leave Palin as president if he croaks. Palin's record as the mayor of Wasilla and later as governor of Alaska is a record of division, mismanagement and cronyism cast from exactly the same mold as the Bush administration. She just happens to be a hockey-mom and to possess the "just like us" factor, which is going to sway more gullible voters.
The problem with the "just like us" factor is that ideally the leaders of a country shouldn't be like Joe/Jane Sixpack, but more intelligent, more educated and more aware of the world around them.
The recent financial crisis is just one more mark against the neocon and Invisible Hand of the Free Market risk socialists who have been at the helm for the last 8 years. The Republicans pushed complete deregulation of the financial industry through in 1999 and now that all of the profits of the last few years have been privatized while they built up the current mess, they seek to socialize all of the losses on the taxpayers. They even had the audacity to put it in the draft that the Treasury Secretary (aka Paulson, a former investment banker) would have sole authoirty to act as he saw fit (mostly in the interests of his Wall Street buddies) and that anything he did would not be subject to ANY judicial review.
There is also one factor to the "world leader" and international relations aspect of this election: The US touts itself as the leader of the free world and
assumes that it is regarded as such. The current administration's idea of international relations has been "We expect unquestioning obedience and you will do as we say or else!", which has not gone over very well with the rest of the world. Electing McCain would be seen as a deliberate decision to continue Bush policies.
Up until now the rest of the world has made a pretty marked distinction between regarding the current US administration as a bunch of corrupt, venal screwups but not extending that same assessment to the American people. Americans are considered good guys oerall, but with a bad government. Elect McCain and the international opinion will start shifting in the direction that all of the negative perceptions of the current American
government will be largely transferred on the American
people as a whole. That would mean that Americans would be assumed to be navel-gazing, warmongering, belligerent morons by default and only once an individual American had proved himself to be otherwise would they be extended the benefit of the doubt. That's how bad perception of the US currently is,
even among the populations of many allied nations. The governments of those allied nations will never say this out loud, of course, but private citizens do not need to hold their tongues the same way.
These are just some of the reasons I would like to see Obama win the elections. He has shown competence and he would go a long way toward mending the strained and torn relations between the US and the rest of the world. He also has a substantive platform on the issues that is not geared toward benefiting the rich at the expense of the poor and the middle class (which is pretty much an endangered subspecies of the population due to Bush's policies).
This is one view from abroad, though I daresay that I am fairly well informed on what goes on in American politics.
Re: OT: US Pres election
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