(Sweetsurrender, thank you for your PM as well. It was like discribing the situation in Greece. )
It is a bit difficult to discuss such matters with people you don't know. Most probably your words will be misunderstood. I don't really mind if somebody gets the wrong idea about me. It is that we actually have separate monologues that commence from quotes by others that we only read and we add meanings of our own, depending mostly on the idea we have shaped for the other person and our current mood. So please, in such discussions, always try to see the best in people's answers and excuse the obvious ignorance. As MK said "we have just one world, but we live in different ones".
When it comes to a vote about the man, Obama vs Romney, the outcome always seems inevitable.
However I understand a little about the Republican ideal of 'small government - lower taxes - slash debt' to understand many people voted for Romney simply because they fear an "unAmerican" future.
Dealing with 15 trillion dollars of debt is no small feat, and there are many viewpoints about how (or if) to pay it down.
I thank God that the USA has the largest Navy and Nuclear military in the world otherwise I fear it would be declared bankrupt... but as long as they keep enough carrier groups operating it will be difficult for other significant countries to see the US descend into chaos. What do you think ?
I believe that with this answer Fletch, more or less, expresses the thoughts and estimates of most of the world, or at least what we call the "western" world. If I wanted to elaborate a bit (even though I hinted it in my previous post) I would go on and say that all this power, does not actually come from the country itself, but from the economical powers that use the military and the economy of the USA as a special weight to play their dirty games. I fear that if and when these powers stop having so many interests invested or stop gaining as much as they desire or understand that they lose their influence, they will have no problem, no second thoughts but leave the ship to sink.
"There is no America, there is no democracy"
I think that when you are born and grown in this line of thinking, there is no way back, because you have not learnt any other way. And this is exactly the American way of life, that have been preached through art, movies and commercials to the whole planet. Unfortunately the American dream has become just that, a dream. A dream that like all dreams can claim your life while you sleep. And the world sleeps. When the end of the cold war came with the fall of the Berlin wall and the Soviet Union, people thought that we could all live the American dream. If you work hard you will find your place in the sun. I guess in this sense we are all Americans and we live the American dream. Or not?
Some questions about all the western countries.
Is the statistics we hear about unemployment correct? Is the distribution of wealth fair? Is the way things work fair? How can you call getting a fortune out of stocks and bonds fair? How can you pile money in the banks and influence political decisions to get more? Is it fair to have patents for life saving medicine and selling medicine only to the ones that can afford them? Is this human or animal action? Is this logic or dementia? How can you call decocratic a sytem that you hardly know the person you vote for?
Countries were original constituted in order to protect people with common beliefs, ideologies, and most of the times common religion and language. The key in this was the interest and attention for the "OTHER" person. Unfortunately when money got in the equation of life and was transformed from a means, (a tool for an easier life,) to an end, a puproseless end, the attention for the "other" person vanished and we became egocentric. Now they present us with a plan for Global economy, global government and global lobotomy. But if you don't love and feel for the "OTHER" it doesn't really matter if there are country boundaries or not. It doesn't matter if we are called citizens of the world or Greek, American, German, Canadian and so on. There are going to be wars for other reasons, and we are going to call them civil wars. I really find peculiar discussing about the economic crisis as the only and absolute problem when the whole problem rather begins from a crisis of existence, the purpose of human life and the inevitability of death. It is a metaphysical question, that affects our lives and appears as an economical and social problem, because people drunk and intoxicated by commersialism have forgotten to answer. The answer is unconditional love. To care about your fellow human, without any other interest. People claim that this is utopian, but it is only utopian because nobody can force you to practice it. It doesn't work this way. It should be the result of an education system that cares about the human values. About the human life as the biggest value of all.
It is of little importance that people in Greece or Spain get out on the street to protest. Laws diminishing our lives are passed anyway in the parliaments. Argentina went through a similar phase. It hasn't recovered yet, while people keep suffering and life expectancy has dropped. It doesn't matter if they want to change and save themselves. What is important is if the "investors" will let them be saved. And Argentina is a vast country, bigger than both Greece and Spain, with more natural resources and less people than Greece and Spain put together. It can actually produce more than its people can consume.
But back to the USA. Very few people outside the USA can even begin to understand what is going on. And I tend to believe that very few people inside the USA understand as well. First of all because money is so important that if you have any or if you don't have any and how much you've got (and lately how you have invested them, but it is actually the same as having or not having) interferes with your personal view of the world. Obama and Romney. I guess you can find many differences in their programs, but were there enough AS PROMISES to help you chose for any of them? Politics is actually ideas put to use or better put to test. A good idea might turn out bad. Obama was introduced to Europe and Greece as reformer. Trying to change the way things are, about health care, taxation, and foreign policy. I don't know if he had succeeded in any of them, sometimes good ideas take time to flourish and have powerful enemies (the corporations etc) As for foreign policy, in Greece things are so bad that we don't believe they can get worse, and yet somehow they do, month after month, day after day. But some say that with Romney things would be even worse.
Sorry for the long post. It might seem out of topic, but I didn't intent it to be.
