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Skip this if you're easily depressed
Jul. 7th, 2008 09:50 amI received a message from a Swedish friend recently, and it pretty much sums up how many people in Scandinavia and maybe even Europe look upon the US election race later this year. They *wish* for Obama to win, but they think his chances are really really slim.
The reasons for this pessimism are closely connected to Bush's "winning" of his first and second electoral terms. You see..very many in Europe really couldn't understand how he could win, what exactly motivates the American reality paradigm, even the American Liberal paradigm, which seemed to differ from their own.
It is hard for people over seas to see how the Bush Administration has changed America, how the middle class is struggling to keep their head above the water, how the care for the sick and the elderly has dropped even lower than before, how even consumer confidence is down, thus even making certain industries to be critical, because fewer people buy their products. The Republican party has conned people into voting against their economical interests for decades..and economy is what counts primarily here. Economical shortcomings become visible in the US first among the lower classes, among the disabled and sick...it's been showing for decades here, but people shut their eyes to it. Now however, those who have a swimming pool and 2 cars + a house start to feel the sting. They can still stay in the house with the cars..but maybe their elderly mother is costing them a fortune to be taken care of, and they *know* she'd be out on the streets if it wasn't for their solid earnings in the 90's. They can see themselves turn old in a few decades and they are realizing what a burden *they* might become to someone, if indeed they have someone to bother about them at all.
I can read this mentality as clearly as if it was written on the walls. And the gas crisis and food crisis of the world. It is horrible to see and predict things coming years and years ahead, and being able to do nothing. To talk to people in America and Europe who still just don't get it, who think it's a myth until it's right upon them.
These same people who think that the gas crisis right now is just temporary. Who don't understand that the higher prices are here to stay...and to rise.
You know guys...I never used to be a ranty, self important sounding person, but that's exactly where I've landed over the last 4 years and into today. I can even see many ways in which Sweden is fucked, if it continues to see the US as the main and only economical inspiration of the world.
The things that foreigners living in Sweden, and Swedes alike, complain about in Sweden, those very things, are often dynamics that these people should be thankful for, because those dynamics are often there for a reason. Those dynamics that may seem lacking are often in fact there so that someone else (more needing) may get something instead, and that something is more important than 20 different kinds of stomach medications, or the latest fastest whatever.
Why is it that so many people can't see these dynamics and how they come together? It's not really rocket science.
I do think it may present some challenges to try to see everything that's happened in America from over seas, or even from just visiting the US shortly, so I'm not surprised at this friend's and many other friends' pessimistic view on Obama's chances of winning. They don't see just how bad McCain is either. On the other hand...at least they do realize how hard this race is going to be on many levels. And if Barak Obama wins, the next challenge will start, and that won't be the new President's challenge to pick up the economy and the rest of the Republican garbage cemetery of leftovers, no, I'm addressing the very real threat to Obama's life.
People will repeatedly try to kill him. Any normal threat to a president in this country, will be ten times worse for him. But I suppose both he and the people, should he come into a position like that, would think it worth it.
Of course it would be worse if he would be killed during the presidential race.
I wish I was just paranoid.
I've not written once about my thoughts on the Democratic nominees, so I'll just do it briefly here. Clinton's health Care and Social Security plan was better than Obama's. Obama's campaign was vastly better than Clinton's. Otherwise they were surprisingly alike considering all the hollering about their differences. In a presidential race however, Obama has always had a better chance of winning against McCain, but also at a larger risk of getting assassinated.
And McCain, no matter how bad he is, could still win. Through cheating, through a fake or real "foreign crisis" or simply through people's ignorance.
And from a left wing historian's perspective, if McCain wins, the battle is over. All choices taken thereafter in the US will be towards a certain type of goal and against another type of goal...and things will have deteriorated too far to turn them around in another 4 years.
I'm not saying it's the end of the world as we know it (because that might come anyway, and soon), I'm just saying it's the definitive beginning of the end.
And that's why I must convince my husband to move away with me, if it comes to that.
The reasons for this pessimism are closely connected to Bush's "winning" of his first and second electoral terms. You see..very many in Europe really couldn't understand how he could win, what exactly motivates the American reality paradigm, even the American Liberal paradigm, which seemed to differ from their own.
It is hard for people over seas to see how the Bush Administration has changed America, how the middle class is struggling to keep their head above the water, how the care for the sick and the elderly has dropped even lower than before, how even consumer confidence is down, thus even making certain industries to be critical, because fewer people buy their products. The Republican party has conned people into voting against their economical interests for decades..and economy is what counts primarily here. Economical shortcomings become visible in the US first among the lower classes, among the disabled and sick...it's been showing for decades here, but people shut their eyes to it. Now however, those who have a swimming pool and 2 cars + a house start to feel the sting. They can still stay in the house with the cars..but maybe their elderly mother is costing them a fortune to be taken care of, and they *know* she'd be out on the streets if it wasn't for their solid earnings in the 90's. They can see themselves turn old in a few decades and they are realizing what a burden *they* might become to someone, if indeed they have someone to bother about them at all.
I can read this mentality as clearly as if it was written on the walls. And the gas crisis and food crisis of the world. It is horrible to see and predict things coming years and years ahead, and being able to do nothing. To talk to people in America and Europe who still just don't get it, who think it's a myth until it's right upon them.
These same people who think that the gas crisis right now is just temporary. Who don't understand that the higher prices are here to stay...and to rise.
You know guys...I never used to be a ranty, self important sounding person, but that's exactly where I've landed over the last 4 years and into today. I can even see many ways in which Sweden is fucked, if it continues to see the US as the main and only economical inspiration of the world.
The things that foreigners living in Sweden, and Swedes alike, complain about in Sweden, those very things, are often dynamics that these people should be thankful for, because those dynamics are often there for a reason. Those dynamics that may seem lacking are often in fact there so that someone else (more needing) may get something instead, and that something is more important than 20 different kinds of stomach medications, or the latest fastest whatever.
Why is it that so many people can't see these dynamics and how they come together? It's not really rocket science.
I do think it may present some challenges to try to see everything that's happened in America from over seas, or even from just visiting the US shortly, so I'm not surprised at this friend's and many other friends' pessimistic view on Obama's chances of winning. They don't see just how bad McCain is either. On the other hand...at least they do realize how hard this race is going to be on many levels. And if Barak Obama wins, the next challenge will start, and that won't be the new President's challenge to pick up the economy and the rest of the Republican garbage cemetery of leftovers, no, I'm addressing the very real threat to Obama's life.
People will repeatedly try to kill him. Any normal threat to a president in this country, will be ten times worse for him. But I suppose both he and the people, should he come into a position like that, would think it worth it.
Of course it would be worse if he would be killed during the presidential race.
I wish I was just paranoid.
I've not written once about my thoughts on the Democratic nominees, so I'll just do it briefly here. Clinton's health Care and Social Security plan was better than Obama's. Obama's campaign was vastly better than Clinton's. Otherwise they were surprisingly alike considering all the hollering about their differences. In a presidential race however, Obama has always had a better chance of winning against McCain, but also at a larger risk of getting assassinated.
And McCain, no matter how bad he is, could still win. Through cheating, through a fake or real "foreign crisis" or simply through people's ignorance.
And from a left wing historian's perspective, if McCain wins, the battle is over. All choices taken thereafter in the US will be towards a certain type of goal and against another type of goal...and things will have deteriorated too far to turn them around in another 4 years.
I'm not saying it's the end of the world as we know it (because that might come anyway, and soon), I'm just saying it's the definitive beginning of the end.
And that's why I must convince my husband to move away with me, if it comes to that.
