Re: Election

At 09:12 AM 03/11/2004 -0500, Ted Davis asked for comments from
Europeans. Though I am now more Canadian than European I will try to reply
as an European. (We intend to go to Europe next week, and stay away from
the list at least till 2005.)
In the first place my trouble is more with the system than with
persons. Not too long ago I saw a list of countries starting with the most
"democratic" ( = government influenced by the people). In Finland people
had most influence, The Netherlands was no 10. The U.S.A. was way down
around place 40 or 50, I forgot the exact place. I assume partly because
of the division into States, so that issues are shown by state. The result
is that it is hard to get a true picture of what is really the "will of the
people" in the USA.
Though this election seems to have been influenced by Bush's praying, and
his church-going, some really basic principles were hardly mentioned, while
others were so much mentioned that they overruled other issues.

For example: global warming is a world-wide issue, so that the nations of
the world joined in the Kyoto accord, except the U.S.A. , one of (maybe
THE) greatest polluter in the world. Here in Canada we deal with the
closing of the border for Canadian cattle, which does not make any sense
anymore. if it ever did, since the original cow appeared to have been
imported from the U.S.A.. Take the potato harvest which could not be
exported because one sick potato was found in one place. An immense
quantity of potatoes had to be destroyed. Things like that do not help in
relationships with other countries. As Canada is quite a bit less powerful
than its neighbour we cannot do much about it. (The softwood-lumber issue
is another sore point.)

Add to that (and here Canada is guilty as well) the total lack of
understanding of the thinking of other people, and the result is that the
U.S.A. is standing alone in several respects. More could be mentioned, but
the basic problem is that the people in the USA do not understand the
thinking of other people.

Does that mean, that I am anti-USA? No, I am not but I do think that the
USA does not do much to endear itself with the European nations, which
become more and more united, and thus stronger and stronger. Its armies
become larger, and larger, and more united.

Another warning: Hitler was first "democratically" elected, but became
more and more a dictator. I don't think Bush is like that, but the
election system in the USA can certainly be greatly improved. Thr
Guatanamo Bay camp looked a lot like the German camps, where anybody could
be imprisoned without charges, and tortured.

Jan de Koning

P.S. Don't be mad at me, please,
Jan
Received on Wed Nov 3 19:41:57 2004