Just thought I'd continue the thread anew to be easier on the eyes...

Personally I'd go a little lighter on the 2000 US electorate. Remember like Mexico's recent election, the real story was a close vote. Imho the election was stolen but that couldn't have happened without an already divided populace; on that everything hinged. I give Bush a bit of a pass because he was sitting in the chair when the worst event in our history happened.

Don't sell H. Clinton short either, she's just playing to the southern crackers she'll have to win over but she has a long, long history of democratic activism that doesn't just evaporate. It's the game... Bill Clinton did the same thing at around this time when he dissed Sista Solja for being anti-white. Playing to one's cracker base is brief, predictable and ok.

I also wouldn't rule out Gore. There might be a surprising groundswell. There have been sky-high rentals of An Inconvenient Truth by kids in their 20s over here. It could come from left field as it were.

I'm more Hobbesian than you though, that's for sure. Any physics major can build a bomb, he or she has only lacked for the radioactive source fuel up til now(it was my major too btw at one of the 'big two'). Never mind the spy stuff, the recent headlines in London confirm a healthy black market in Russian weapons-grade materials. Now it's true our president can't pronounce nuclear but if an event happens, and I think it will, we in proto-fascist America who are moreover protected by two oceans probably won't be hit. Somewhere in Europe will be.

Bush is like Putin, anti-democratic but for a reason. Cutting away rights from all sides, but acutely aware of the threats we face and willing to get ugly about them. I hate it. But I undersand it cuz on this scale you can't be wrong even once.

Hey man, I thought you were an angry Brit but you don't insert the letter u in all your words. No way English is your second language, that's for sure.

Stagnation? Blah, sticks and stones. We rope steer, we have SUVs & Big Macs & swimming pools and hard-working spanish gardeners. Stagnation's a problem for my grandchildren.

Oh yeah, and Paul Auster is a good writer. Cheers.

It sure takes an awful lot to make you admit that Auster is good author...
No, I'm not an angry Brit - actually after I've been ******** about Americans for so long now I was wondering when you would pop the question where I'm from. Well, I'm from the country that gave the US two chances to save the world during the last century. So when I wrote that America has done its good deeds on the world I knew what I was talking about.
Interesting point you mentioned about H. Clinton and how Bill did the same thing. Could be that she's not hardliner she's pretending to be. But I really can't see Al Gore coming out of obscurity.

I see your point about G.W. trying to protect his country with all these laws but I don't believe it. At the end of the day it's probably a philosophical question: Am I willing to give up some freedom and basic human rights to live a life that's a bit safer, even though I can't really be protected from an invisible enemy? If I were an American, I just wouldn't take it. Which would leave the question what I could do about it.
And giving G.W. credit for being president during the worst time of Amercina history? Now, I don't believe in any of the insane conspiracy theories that claim that he was involved but the fact is that 9/11 saved his presidency. He wouldn't be sitting in the Oval Office now if those planes hadn't hit. His standing was far to weak before that happened. Isn't it funny - the Americans installed the Talibans in Afghanistan and then Osama ensured a second term for Bush. It's quite ironic, actually.
I was watching Fahrenheit 9/11 the other day and while Michael Moore can't be taken seriously, there was one scene that I think is worth thinking about. He showed (- in his terribly biased way, of course -) how the Bush administration has been giving mixed messages since September 2001 and he claims that this happened to keep the American people at bay through fear. Now, as I said, nothing can really protect us from a terrorist attack. I can walk into Wal Mart and face some fanatic catholic who shoots me because I'm buying rubbers. But for the government it was just too good a chance to be missed. In the aftermath of this attack they could just about pass anything in Congress...
It will be interesting to see what happens in and after 2008. Even if (or rather when) the Democrats win the election, I don't really believe that anything will change.


I didn't know you could major in building nuclear bombs. You guys are serious when it comes to the art of war...
BTW, since you admitted that you like Auster, let it be known that I actually like the States!

Ach, sorry for the delay in replying but my prison only allows us weekend furloughs.

Not a Brit, but you use yankee colloquialisms? I think you've spent time in the evil empire, which is beginning to ring a bell. Didn't we have a similar message exchange some months back? Was it New Jersey or New York pray tell? I agree it would take a miracle for Gore to get back, but the political environment is so strange at the moment that miracles are happening every day. If I were a betting man I'd say Hillary gets the Democratic ticket along with some conservative VP candidate, and on the Repub side it would be McCain and maybe Powell as VP. Obama is getting a lot of press now but he has no gravitas or experience yet. Of course I'll vote for the chick. BTW the greatest thing to happen stateside has been Nancy Pelosi. She's a real politician, very savvy insider who might actually move the country to the left.

The philosophical question you raise is one I ponder every day. Seriously, no exaggeration. Even if the added security is necessary, do I want to live in a country that waterboards and maintains secret prisons around the world? Let's just say I spend lots of time on Canadian real estate websites.

I know the F-9/11 scene you're talking about. Yes they've been running hot-cold for 6 years now, and Bush is paying the political price now for all that alarmist rhetoric. But again, with big weapons, it's alarmist until one day it isn't. And re my education yes, track team and nuclear bomb making were the best classes. Leviathan was my favorite Auster book btw.

Oh yes, we did have that exchange some time ago - but it ended rather abruptly. Unlike this one, which has become quite a compelling discussion, don't you think?
About my time in the evil empire - I went where it is at its worst. Right down the bible belt. When I was a student, I studied in Nashville, TN for a year.

Okay, Hillary as Democrat candidate sounds convincing, but I always kind of thought that with the Republicans Condoleezza Rice would get the ticket. Or was that just me dreaming about a catfight for the presidency? I tend to have a naughty mind sometimes. No seriously, wouldn't she be a good opponent for Md. Clinton? Except that her being black AND a woman might just be too progressive for the Reps. And Powell as running mate? After he left Bush during the disaster about the WMD? I just can't see it.

You are of course right - the next terrorist attack could happen anytime and the government must take appropriate precautions to avoid that. But still I'm not sure where to draw the line. I don't mind having to take my shoes off before I board a plane. But do I want my telephone conversations and email correspondence monitored? You know, when you weren't replying for the last two days I half expected you to have been brought to Guantanmo since we had been talking about terrorism and b****ing about Bush so much. Over here we've had far too much experience with real dictatorship during the last century not to feel alarmed by those tendencies.
The problem is - as you said refering to Great Britain and Tony Blair - once these laws have been passed and these procedures have been introduced they won't be taken back in hurry. So in a way it doesn't really matter who will become president in 2008. Bush is still sure to leave behind a legacy of sorts.

But hey, come to think about it - if you majored in nuclear weaponry and "Leviathan" is your favorite Auster novel, maybe you SHOULD be in Guantanamo...
Myself, I'm more peaceful. You might have guessed it but Moon Palace is my favorite. I did like Leviathan, though. I was thinking about writing my MA thesis about it.

Absolutely! Very interesting discussion this... Tennessee! Well I was in Memphis once and it seemed like a fun town, but how is it in the sticks? Did you follow the controversy about the recent governor's election there, the racist tv ad? John McCain just hired the guy who designed it!

Ok as far as handicapping candidates and your thoughts on Condi, now I will leave the realm of reality into my own paranoid musings. You might think I'm a crank, but this is my $0.02:

There's a theory going around that after the voting debacle of '00, a deal was made. Clinton admits having met Bush Jr. and Sr., and you may know that elder Bush and Clinton have toured the country for a few years together now raising money for Katrina victims. The deal was: The Democrats won't contest the Supreme Court decision of Bush v. Gore, which threatened to throw the country into partisan strife that could get extremely ugly. In return, the Republicans would field Condoleeza Rice against Hillary Clinton, under the assumption Condi is a black woman and unelectable. I'm a big fan of Condi and just read a great biography of her. I say this as a man with a black wife and a half-black daughter. But you more than anyone should know the virulence of southern US racism. Nobody gets to be president without pleasing the crackers. (Btw what is your skin pigment? Shiny shimmering ivory like mine?)

Forgot about Guantanamo. Now it looks like they're going to close it. At first I wrote it off to image-making, creating a temporary public perception in the world that real terrorists could drop down a black hole forever, that we weren't nice guys anymore. I thought it was necessary for that perception to get out there. But as you so persuasively point out, tactics like those have a way of quickly becoming realities. If the country you live in has any experience in, say, Algiers, you might know what I'm talking about.

Bush is a lame duck now and will be hated in posterity, true. I've called him stupid before but there's always that niggling doubt he's taken a personal rap for that 'new paradigm' we've talked about.

And just so that our personal feud hasn't been for nought, I'll put Moon Palace on reserve at my local library and read some peaceful Auster. It'll take a week to get to me though. I found Leviathan in some hippie hotel bookcase in Quito, Ecuador. Let's see what the kids are reading these days, I thought. Quite impressed.

Hi Yawny,
sorry for the delay - I had hell in work this week and hardly went online at all.

I somehow have the feeling that you didn't quite understand what I meant when I said I was from the country that gave you guys two chances to save the world in the last century. I meant that I was from Germany.

The theory about Clinton and Bush agreeing on giving Hillary a shot at the presidency almost sounds convincing. I wonder if Clinton had any idea what he did to the world (and above all to his own country) by allwoing Bush jr. two terms. As for Condi as president, it's not easy to judge your politicians over an ocean but she seems quite a hardliner herself to me. Personally I would favour Hillary, she at least belongs to a more liberal party.

It would be a real progress for your culture and society if those two became the candidates. It would mean that you would have a female president for sure and that a black had a real chance to get to this position as well. It's really quite amazing what an influence gender and race still have on those important decisions. But I suppose that's political reality. I'm a bit worried that these aspects become too important. You know, it could turn out that based on positive racism Coni makes it just because she's black, not because of her political agenda. Six years ago Bush only got close enough to Gore to cheat him out of the election because Gore just doesn't have any personality or charisma. Voters (and not only American voters) tend to be fooled by those minor details.

But on a different note - I was suprised to hear that Jeb Bush has put a stop to all executions! Do you think he becames liberal in his old age?

No prob man! I figure this thread will peter out soon anyway until I come up with some new insults for the board.

Oh Germany, now I see. Actually I'm a big fan of the New German Cinema of the 70s-80s and imho there's a big affinity between Auster and the New Germans, esp Wenders and my personal god Herzog. I'm studying Attic Greek in my spare time and am always ordering books written by you Grecophilic Germans in the 1800s.

Hey, is that German chick president of yours as rightwing as they say? As bad as Thatcher??? I guess if a woman is elected president in Europe she has to wear iron underwear. It'll be the same in the US in '08. Watch, next year we'll see pictures of Hillary Clinton shooting fuzzy little bunny rabbits to a bloody pulp just to win over the hillbillies. My vote is for Hillary too of course. Although I'd like a black person of any gender in the White House, Condi is a little too weird. I'm not even sure she *has* politics. Do you know she grew up in Alabama in the 60s and in interviews has said she NEVER experienced racism? Not even once? Selma was like Beirut in the 60s, bombs in churches and lynchings. She must never have left the house.

As I understand the execution ban it's because of an error that happened where a guy took 45 minutes to die. No southern governor could ever end capital punishment as a matter of principle. It goes with motherhood and apple pie. My state joined the ban too by the way. Hint: We owe allegiance to an Austrian who clips his eyebrows here.

Now they're talking about a US "troop surge" for early next year. It's all over the tv news. This is what I'm trying to get across to you Karnkraft Nein Danke - brie-eating - organic beef Old Europeans. 90% of the US populace wants us to leave Iraq TOMORROW, ok? That's not my opinion, those are the polls. We just had a national election that turned into a huge nat'l mandate. And it didn't make a bit of difference, things go on just as before and US troop levels will spike to 30,000 a month from now. Russia became the US and the US became Russia. And worst of all we get insulted by people who drive cars with 4-cylinder engines. No respect I tell you.

Wir haben schpass schpass schpass.

Seasons Greetings!

Again it took me a while to get back to you, but what with all that Christmas madness I guess I have a rather good excuse.
Anyway, I don't doubt that the majority of the US population want your troops out of Iraq as soon as possible, but it's not that easy any more. You refered to your country as an empire and that's what it's all about, isn't it. Like the British a century ago you guys go into a country, conquere it and then want to leave without taking responsibility. Now, you took away the Iraqi (evi) government, then you fail in establishing a new one and that's it? If you had given a little more thought to the matter before taking out your bombs, you might have realized that it would become another Vietnam.
The other thing how easy you people can change sides. Now, this is actually about a conversation I had with a Brit when the War in Iraq started, but I'm sure the same statement could be heard of any number of Americans. Anyway, what he said (I quote): "I was against the war but now that our boys are down there, I'm for it to support them."
Being for a war does not actually support the poor sods who have to fight it, does it? And having been for that war, the American people can't just ask for their boys to be returned to home base now. It's all rather more of a Grand Slam than a Home Run, to keep up metaphor.

About our "beloved" chancelor, well she is quite right-wing but not as bad as Thatcher used to be. It's a bit like in your country, the candidates' politics for that office are rather similar so that normally it all comes down to personality or spite. And I'm afraid our former leader pushed through some rather unpopular reforms so Angie got into office because of spite.

Well, I hope you has some nice holidays.

No prob msfogg, and with the new year beginning if you'll allow we'll just let this thread drift and take things up in the future when time allows. And I still say that if there were a red button Americans could push to bring all US troops home today, most of us would push it. Every poll that allows for that choice (many don't even allow it in discussion) shows that's what Yankees want. Now we're constantly told we should stay, that it's the right thing to do etc but Americans are and always have been notoriously isolationist as a people. I assume you're belly laughing by now.

The hypocrisy of "support our troops" has been with us since war began. The "troop supporters" want them to stay and risk being killed, the liberals want them home and safe. But the US has no corner on that brand of hypocrisy. It's been around since the battle of Marathon.

Happy New Year and happy trails! I won't be checking here so much (I'll be back in the spring, like weeds) but if you want to yell at an American you can always send a shout out to egomet_bonmot at the big Y dot com. Cheers.