too much who wins. I am usually rooting for someone, Gore over Bush, Kerry over Bush, Obama over McCain but this time around i am not so fussed. Obama's first administration could easily have been Bush's third and Romney seems instantly unlikeable and a tad moronic so it's Obama but only on the basis that it is better the devil you know.
Talking to people over the last few weeks as the election draws nearer it does seem that many people see Obama as the good guy and Romney as the bad guy. Not sure why and even when i point out Obamas track record over the last past fours years including the war in Libya, increased drone attacks, attacks in Pakistan, continuing conflict in Afghanistan, backing of a even more belligerent Israel, the awful response to the Arab Spring where the US found themselves on the wrong side of the oppressed and the backing of the same people they are fighting against in Iraq and Afghanistan in Syria, but still Obama is the favoured candidate here.
So far this year i have been quite spoiled with elections, i wanted Hollande in France and Chavez in Venezuela and both are in power and Obama, by default as being slightly less of a scary proposition than Romney, could make it a hat-trick.
We definitely seemed more interested in the 2008 US election, more in celebration of the end of the Bush era wars than anything else but the fascination with what is happening across the Atlantic is not so strong this time around.
I knew people who stayed up to watch the debates in 2008, i haven't found anyone who did this time around and if it wasn't for me prompting, i would get hardly any debate out of the students, work colleagues or friends who seem far less interested this time around. Even the media who usually take the chance to fill their pages and programmes with US election news seem lacklustre on there coverage.
Quite rightly, the US election isn't really for anyone but Americans to get excited about but whether it is the lack of a real candidate to like or dislike this time around, the realisation that whoever gets in will run a disastrous foreign policy or the normal British apathy to what other countries do, the US election hasn't really caught the British imagination this time around so far.
2 comments:
Killing 180 million is not possible. estimates of native american populations range between 2.1 million and 18 million...
is all your data off by an order of magnitude?
q
I suspect so, Q. The other day I asked him to justify his statement that Obama had 'killed millions' over the past four years, but I never heard back... leaving me to draw my own conclusions from that.
The unfortunate thing - that he doesn't seem to realise - is that these are very important issues. Obama's (and the UK's) use of drones in Afghanistan is a 'live' issue, and it's definitely worth debating the pros and cons of this practice.
Likewise the issue of how indigenous peoples' land was settled by immigrants in centuries past, while many years ago, is still a political hot-potato in many parts of the world.
It doesn't help promote the sane & sensible debate of issues like this to just 'bullshit & run' with bogus facts and dodgy stats.
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