Well we have a federal election here later this year too. What will be interesting, is our PM is a close friend of GWB!! Iraq is not popular here either, so it could be a tough campaign similar in some ways to America's!!
Hillary is a polarizer, as dte said, not a unifier.
Now magerette, you know as well as I that no politician is going to actually deal with the real problems. Regardless of your politics, it's unavoidable that spending dramatically outpaces income (even before the war expense, so don't even go there, pinkos!). You either raise taxes or cut back the handouts. Find me an elected official that's going to stand in front of the TV camera and lead that charge. They'll talk about it all day long and get lots of "political currency" off the issue, but actual change will never happen. The system discourages it.
We were away last weekend and blew a tire (because the owner of a vacation home we were looking at put sharp rocks to discourage people parking too close to the house ... then told us to park in front of the house ), and while I was waiting for the new tire to be mounted and balanced, I was watching Hillary's 'town hall meeting' in Des Moines. I found her interesting to watch - it is amazing how she has changed and softened her persona over the last 15 years ...
... but there is an interesting article on MSNBC on Hilary and 'do overs' ...
Thank you for responding, Bartacus. You're very well informed! It's often said here in the U.S. that we have a two party system--Belgium would appear to be closer to a 200 party system . We like to use the term "diversity" here a lot, but you definitely have us beat on that one, though there seems to be generous overlapping in some cases. Do you feel that this works for or against your country?
That is, is there enough consensus to get a coherent government together, or is it just an endless forum debate where everyone spouts their own rhetoric and regards that of others as mutually exclusive.
At least I've never seen photo clips of the Belgium parliament(?) in fist fights ala Korea.
**curious--hope you don't mind all this hijacking of your thread***
True democracy is an illusion. It rarely works in the interests of the people, but rather in the interests of those who are best able to manipulate the people.This system is NOT true democracy!!
I certainly agree. You can exchange the puppets dancing in the whitehouse, but the string-pullers remain the same.--in fact, I sometimes think in effect, we really have one party with two names!
As for the US elections, if I were an American, I would likely vote for Ralph Nader.