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I am a lifelong registered Republican living in Pittsburgh and voting for Barack Obama. I would welcome the opportunity to speak to David Grossman while he is in our city and explain why I plan to vote the way I do, and how (despite the McCain/Palin belief that there are many "rust belt" residents moving in their direction) many of my friends think along the same lines I do.

What will the future hold for the US?

If McCain wins something approaching chaos will ensue, so I would prefer not to even consider that until I am forced to. However, if we assume that Obama does win tomorrow, the impact on the US may have much in common with that of Tony Blair on the UK in 1997. Not least, he may face an opposition in disarray; weakened by the excesses of the Bush Jr. era. It might, therefore, be reasonable to expect great things of him.

However, there are important differences. Blair was the recipient of a strengthening economy and (apart from the traditional arguments over membership of the EU) had few damaging overseas obligations. Obama, on the other hand, will face a virtually bankrupt economy. It is said that the strength of the dollar reflects the strength of its economy, and that might be the long run outcome, but the short term problems are dire. This may, paradoxically, help Obama since the dire nature of the problems will justify Keynesian (Socialist!) solutions. However, the ensuing pain will make re-election in 2012 less than certain; where Blair needed three terms to embed his own New Labour ideas. Then, in terms of foreign affairs, there are the intractable problems, which will divert him from the key changes he needs to make at home.

Above all though, where Blair had a widespread consensus behind his proposed changes, Obama has a viciously divided electorate. The near 50% of the population who are Republican, and who have been exposed to decades of neocon indoctrination (don’t forget that Rumsfeld set the record for both the youngest and oldest Secretary of Defense), show much the same dedication to visceral hate as the Nazis; and Obama, in their eyes a Marxist, will easily become the ideal hate figure. If Obama gets his 60 senators he mat be able to force through legislation, but the large numbers of right-wing activists still left in the population will foment rebellion.

Even the parallels with Kennedy may warn of problems to come. JFK was influential in the rest of the world, I have known a number of leaders whose vision was set by Camelot, but his impact on the US was limited. It was LBJ who forced through the real changes, and paid the price of just one term for his pain; as did Carter. I hope, above all, that the most obvious parallel, of assassination, does not come about; but there are some real crazies amongst the right-wingers in the US.

Whatever happens there will be a new responsibility placed on the new global leaders, not least the EU and China and maybe even the Sovereign Investment Funds, to act together to fill the gap created by a weak US. Will they be able to live up to the challenge?

mercerdavids (#2) The end of your third paragaraph and your fourth is pretty much how I see it too, except I don't see how Obama or anyone else is going to revive the USAs fortunes given a) their and b) that if the USA continues with the traditional democratic social policies (which are conditioned by those trends) it can only get worse (unless they adopt China's policies, which seems highly improbable).

I really hope I'm wrong, but lots of data says otherwise.

OVERPAID AND OVER THERE

I dunno Beeb - you just don't get it do you?
At the drop of a hat, 'the talent' all decamps to America - WHERE EVERY HANK, JOE AND BARACK SPEAKS ENGLISH! Surely you could have got all the news, from all of the towns, for a fraction of the money?
You remember money? The stuff the world can't get enough of, and Dave says you lot get too much of? It's all a game to you isn't it? How long before the next licence-fee bleating starts? Look - you've annoyed me now. How about an apology? They come pretty cheap. Sorry I couldn't put any background music behind this post - or spurious racket. Hope it is still edgy enough.

It is remarkable that those of us with longer memories than our "pundits" have seen commentators switch form Obama being not fit enough for President quoting his lack of experience (during the Hilary campaign) to that of being the best President that the USA will elect since Kennedy.

A little bit of "not wishing to appear a fool" are prepared to bury their misgivings, close their eyes and cross their fingers. We shall see.
Not too impressed with Mc Cain either.

It will be a precurser to our election in 2010 a choice between two neither want but better than the one we have at present. Watch Cameron adopt root and branch Obama's "change" policy.

If your father is 'black' and your mother is 'white' you are not either black or white. Lewis Hamilton and Barack Obama have something in common. It don't matter if you're black or white.

I hope Senator Obama wins; not because of the colour of his skin but for the quality of his ideas.

blogitoergosum (#6) He's good at 'hearts and minds' rhetoric, but what deliverable, evidence based policies does he have which will cope with and ?

Hooray for David Grossman to bring some enthusiasm to the proceedings. To call much of the Newsnight US coverage anaemic would be to paint too vivid a picture. Aren't you in the business of recognising history when it's being made right in front of you?

Obama said last week that in respect to the 'Bradley Effect', white people didn't seem to have got the memo. The writing has been on the wall for some time now, would it have been so terrible to say so?

I can honestly say that the very idea of McCain/Palin winning the election terrifies me. To think that our lives would be in their hands does not bare thinking about. If anything happened to McCain who is Sarah Palin? Literally I would trust her with a furry animal - let alone trusting her with the responsibilty of being the most powerful person on earth.
In Britain I would not vote labour in a million years but am I hoping that the American public see sense and vote demorcrat and I also hope that every citizen who thinks their vote is worthless comes out to vote. All our futures are in the hands of the american voters, so please dont let us down.

The US Elections: Hope for Change???

This year, the US elections are more exciting than ever. But once the fanfare of the elections is over and the chosen leaders are in place, will the world have undergone any real change? Perhaps it's time to think about changing the people who are really running the show – ourselves...hmmm

Tomorrow Americans will go to local community centers, fire stations and other venues to participate in a right to vote. Once again we have the opportunity to select the next President of the United States. History will be made this year. For the first time, there will either be an African-American as the president or a woman in the White House as the vice president.

The election will be a history making contest, but what are the real differences between the candidates? The key issues that they address are the same: the war in Iraq, dependence on foreign oil, and a troubled economy and global relations. And of course, there are always issues related to employment, health care and the environment. Issues that American government has failed in miserably. Since when did the American start trusting the government anyway? Although the two parties have usually present themselves in a different ways it's brings a person to question is the American government just divided into two different circles working for the same gang, themselves? Its seem only around the time of election do we hope, pray, and believe in the empty promises the government proposes. It shows how much we really feel in control of our lives. Its very understandable in our times since a growing cloud of concern and despair is being felt among us all in many different ways in our day to day lives (job loss, bad relationships, taking care of our family, raising our kids, bills stacking up,etc). Yet every time after the election smoke clears our government leaders true intentions are revealed between the lines of their actions. It makes one question if any man running for president that really wanted to, could change a corrupt organization (US government) that works within a larger corrupt organization (The UN). We shall see what happens and we all know the American people are hoping for the best outcome this time around.

While their solutions to these issues differ, each candidate honestly believes that he is the one who can bring the country back to a position of prosperity, power, and global respect. Both agree that the policies of the past decade have severely injured America's standing in the world court of opinion. As a result, each proclaims himself the "agent of change" that can unite the country and the entire world.

An known quote from history states that the only thing that is constant is change, and despite current events, change is nothing new in American politics. The founding fathers of the US were very urgent in in the idea of change when they created a country dedicated to "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness," one where "All men are created equal." Yet even with all the change that has taken place since that time, today we still face many of the same problems that we faced then: conflicts with other countries, economic troubles at home, discrimination of all kinds, and one of our biggest problems racism and oppression of all minorities.

If two hundred years of history have shown us that various policy changes do not create a happy, united country, and if keeping the same program means a growing sense of division between the work of citizens and an economy that continues its downward spiral, (this is a global situation as well) then isn't it time to do something fundamentally different? We must look for new, genuine solutions to the same old problems.

All of the changes that have occurred thus far in history have had a common thread: they've all tried to "fix" something in the external world. Discrimination? We will force desegregation upon the masses. Poverty? We will institute social security programs and elaborate systems of taxation. Environmental crises? We will legislate clean air, protection of endangered species, and resource utilization. The list could go on and on. We have a "fix" for every problem. But for some reason, each "fix" only seems to generate new and greater problems. Today its lead us to a global crisis and bad relationships between countries around the world.

It is impossible for any world leader to make a lasting improvement by "fixing" something in the external world. Any change that's made by intellectual, moral or physical power will not result in lasting improvement. Moreover, the leaders themselves are the products of their society; thus, it is unrealistic to expect a leader to know how to fix our problems. Change must start from the masses, rather than from the leaders. In other words, it is ourselves that we need to "fix," not our leaders or anything else out there in the world.

Maybe we should look into something that explains that the laws of Nature itself is the model with which to align ourselves. The world was designed to operate in balance and harmony, with each element working for the well-being of the whole. Everything in Nature operates in accordance with this principle - everything except us. Man is the only creature that consciously works for his own benefit and at the expense of others. It is this egoistic attitude toward reality that is the root of all our world problems.

However, changing our egoistic attitude is not at all a psychological matter. It is an actual development of a new sense within us, a sense that will lift us above our egoistic perception. We will then reveal our connection with each other within one integral system - one living and breathing human organism.

The method for this inner transformation is rooted within Nature itself, and it was discovered by people just like us. From their perspective, it is evident that all people will have to discover that they are interdependent parts of one whole, and therefore change their egoistic attitudes toward each other.

All of our current crises will vanish as humanity begins working as one body and comes into harmony with the rest of Nature. While it may still sound Utopian (far-fetched) to us, this is a urgent conclusion, and if we don't realize this, then social, environmental and political catastrophes will force us to realize how destructive our egoism is. At that point, we will start working together simply to avoid the incredible suffering.

Maybe we search for some authentic wisdom, a inner science allowing us to recognize the true structure of the world and to identify man's role in it. By studying this structure, we will be able to change our society by changing ourselves from within. Then, we will truly be the "agents of change." No longer will we have to grip our hopes of security in life through "suspect leaders of the world and we will not need all these growing global blows of suffering of our day to day lives to bring us to the good.

I am thankful,grateful for the message of CHANGE. What's better is that we will soon realize that its not a president we should look to make all our changes for us, but ourselves and how we relate with each other. Egoistically or Altruistically.

What an absolutely fantastic programme tonight - from the exclusive with Usher (how cool is that?) to the interviews in North Carolina (even the kids loved him!) to the former Mayor, the US voters, to the McCain HQ (oh how embarrasing for them to have the pre-arranged caller not picking up the phone in front of the cameras :p) to the gun shop to Jesse Jackson and then the studio debate. Just brilliant :-)

When are Jeremy Parksman and Jerr emmy Vein going to have the manners to call Barack Obama by his proper name (Berr ark) and even after being corrected by Jesse Jackson, Parksman still refered to him as Barrack. Not good guys in the position you are in.

Anyway, go Mr Obama, hopefully you will win, and be an amazing President of the US.

THE RA-RA LA-LA LAND ELECTION

ToadyTurner (#9) "All our futures are in the hands of the american voters, so please dont let us down."

Oh dear - has it come to this? Did you watch/listen to 'answer' Paxman's questions?

Does reality matter?

THE ART (CRAFT) OF CHANGE

Tony Blair swept in on a tide of CHANGE. He changed almost everything Labour stood for, making it a vehicle for his own ambition and the advantage of his backers. Parties and dumb voters LOVE charisma and oratory. His record of honour, integrity, honesty, virtue, trustworthiness, wisdom and altruism is, today, writ large. His burning need for power and adulation somewhat sated, he now pursues unlimited wealth. This is what charisma and oratory delivers on a pretty average day.

With Tony, colour was not an issue, he was whiter than white; well, that's what he said, and why would he deceive us?
Tony said he would 're-order this world'. Well, he did give us an insecure world and unsecured debts - close but no cigar. Barack says he has to SAVE the world - presumably from what Dubya and Tony did to it. Perhaps he should have spoken up sooner? Nobody else seemed to know how to do it.

Let's get real. Ask not what Obama can do for the World, ask why the World should even let him try! And that goes for McCain, Sarkosy, Mandelson, Miliband D, and all the other desperado, immature wannabes, who are so driven by unmet need to have a go at 'driving the engine', that they risk us all.

We need a quiet, competent (inexpensive) hero.

THEM (#10)

Around 1960, I worked in a brickworks where disrespected, low paid workers and I, shared filth and danger. That was when I realised the low awareness of the 'bottom of the heap', and adjusted my understanding accordingly.

I suggest there are billions, around the world, even less sophisticated than my fellow labourers were, and any attempt to improve the generality of mankind, as a means to mending the world's ills, must address a 'critical mass' of them. Spelling out what needs to be achieved, is not enough.

We need a detailed strategy.

Ö÷²¥´óÐã2 occasionally slides in a gem!

Well done on scheduling 'Jake on the Box' to follow Newsnight; the uninterrupted song concerning a certain farmyard animal was beautifully relevant and funny.

I see that Rachael Sylvester in the Times today picks up the theme of my previous blog *5
Barrie above hits on what Change could be which if Tony Blair's version was one then it could mean anything-and will.

I just wonder how long it will be before the euphoria of Obama's presidency end up in the mire of "events-dear boy, events" (who said that?)
Good luck to him as he is supposed to be a socialist. We will see what version it will be.

The same will apply to Cameron as I have written many times that the electorate in this country want rid of Brown and Labour in the view that anything will be better. As Rachael wrote "This is no time for a novice. Oh yes it is! (Brown's slogan being undermined)

I wonder what type of bloggers we will get on this site in 3 or 4 years time. Perhaps none, as the country will be running perfectly under the Tories as I presume the USA will under the Democrats.

SOCIAL JUSTICE CANUTISTS

Barrie (#15) Exactly. Do you recall the Flanders piece linked third from the endoff #1 here? It was a 'sprinkle pixie-dust in their ears environmentalist pitch. Pause for thought at Mackintosh's urbane answer/laugh in response o her critical question.

It was a biased, if not misleading, piece, and yet oddly captured all that's currently wrongly de rigueur. If and when the penny finally drops a lot of people will despair. No end of spin here.

What prompted the piece...and why are the realistic opposition out in the cold as 'evil dooers' when all the evidence is so clearly on their side?

Silly question.

BF: BOMBABILITY FACTOR (I've been thinking.)

Is bombing the new slave trade? Do individuals like Dubya and Tony have a chart whereon disparate groups are rated for politics, religion, mineral potential, nukes, etc, and scored - both positive and negative - for their BF (bombablility factor)?
You just sum the factors, and if they come out below zero - bombs away!
Centuries back, Africans would have scored low for being black, 'having no souls' and display of naughty bits. My - how we would have bombed them!

If my neighbour scores badly: rusting car in garden, neglected lawn, dangerous dog - and I do the sums - can I kill him? Would it make me Great Leader material?

I'll get me coat.

#19 Barrie

One man's neglected lawn is another man's wild flower meadow.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

"WE NEVER HIDE FROM HISTORY" (McCain)

How many marks might one get for a 'sentence' like that, in a UK English exam?
Now we can see why Palin is an asset!

"This is about YOU" (so vote for me) - Obama's offering.

All that money - and they get these two? Why don't they do 'The P Factor' - a TV wannabe show, for presidential hopefuls? It would be truly 'of the people, by the people, for the people' AND WOULD PAY FOR ITSELF with no shadowy funders calling in their quid-pro-quos when the dust settles.

Simon Cowell - I'm sure you read this blog - let me borrow a 'spare' and you can have this idea for nothing.

We can choose our own hero!

Hopefully, #21 will be released by blogdog (it covers some of the intricacies of the Employment Bill - whilst there's been quite a bit of lobbying on this clause, it appears that good sense is prevailing).

In the meantime, here are the .

I'm thinking seriously about forming up a new political party, the:

'Fed up with Rotten Government' Party, FUWRGP

or similar ie: lousy/unrepresentative, whatever the Electoral Commission will permit.

Straightforward agenda, basic constitution, just to take enough votes off everyone else to force coalition government and bang some heads together.

I shall probably do it, me being me. Donors and prospects to me please.


GC

END OF A NON-EXPERIMENT?

The last time there was any call for contributions in the Web Team blog was the 14th October. Since then, the content of the programme has not been announced until very late in the day, well after it must have been finalised.

Just in case anyone hadn't noticed.

It would appear I have transgressed house rules and been censored by the Ö÷²¥´óÐã.

Check # 20

U13626224 does not respond.

Also I seem to remember a programme with a tag line that went something like "I am not a number I am a free man".

Another option was Princess Celtic Lion given to me by the blog network.

So have returned even more powerful than before.

#24 Guy Croft. I don't really think there is a political solution anymore.



So will take the Guy Croft approach.

Contributions to me please.

Celtic Lion

25. At 4:16pm on 04 Nov 2008, JadedJean
END OF A NON-EXPERIMENT?
Just in case anyone hadn't noticed.

I think a few might have cranked an eyebrow.

Don't not what we're getting while the grown-ups are away on hols in the US and ready to party 'til dawn, but I am sure it will always be...'sparkly'. Or should that be 'edgy' now?

#22 Barrie

You are not as far from the truth as you think.

When I entered the competition for the Dome. The shortlisting interview was beyond anything I imagined at that stage.

It made Paxman look like a kitten. As I suppose it wasn't for broadcast, it moved at a rate and went into details that a general audience would have difficulty following.

One of the things I suggested was a reality TV programme with all us shortlisted having to present the case for our ideas to the nation.

I put forward the proposal that the final choice was taken by the public in a national vote with Paxman as compere etc.

It seemed it was only me who was willing to be 100% transparent with the bid.

The Government didn't go for that and made the decision in private. Against the criteria?

At a loss of £350-400 billion to the UK economy so far.

Celtic Lion

RED MIST

Strange to tell Celtic, I too had contact with the amoebic 'Millennium Project' (never closer than a phone line) and absorbed the terrible vibes. What I subsequently saw on TV, simply endorsed my worst fears. Watching the input of The Sage Michael Grade, convinced me I had been right to take my unplayed harp away.

Incidentally, my brother and I were offering a leap of British inventiveness of iconic beauty - just the thing for a prestigious site.
But who can compete with monster crabs among plastic pubes?

KingCelticLion (#26) Are you in hypomanic mode now then? Blogdoged #21 was just a joint link to the Life of Brian clip on someone wanting to join the JPF/PFJ etc and the Employment Bill clause 18/19 whether the 1992 UK law preventing people being excluded or expelled from unions for incompatible party membership vs the ECHR article 11 which gives unions the right of association and therefore the right to excude those who don't share their principles. The redlines for UK employment law were quite important in the Lisbon Treaty so I thought it worth drawing attention to given the Bill has its Third Reading today. One concern has been how does one define a political party, and another has been whether it should be conduct rather than membership which is the key to inclusion or exclusion. Why not just have members sign an agreement that they will abide by union rules?

Some of the concerns that have been expressed make little sense to me and appear to just be communists picking their traditional fight with their nemesis the BNP, as surely there are already laws proscribing the sorts of behaviours which the communists/Trotskyites are allegedly concerned about.

I've noted that one may break House Rules if one provides links to Parliamentary/government texts or other public academic files. It doesn't appear to be the content per se which breaks the rules, is it some copyright issue? I have yet to work this out. I guess I'm being shaped. My transgressions are not intentional.

Great edition. I enjoyed Jeremy in Charlotte and the panel debate was fascinating. Also the new box of tricks!

Appreciated, thank you.

The quiet man is TURNING UP the volu . .

Yo 24 - guycroft! Your spleen applauded; and I would be marching to your banner except, when you think it through, it all filters into the sand. (See various references here, to moronic state of the sheep.) Check out the size of the war chests expended by the Westminsterers to buy the minds of the mindless. The only way you can get that sort of money, is by promising some grisey (sic) donor eminences future favours. That is how honour works.

No - as discussed above, you have to get the soil in 'good heart' before the vegetables show promise. Our culture (as exported round the globe) is shot to bits. Only narrow minded weeds with low horizons grow in such a medium.

We need a cultural revolution. (oops)

ASPIRATIONAL RED GUARDS AND THEIR PIXIE DUST

Barrie (#32) "you have to get the soil in 'good heart' before the vegetables show promise. Our culture (as exported round the globe) is shot to bits. Only narrow minded weeds with low horizons grow in such a medium."

Excellently put.

Althouth I fear the won't hear. They really do believe in pixie dust you know and I suspect New Labour's NGO only selects on message pixies to be their Red Guards.

Sadly, they're doing across the pond too. We started this (albeit in a more measured form elsewhere in the service of better behaviour management) but they followed with . How many really see How many people see ?

The above school is in London's Tower Hamlets, which has a high BME population (under 25% of children in primary school at KS1 are White so combined the BME is the majority). There is a large Muslim population (hailing from poor rural areas in Bangladesh and Pakistan originally) and they are more prone to some classes of Special Education Needs because of cosanguineous marriages too.

Cultural Revolution is what we're currently undergoing and it's as destructive/entropic as the Chinese one to the extent that it ignores basic human behaviour and genetics. It isn't necessarily reversible either, not in a Liberal-Democracy anyway.

But then, there's all that pixie dust. Nobody dares to tell pixies that they're deluded, as they get very nasty when told they can't have their dreams. They tend to be narcisissts you see...

#29 Barrie

Millennium Project

I got really good vibes from the consultants involved. I had spent considerable time on the proposal so I think that must have showed in interview for shortlisting.

It was the consultants who wanted to supply the project team and financing. All the figures added up.

I've been to the climate change conferences and working groups with scientists, meetings at Chatham House with various people. At meetings to advise the Government on sustainable development I've met heads of environmental organisations and senior civil servants.

All thought my proposal was the best, none said they would not have considered being involved had it been the chosen option.

Psychologically it was hard, I entered to win. So had to mentally prepare myself to implement the project if chosen. No point entering, winning then not having the bottle to see through a £50 bn per year project. So it was a big come down, having got so close.

The other downside is the Government never replaced the £350-400 bn the project would have generated to date, with the consequences the media have been reporting the last months.

No one ever took over my flood models, so in 2007 a totally preventable disaster happened.

No one ever took over my designs for global environmental monitoring and alert system. We all the saw the consequences on Boxing Day 2004 of that.

The list goes on. We live in a very unresearched world where opinion is presented as fact, either by politicians or the informal collusion of the media.

How often do both use the phrase, "No one could have foreseen this." Presented as fact when much of what has happened over the last few years was not only foreseen but the solutions could have been implemented.

I think this is the difference between politicians and project managers especially those from an engineering background.

Politicians take on a job, if it goes wrong they blame it on 'unforeseen circumstances'.

Surely part of the job was to predict 'unforeseen' so they became 'knowns' and became factored into the project.

Anyway that's part of my involvement with the Millennium Project.

I suppose I have to take on board what I have been told. The Government were never going to let me 'have a go'. Just in case we did make a success of it.

How would that have reflected on the Government then?

Celtic Lion

IT'S 'APOLOGISE TO THE UNBORN DAY'!

The day when we double the sentence of all who have killed their child, and celebrate the act of wanton procreation.

The EU have announced the iniative: 'Every Latency Fulfilled'. In response to years of campaigning by a lesbian and gay splinter group, demanding respect for the unconceived (backed by a consortium of brewers) human eggs now have the right to fertilisation.

The Catholic Church has yet to comment while shares in Monoithic Fonts rose sharply.