11.00 yesterday evening in Dc I was watching Bush's convention speech meandering around the fact that even Bush is sick of too many lawyers bidding up the cost of everything - curbing malpractice claims of the kind that mean that some doctors have to pay 2 years of turnover in insurance before they can retire being one example. But mostly Bush wanted the American public to be oblivious to the way the world sees the USA. His final sentence: "To everything we know, there is a season - a time for sadness, a time for struggle, a time for rebuilding. And now we have reached a time for hope. This young century will be liberty's century."

Next click this which happened to be the first link newsfeeds directed me when I started my laptoip this morning:
http://www.winbackrespect.org/
A new report by the independent Pew Research Center has found that American voters are acutely worried about the loss of international respect for the US. For the first time since the Vietnam era, foreign policy and national security issues are dominating the presidential election. Two thirds of Americans believe that America is less respected in the world than in the past, and, by roughly two-to-one, see this loss of respect as a major problem for the country. Not surprisingly, a majority of Americans believe that winning back respect from our allies is a top priority for the nation. View full report

Short of a momentous event, my guess at America's split identity is that Bush will be re-elected, and the system will become more and more viciously the opposite of global liberty at every locality. Its the system disease of American politics I fear: dumbing down media, lowest common denominatotr character association of every viewpoint that actually needs integrating with your own not nuking, arms & debt races, lack of transparently valuing human beings in the work place, such insularity that world news seldom gets attention other than when the Britney Spears of American celebrity go abroad. I dont think that even George realises how trapped he is in the system. I wonder what sort of president he might have made if no american president ever needed big business's money to even get a voice in US elections instead of he who's most beholden to the power of the biggest monetised organisations the world has known being the most likely president.

The bigger a system the more tense conflicts it needs to openly audit and iteratively resolve. The American nation is the world's biggest human system and it is making all its people ill or out of touch with most of the human race (depressed, narcisstic, me-me-me not community-community, not knowing from 1st grade up why money is different from every other dynamic of human value, blinded by lawyers and other professionals from seeing who has more than plenty and who could do so much more if given the right helping hand to start making the most of their life-time).

I love the spirit of American people wherever this can be seen through a 20th century's most glorious moments for humanity -I even have high regard for the personal level courage of both Bush and Kerry in their lifetime's truest human moments (not that the mass media would ever wish to explain what those were head to head). I see no human value whatsoever in the system diseases that being nationally organised in such a way as to image-make liberty for all 6 billion human beings whilst to reality-make -and compound - the opposite.

According to one poll of experts in global identities, the value of America in the rest of the world's eyes has gone down by over a third since the beginning of the millennium- the fastest devaluation in history. More worringly for the western notion of democracy: it is predicted to continue to plummet whichever Republica or Democrat takes office at the end of the year. With the election system and power dynamics now ruling America, the differences between electable president whether Democrat or Republican are small. And the one thing the system ensures is that the next president wont be able to change the system whatever he (and it is always he in US history so much so that feminist movements get obsessed with small things not the big picture of equal rule- imagine if half of the presiodents of the last 50 years had been women - would we be leading somewhere wholly different? you bet!) most passionately believes in. Only the whole interconnecting world of people can help America change, and that means a world that looks at big issues from every grassroots context in every way that traditional soundbiting politicians cannot begin to feel or know - start with helping us compile 30000 active ideas on Global Poverty. (1,2)

If you have read this, why not cut and post it to a friend. I dont mind if you think I am completely wrong. I do mind if we dont use the internet now to ask : are we steering humanity at every coordinate around the world the way that could make the most of all our lifetimes rather than compounding the way that will make the least of most of our children's. This could be the greatest half century to co-create all kinds of human value; the net gives us such collective social liberties and trustworthy relationships anchored around deep human contexts; will we the people identify, communicate and practice reality-making in time?
posted by ..., 11:51 AM  permalink