Should Obama be president?

Off-Topic Off Topic
#41

A 30 Years War with modern weapons won’t ever happen. That’s the ‘beauty’ of modern weaponry.
Highly effective weaponry being on either side of the conflict does not cancel each other out. It just means that the war will be over quicker, because of faster means of transportation, more deadly weapons and shorter average lifespans of soldiers than either side could even dreamed of 1618 - 1648.

Also, the conduct of war has changed. Part of the reason why the 30-years war lasted 30 years was because the conduct of war during that time was based on outmaneuvering and sieges, with a priority on avoiding actual battles and rather starving enemy armies by cutting their supply lines.

As for “A World Order” coming to its end, I don’t think that is the fact. We’re running towards a war that will be fought to affirm our current World order, and I am positive that our modern political Culture will end soon and be replaced by a new culture, but the economical and political dominance of the West won’t end so quickly…

World politics will be less about “Making/keeping everyone semi-happy through compromises” and more about “We need this, we’ll take it, if necessary by force”. Sadly this will probably lead to the UN becoming less dominant whereas the NATO becomes more so.

Even us Europeans will then realize that our post-colonial “Be nice to everybody and stay extremely politically correct” attitude might not be the best for the times…

#42

That’s a viable train of thought only if you still think business as usual possible in the future, which I don’t and for good reasons.
A major paradigm shift has happened, there will never ever be economic expansion beyond what we had maybe a year ago, globally speaking. Not many people might already be aware of it, but reality has the nasty habit to force its way into everyones line of sight one way or another.
The question is not whether the US is becoming completely irrelevant, which it won’t. The economic system itself is in question. It was a marvellous system in an environment of abundance. I doubt it’ll work if we have to distribute a shrinking ressource base to maintain critical systems. It just doesn’t work that way since scarcity produces wild swings in prices which are devastating the actually producing parts of what is called economy. What the anglosaxons called service industries are , if you really look at it, just a redistributing function of surplus value attained otherwise, so adding this up to GDP is a worthless measurement.
Unfortunatly, as far a the system is concerned, we have no viable alternative, which is the really scary part. Any attemp made as of yet to control an economy were awfully inefficient which is something we will not be able to afford anymore in the future.
So however you look at it, we’re screwed, and not just the US if you thought that was my point.

#43

I guess we’ll see.

#44

We hopefully never will, but I’m pretty sure that even a war between superpowers like China, US and Russia won’t last longer than 5 - 10 years max.

PS: I updated my earlier post, hope you saw that;)

#45

I for one hope so for the sake of the Grand Republic 32, traits such as “earnest”, “well spoken”, and “charismatic” are also found in many of the worlds most heinous despots, and cult leaders. the man will have his try, so we’ll see what he is actually made of.

#46

True, but many good people had these traits, too. I’d say they are the traits of a skilled politician and leader - without any relation to what they end up using their skills for…

#47

I believe I made that clear.

#48

The question of his Constitutional qualifications asa Natural Born Citizen still has not been satisfactorily put to rest because he still refuses to produce the original BC or to release information.

#49

Um, actually it has been since the state of Hawaii posted his frigging birth certificate…

I think he have enough issues to deal with --so we don’t need made up ones…

#50

He doesn’t look Hawaiian to me. Too thin, for a start. :wink: :smiley:

#51

Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were several states fighting for the right to be the ‘official’ birthplace of his. :smiley:

#52

If he is Hawaiian, he should honor his roots by getting a full Moko. Now that would be most Presidential.

Fig.1_ta moko.jpg

#53

presidentail and badass!

#54

That’s because he’s a stealth-Hawaiian. :wink:

#55

Now he’s starting to show his true colors, supporting the planning stage of the so called “World Conference Against Racism”. Durban II, as it’s called, will be the same joke that the first conference was, a long charade of antisemtic ranting. In a few years time Obama will make Chamberlain look as solid as a rock.
In the words of the knight from Indiana Jones and the last crusade
You have chosen …

poorly.

But then, I think you never even had any good choice, just between pestilence and cholera as we say here.

#56

Drake, don’t be too negative. It’s obvious that he would support actions against racism - but that doesn’t taint his entire presidency. He’s barely even in office for a month and you already judge him as a loser?

Hab Geduld!

#57

If this was an actual conference against racism I wouldn’t have said anything, but it isn’t. Durban I was a disgrace of international politics if there ever was one.

#58

Um Drake, no disrespect intended, but not living in this country perhaps cloud your perception a bit…

The truth is that even diehard Republican congressmen where fluttering all over Obama at a recent cocktail party hosted at the White House. And my perception is quite contrary to yours as Obama has shown more actual leadership even before he took office than I’m used to seeing coming from the Oval Office…

And who is he going to “appease?” There’s already talk that the Iranian gov’t is FAR MORE afraid of him than they ever were of of Bush, because people in Iran are clamoring for their own Obama and “change” (which is a cliche I know). But Obama can be roughly translated to mean “with us” in Farsi, and some in the Iranian religious establishment are actually very wary of this model of youthful charisma in a democratic leader. This contrasts with Bush whose constant short-sighted sabre rattling actually got a rabid jerk in Ahmadinejad elected and served to increase power of the religious establishment in Iran.

And I must say Drake, you must be in the 1% of Europeans that hate Obama, because all of your leaders can’t seem to fly here fast enough…:smiley:

#59

Don’t get me wrong, Bush was the worst president since at least Woodrow Wilson, Obama is possibly orders of magnitude better, but it’s nevertheless a sign of at least bad political judgement to give the first conference credibility ex post by his action now.
The reason why I am in that 1% might be anyway that my personal opinion about humans in general and politicians in particular could best discribed as hmmm a bit low, but my instinct rings alarm bells with Obama, I can’t even tell you why.
If you put all politicians in a bag and hit that bag with a stick you wouldn’t hit the wrong person as they say here :mrgreen:

#60

Well, I guess we shouldn’t judge his presidency until 2012…

Until then, I keep my hopes up for him. Maybe he can actually manage to get America back on track, no matter how crappy the condition America is in after 8 years of Bush…

I love how most Republicans even abhor from ever mentioning his name anymore. Just the other day they were all talking about how tax cuts work with fixing the economy, and after mentioning a couple of presidents under whom it works, they rather said ‘After 9/11’ instead of ‘under Bush’… That’s just one sign how low the name ‘Bush’ has sunk…