Hi Walter,

>>Bush Senior had nothing to do with Bush Junior's election. Again I say, the man is not stupid. Disagree with him all you like but kindly refrain from idiotic statements like that.
>
>Bush senior might have little involvement in here (however I doubt that too), but certainly the people surrounding the bush family... the same relations... had everything to do with it. The inheritance of relations and power. O.k. lets throw something else in the mix here. In holland and many western countries, you can get president or prime minister without money beeing a major factor. The president will be selected through qualification. The party that wins the election will select the prime minister.

Granted, it's a different system of government. There is something to be said in favor of parliamentary democracies. It's different here and I'm not going to argue which is best since both the US and European nations have had their share of outstanding presidents and prime ministers the last 50 years.

>In the US, you seem to need to have some kind of past in the military, a fortuned businessman, a moviestar, inheritance, etc and a whole lot of money. This has nothing to do with whether a person is suitable for that position. And of course there is the mudthrowing. When it became known that hillary would run up for president just after the re-election of GWB, a campaign was launched to stop here. Excuse me are we talking about a free country or just some african dictatorship here? Certain powerfull groups prepare their 'puppet' to choose from and will use all their influence to get them elected. The practises used are incredibly dirty (mud throwing), like diving in someones past, blow it way out of proportion and directly influence and use the media for those purposes. In the end you might end up with two candidates where there is nothing to choose. I spoke to many americans in the last election and they said... "The candidate are both bad, but at least with GWB we know what to
>expect". I can't believe the american people are buying this, but appearantly they do. The money always seems to be provided by 3rd people that might have different interests (lobbying). This clearly is projected in a guy like GWB. He is just a puppet for the people that helped him to power. Some people surrounding the president just have different hidden agendas. This all smells like corruption.

Bush is not a puppet of anyone. And neither have past presidents been since Grant. Yes, I agree, we have an incredible nasty political process but it's always, somehow, worked.

>The above is a summary on why I think we up here dislike GWB and the american government in general. Bill Clinton was different in many respects. He is a walking encyclopedia, was very good at forreign relations and seemed to be able to make his own decisions. I remember he was visiting holland, went to a simple pancake restaurant ordered a pancake, payed the bill and left again. Leaving the owner stumped calling his wife: 'You'll never guess who I got here in the restaurant..' He was just more accessible and came accross way more credible and like what we'd expect from a president.

Truth be told, Bill Clinton was probably the most corrupt president we've had in decades. He was beholden to special interests in Arkansas and destroyed the Puerto Rican poultry inductry by executive decree as a favor to Tyson. Personally, I like Bill Clinton. But most political science professors would agree that he was not a great, maybe even not a good, president.

>
>>Reality is this: We're the most powerful nation on the face of the planet. We are not that way because we're stupid or lucky. We are that way because we are the amalgamation of the best people on Earth. I believe in God and I think it's pretty clear that God is not against us.
>
>Your country is currently the ruling empire just like the greek, the romans, the habsburg, the dutch, the english were before. It does not have ANYTHING to do with the best people. It has to do with a series of events.
>- WWI, WWII, the devestation of europe
>- The flood of (qualified) people from europe to the US during and shortly after WWII
>- The position of the dollar as the 'reserve currency'
>- The decision in 1971 for disconnect the value fo the dollar with the price of gold (see link above).
>and there are undoubtly other factors in there as well.

Walter, I agree in principle. At some point in the future we will not be in ascendency. My vote is on the Chinese as being the next big kids on the block. But I have a feeling that the world will not be as happy with the Chinese running things as they have been with the US.

>However, the position of the US as a world power increasingly depended on internal and external factors. The collapse of the US empire is not a question of *if* but rather *when*. There is a good book written by Paul Kennedy 'The rise and fall of great empires' about the very same topic. The risk factors at this very same moment are:
>1. Military overstretch (see Paul Kennedy's book). Trying to control the world through military action to safeguard the economic interests (OIL, and safeguarding the dollar as the reserve currency (remember that iraq was the first country to trade in Euros in stead of dollars))
>2. Related to that is the continuing devaluation of the dollar and the rise of the Euro. This will become a dead serious problem when forreign countries had enough of the devaluating dollar and want to trade in stronger currencies (This already has been a topic on the OPEC meetings as it was brought up by Iran and Venezuala). Then the forreign countries do not need their vast reserves in dollars anymore and are going to flush the world with dollars which causes the dollar to fall. (There are some books arround there about this topic "When the dollar falls").

See my last point. I agree about the "when" rather than "if".

>John, I respect your faith in god, however I choose in trying to understand the mechanism behind a certain observation instead. I find your statement, as found on this forum frequently, saying that the US has the best people and is the best (for what ever that means) nation on earth, not only ignorant (There are other nations that do better), but also quite insulting to all those other people here on the forum who live in a (smaller) country that at least does do as best (again, for whatever that means). Personnally I find the US, aside from its economical power and the american dream, a third world country in many respects and inferiour to many other western countries.

Well there, Walter, we disagree. Certainly, there are people who are better at certain things than folks here in other countries. That has to be true statistically.

But we are not some gigantic, rich third world country. I can't begin to imagine where that comes from. We are what we are - a country based on principles and a Constitution that has endured. We are friends to the entire free world and always will be. If the sad day comes when the US is not a leader and can't defend and help our friends you and other smaller nations will regret it.