Thoughts on how to improve the current system

[kandrathe]

Yes I know what you mean kandrathe. Just that he is at least a serious person and someone that at least seems to be intelligent.

I still think he was too green for the job. He is articulate, and very intelligent, but does not lead very well. There is the problem... When it comes to leadership, you seek someone inspirational with the intestinal fortitude of a MacArthur, or a George Patton, but also the shrewd intelligence of a Harry Truman, or a John F. Kennedy. He sold himself generically as a unifier during his campaign which had broad appeal, but in action has only fanned the flames of political division during the past few years. 100 years ago, a President Calvin Coolidge warned, "Don't expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong."

But, whether he's chosen, or has been forced, Obama's 1st term has mostly walked the GWB policy line. From the Geitner/Paulsen plan for dealing with the imploding banking sector, to the Clinton/Bush neocon foreign policy doctrines. The latest is the ( resurrected Rumsfeld) plan for downsizing the military. I guess "change" means something different in Washington DC, than it does where I live. His two Progressive stakes in the ground were the badly timed health care fiasco, and attempting to implement a Consumer Credit watchdog czar. The health care bill may unravel when it goes before the Supreme Court shortly, and the unprecedented recess appointment (bypassing Senate oversight) of his crony into the credit czar has already politically weakened that post before it's launched. We live in an era of banana republic politics, in a police state worthy of a banana republic. We are merely a hunta away from becoming exactly what we oppose.

Anyway, also in Europe we have to deal with this 'smooth red Khmerisation' of the countries. Anti-intellectualism is hot and the new big thing in politics.

The two ways you can appeal to populism are through reason, or passion. As your heroes Fidel, and Che learned, passion is far easier to ignite, and it makes the debates very short. As short as the firing of a pistol shot through the brain pan.