I used to admire Arnold Schwarzenegger. I thought he was a strong, not just physically, but had great strength of will in getting to the top through his own efforts. He has now lost any respect I ever had for him
When one is elected to high office, the idea is that you're prepared to the right thing, not the most popular thing. If not, then one's state becomes an ochlocracy - rule by the mob.
If America's Founding Fathers had written their Constitution based on 'the wishes of the people', then women would still be personal chattels without the right to vote, there would still be slavery - at least in the southern states - there would still be segregation and there would be no inter-racial marriages.
It was loudly proclaimed by some that the legalizing of inter-racial marriages would cause the downfall of America. It didn't. Now people with the same bigoted mentality are saying the same thing about gay marriages and with about as much foundation in reality.
And yet Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed California's gay marriage bill. What is he afraid of? Do gays and lesbians have
so much power that they can do what mixed race marriages could not? Or is he just keeping an eye on his popularity rating?
If he had any shred of integrity, he would have allowed the bill through unimpeded. But no. It seems that he is just a spineless self-serving politician, bending whichever way the popular breeze blows - a weak puppet, with the right-wing fundamentalist Christian homophobes and their sycophants pulling his strings.
I thought he was strong. I was mistaken. 8-(
--
The United States of America is looking increasingly like a Third World country.
I am not talking only about film footage coming out of New Orleans although, on my side of The Pond, it is seen as quite amazing that a country which can mobilize such mighty forces against Iraq, two continents away, should not only have taken so long to organize a rescue plan but have allowed the situation to develop in the first place. The probable effects of a hurricane hitting New Orleans were well known and documented over two years ago, yet nothing was done to prevent that disaster.
Even so, the aftermath might not have been quite so bad had not President Bush, like a proud warlord more concerned with his own amour propre than the welfare of his people, turned down offers of aid, such as two mobile hospital units from President Chavez of Venezuela.
The belief of the 'gun lobby' in its Divine Right to own guns also made matters worse, enabling a breakdown in law and order with armed gangs terrorizing people already in a desperate state. It sounded more like a backwoods frontier town in the nineteenth century than the Big Easy. I keep hearing President Bush banging on about the War Against Terror, but he seems to have lost his taste for it when it's on his own doorstep.
Yet in Sri Lanka, in the days after the Boxing Day tsunami, not one single tourist was mugged. It seems to me that, as our saying goes, the U.S. Government couldn't organize a booze-up in a brewery.
On the subject of education in science, the extreme fundamentalist Christian right wing seems hell-bent on returning this once great country to the Middle Ages, certainly to times BCD.
Judging by some of the semi-literate posts I see on news message boards, the education system in general seems to be failing. It might help a little if students were taught how to take part in a mannerly debate and, in IT classes, how to turn off Caps Lock.
On the subject of global warming, the U.S. Government's head-in-the-sand attitude is not only harming its own people, cf. New Orleans, but is actively harming the rest of the planet.
On the subject of human rights issues and equality for all, it seems ironic that President Bush speaks in grandiose terms about bringing the light of freedom and democracy to the dark places of the world while denying those rights, for instance the right to marry one's partner of choice, to a significant minority of his own people.
It now also seems that the President seeks to have the judiciary in his pocket, making the Supreme Court Mr. Bush's poodle. This cannot be good for freedom, justice and human rights. From here on, it seems that things can only get worse.
Thus the impression created in this part of the U.K. is that, very sadly, the United States is heading for Third World status - full-speed ahead and don't spare the horses! 8-(