NightDragon83 said:
The reason why 2000 became such a controversy is because it came down to one state: Florida, and after a long and drawn out legal battle and several recounts the state was finally awarded to Bush, thus giving him enough Electoral Votes to win the presidency. |
Um, the reason 2000 was a controversy is that a majority of US voters chose Gore, not Bush - but our 18th century electoral system turned the loser into the victor. I didn't vote for Gore myself, but the Electoral College is, without question, a barbarous relic, which should be replaced with a direct vote.
As for the election - I'm registered in Illinois, so my vote doesn't matter - Obama will win overwhelmingly here. Don't know who I'll vote for, but it sure as heck won't be for The Manchurian Candidate, a.k.a. McCain. Maybe the Greens, if they're running a national candidate.
Obama is a smart guy and a savvy politician, and is almost sure to win the election. But here are the massive challenges America faces:
1. The US health care system is broken - we have the highest costs but our healthcare outcomes are among the worst in the industrial world (#36 in infant mortality, #42 in life expectancy). Why? No universal health coverage. Fat profits for insurance companies, bankrupcty and misery for everyone else.
2. Our mass media is broken - five giant corporations own the US mass media, period. They lied us into the war on Iraq and couldn't give a rat's ass about democracy. Fat profits for those corporations, crappy media for everyone else.
3. Our foreign policy is broken - we spend close to $1 trillion a year on the world's largest war machine, despite the fact that we have no significant military enemies anywhere in the world. (China has a small military and no force projection capacity. India and Russia are democracies with small, defensive militaries. North Korea has no oil and couldn't invade a beach resort.) Fat profits for the military-industrial complex, waste and wars for everyone else.
4. Our electoral system is broken - the Electoral College is deeply undemocratic, and the first-past-the-post system is a lousy way to represent the popular will, which is why all of Eastern Europe adopted systems of proportional representation. Even if you get elected in the US, $3 billion in campaign donations and corporate lobbyists make political change almost impossible. Fat profits for corporate lobbyists, lousy legislation for everyone else.
5. Our housing market is broken - Fannie and Freddie Mae are about to be nationalized. Fat profits for the investment bankers who sold bogus mortgage securities, huge losses for the public till.
6. Our energy economy is broken - high gas prices means the middle class can no longer afford the driving, heating and cooling costs of suburban sprawl, while the Federal government has done almost nothing to jumpstart the use of wind, solar and renewable energy. Fat profits for constructional moguls, oil companies and Detroit, but horrendous long-term costs for everyone else.
7. Our distribution of wealth is broken - a tiny bunch of rich people (1% of the population) have gotten fabulously wealthy, while the vast middle-class majority has seen their real wages fall and their debts skyrocket. Fat City for the rich, hard times for everyone else.
8. We're dependent on the Bank of China and the EU to lend us $800 billion per year, just to keep our economy going (what the economists call our current account deficit).
