John McCain regains his soul.

I start this post again with the concession that I am not American and I do not have a vote, but being a witness (albeit via the internet) to one of the most important Presidential races, perhaps in history, I feel compelled to add my two cents worth to the discussion that has and will ensue on the blogosphere. It seems apt that I begin with a concession because what I hope to write about is not how proud Americans should be for both electing what seems to be a worthy leader and for participating in the democratic process but about the manner in which a war hero conceded defeat to a man who out spoke, out debated and out advertised him.

On the day after the results I am now watching the speech by John McCain again as he concedes defeat and I am impressed by his performance. I also wonder why it is only after he lost the race that he pulls out such a tear jerking and moving speech. He was gracious, he was humble and most of all he was deeply patriotic. He pledged support for Obama that, unlike Bill Clinton at the DNC, did not leave any doubt that his one and only allegiance was to the good ole US of A.

So why could we scarcely see this during his campaign? I have my theories.

At the beginning of the campaign, John McCain was Mr. Straight Talk. He was a man of action. A man who suffered for his country and comrades. He was the Maverick. He was the man who reached across the aisle to reach compromise when required to find solutions for the benefit of the nation and yesterday when he spoke of importance of electing the the first Afro-American President he was genuine. During the course of campaign, this image was blurred because during this long journey, John McCain was replaced by the party machine. Months before the vote, I commented on twitter that I felt that McCain no longer believed in his campaign but in hindsight it was not so much that he no longer believed the campaign but that the campaign was no longer his. 

To start off with, the selection of Sarah Palin as a running mate was the first sign that he was being rail roaded. For someone who is so close to the center to choose someone so close to the right was obviously a decision made by a strategist looking at voter profiles and not for the benefit of the country. Unfortunately it was transparent in its incongruousness and obvious to the American voters. These strategists tried to position the two as a team of Mavericks so much that having that word uttered from Palins mouth became a joke that even the very restrained Joe Biden could not resist shooting down in the VP debate. You will notice that after that debate the word Maverick was hardly ever used.

McCain was always going to be a man who's actions spoke louder than words for two reasons. Due to his long political history he firstly had a great deal more action to speak of than the relatively inexperienced Obama but secondly there was no way he could complete with an orator as eloquent as Barack. This man of action was to be the man who was blind to party lines and just got the job done. He tried to portray this image by suspending his campaign to work on the "rescue" package, a stunt that cost him dearly as the party machinery did not take into consideration that his knowledge of the financial system was inadequate and that it would be seen by the increasingly intelligent voter population that it was indeed a stunt. Apart from this failed attempt to be the action man, the entire campaign failed to further illustrate that he was a man of action simply because at no time did he attack the administration for their failings in the past eight years, he did not do anything more than give lip service about being disliked by people in his own party. After the selection of Sarah Palin, John McCain became a bullhorn for special interest and Washington power brokers that scripted every word he uttered. In fact towards the end of the race Palin had the right idea when she turned on her own strategist. Unfortunately Palin didn't have the foresight to use that to the advantage of the campaign, but if had McCain fired his team mid-race to run a race that was his own, the outcome, although may not have been different, would probably not be the massacre that ensued on November 4th. It would have further illustrated that this American hero would not stand for something that he did not truly believe.

Perhaps it is because of the underdog mentality that living in Australia for so many years gives to a person but I am glad that after his political advisers jumped ship, the real John McCain was able to show us the man he is and the man who should have fought the strategists during the campaign in his concession speech.

Congratulation to America for their choice. Congratulation Senator McCain for reclaiming your soul.

Top 10 Snips for October: Palin, Hanson, Censorship and the US Economy

1. http://snipr.com/43vfc Is Sarah Palin really Pauline Hanson?

2. http://snipr.com/4rjg9 Internet Censorship. The recurring nightmare for an expatriate Australian.

3. http://snipr.com/431hl Your affair can kill you | NEWS.com.au

4. http://snipr.com/42mnv We are all accomplices in the global economy

5. http://snipr.com/43s8q Sarah Palin feet firmly placed in mouth.

6. http://snipr.com/4575s Google launches Mail Goggles to save you from yourself | Webware : Cool Web apps for everyone - CNET

7. http://snipr.com/42kyb Con of the Century! | FED Up USA

8. http://snipr.com/449rg China discovers oil, gas well in Bohai Bay - People's Daily Online

9. http://snipr.com/40bk4 World's fattest man to wed | NEWS.com.au

10. http://snipr.com/430dr The 'Brick' is... | Apple Factory innovation

Sarah Palin makes a hot prop.

This is Sarah Palin being a prop on SNL. Somewhat like the role she has played in the election campaign. 

Enjoy.

If this doesn't work for you, you can watch the clip directly from NBC here

Debate Number One

This is the full 96 minute video broken into 11 Youtube videos, for those who have time.

And if it doesn't play try here or here

The Economics of the US Presidential Election

With Hilary R. Clinton's support of Barack Obama's nomination as the Democratic Nominee for Presidential Candidate, we are now at a stage where we can include John McCain in the discussion. At the beginning of the Democratic Primaries I made a prediction. It was not one based on an in-depth understanding of American Politics. It was one based on observation of human nature. I predicted that If Clinton did not win the nomination, Obama would win and if Obama won, then McCain would be the next President. I predicted that Clinton would not be Obama's running mate simply because she had no desire to be second in charge. She'd done that job already as the First Lady. I also thought that America was not ready for their first black President but since then the media has convinced me that the public has gotten over that issue already.

Having listened to all three speeches at the conclusion of the Primary race, the one thing that differentiates McCain and Obama is the Economics behind the content of their speech. If you filter out the subtle (and not so subtle) attacks at each other you hear quite clearly that from an economic standpoint they are very clearly on opposite sides of the fence. Obama's speech is about fixing the thing that George W. has messed up. Excluding the Iraq war everything else is about Government intervention. Healthcare, education, barriers to trade to protect American industries and supporting the middle class. His message is clearly lets do all the things that we have not done right in the last eight years. McCain on the other hand takes a different approach. He looks back and says, we tried these things, it didn't work so lets let the American people decide for themselves. Or alternatively stated, let's not intervene, let innovation thrive through necessity and let American ingenuity find better ways to doing things that foreign manufacturers are doing manually due to lower running costs. Let's not put up barriers to trade because inevitably, America is part of a global economy and they need to find their competitive advantage.

This really is not surprising that Obama takes a Keynesian economic stance in his policies while McCain takes a more Laissez Faire approach. If you take two of the most respected economists in recent history and match them to which administrations they advised you will see that there is a clear distinction between the economic policy outcomes of electing a Democratic as opposed to a Republican President.

John Kenneth Galbraith was a student of John Maynard Keynes in that he believed in Government intervention was the way to control things like inflation, economic downturn and to create greater equality in the distribution of wealth. He we born in 1908 and died in 2006. During his life the last President of the United States of America that he served was Bill Clinton and has in the past also served Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Johnson. All Democatic Presidents.

The other economist I'd like to draw your attention to is Milton Friedman. Friedman was born in 1912 and also died in 2006. He saw much of the same America that Galbraith saw and up until the 1950's was also a supporter of Keynesian interventionism but it was toward the latter part of his life that he began to support Adam Smith's "invisible hand" and advise towards a free market fiscal and monetary policies. In 1976 he won the Nobel Prize for Economics. Friedman advised Ronald Reagan during the 80's but also the other conservative union buster Margaret Thatcher.

So who will be the next POTUS? My prediction might be a bit shaky now. The US is just now coming out of a Recession, the middle class have been hit the hardest and Obama is the best political orator I have seen for a long time. If I were to assume that American voters were voting for America then McCain would still be the winner simply because I believe that a protectionist/ interventionist Government inevitably leads to a weaker nation. Unfortunately democracy dictates that it is one vote per person and not one vote per dollar and the votes that will benefit the most in the short to medium term is middle class ones. The same votes that Obama will be selling job creation, better education and cheaper healthcare to. All things that a McCain cannot offer if he is to remain true to his free market roots.

It's going to be an interesting race this year. Pass the popcorn please.

Does this look like Goodbye?

Is it just me or does this sound like Hillary is throwing in the towel?

Through the looking glass

I typed up this article over lunch today and I thought to myself, should I post it. It's very long and personal and maybe no-one will read it. But then I thought what the heck. If I am going to be ignored then I might as well be blabbering something while that's happening. So here goes.... Send.

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Watching the World from China is a unique perspective. Over the last 8 years in this country my views on the World have changed which makes me question whether this is the result of the Chinese propaganda machine or lack of the propaganda from Western nations such as Australia. I would like first however to explain that this is not a sociological study, not is it something that I have done vast amounts of research on. It is purely a representation of personal experience and observations from my life.

Growing up in Australia from the age of four I consider myself first an Australian Immigrant then a subject of the British Empire in Hong Kong. My ties to Mainland China has always been slightly prejudice as Hong Kong people were in the 70's. I make this point not because this article will look at China but because I want to make it clear that I am not trying to spew forth pro-Chinese propaganda myself.

Prior to the turn of the century my views of the world were pretty much the same as most Australians. I viewed Australia as the "Lucky Country" and view the British as annoying elder brothers. The US I viewed as the retarded cousin who married into a rich family that we had to put up with. My views on China at the time were that it was a huge expanse of peasants who were culturally raped by the Mao era. I believed that the last bastion of true Chinese culture came not from China itself but by those who had fled and brought with them the pre-Communist beliefs. This was in the back of my mind but honestly it was filed away so well that I barely gave it second thought in the 90's as I never thought I would come to be in China.

When I arrived in China in 2000 I knew that it was not a backward country, but I could not shake the feeling that touching down in Shanghai I would see rice fields and farmers wearing straw hats ploughing the water soaked fields behind an ox. When I arrived, I was taken to the Bund on my first day and saw something that could have come from an episode of Buck Rogers.

So for eight years I have worked and loved here, raised a family and I look outwards to what could have been and see things that an Australian wouldn't necessarily see. I feel things that in the circle of friends from my uni days would frown upon as insensitive and I ask myself, "Am I
odd one out or are they the ones that are disillusioned? Am I no longer able to see what is right and what is obviously wrong?"

When I talk to people in China about Taiwan, I ask them. "Do you really believe that Taiwan is a provence?" and from people who are born, educated and are about 25ish in age, they will tell you without hesitation. Yes! I sometimes ask if they feel democracy is better than communism and they will once again reply without hesitation that democracy is not as good because people do not always make decisions that are for the good of the people.

Hearing these honest opinions repeatedly in a country that censors the Internet, prohibits foreign media and where people do not vote is interesting because in Australia the freedom of speech, the freedom of information, and the right to elect those who will govern you is the basis of democracy. But are Chinese people oppressed? At least in Shanghai and Beijing and other major cities, they do not appear to be. The seem to continue their daily lives, earning money, dreaming of owning their own home, meeting a partner, having kids (or kid I should say). The need to vote does not seem to be as precious as democracy says it should be.

From inside looking out through my magic looking glass this is what I see. I see an American Empire making decisions for those who did not elect them in such as the Iraqi's, the North Koreans, the Taiwanese, the Tibetan's, Israeli's and the Afghans. I see Islamic fundamentalists
executing infidels but mostly white Americans, I see rioting in Tibet from monks for independence from China on the streets of Tibet and Sichuan but fail to see how overturning cars and destroying property in their home country will prove that an Independent government will make things better for the local inhabitants. I see the Islamic nation of Malaysia having it's first fair democratic election, the aftermath of which is political infighting, racial conflict that caused by the constitution and a parallel monarchistic system that chooses to flex it's muscle to destablise the national government. I see the removal & execution of a tyrant that resulted in anarchy and 4000 American troop deaths and a landscape littered with exploding devices and the nuclear
threat emerging from Iran that was formerly suppressed by that tyrant who in turn was originally armed by America. I see all this through the looking glass that is limited to only what I have experienced and seen before.

I ask this question from a Communist nation who is not being attached by anyone with WMD's, who is not interfering with domestic conflicts except when expressly asked to (ie they are talking to North Korea but not doing anything to ease the pain in Sudan) and who are experiencing double digit economic growth in major cities (as well as the inflationary affects thereof) and are increasingly harming the environment but not at a level that "First World" nations are yet. They
are also restricting the independence of Tibet and Taiwan (Of course if Queenland seriously wanted to be it's own country then I am sure there would be some resistance as well), arresting journalists, relocating entire towns beneath the 3 gorges dam and artificially manipulating the value of the RMB.

And the question I ask is What is Good and What is Evil? Are my views the result of being brainwashed by an oppressive regime for eight years or is it because I am now free from political spin that influences popular public opinion?

To be honest, I do not know, and until I find out I cannot with certainty distinguish right from wrong. Perhaps if I relocate to Fiji my view of the world will change again.

The Global Sand Pit

For many years I pondered what real qualifications do you need to get into global politics but recently, watching the to and fro between China and the US has led me to believe that all you really need is a good primary school education. Consider the most recent exchanges of possibly the two most powerful nations in the world today.

This is brinkmanship at it's best.

US: You have too much of a trade surplus so rather than trying to be more globally competitive lets increase tariffs on Chinese products like bra's and t-shirts.

CN: Fine! But if you we're going to dump a big chunk of our $1 trillion USD on the open market to cripple your currency.

US: Oh Shit, that's not good. In that case let's create a smear campaign against China made toys and fake a story of cardboard in pork buns.

CN: Hmmm, just for that, lets announce that US made GE turbines are unsafe.

US: You want us to stop selling arms to Taiwan you'd better increase the value of the RMB

CN: You want us to talk to North Korea for you better shut the F#%K UP

US: Your human rights record stinks.

CN: And where are those weapons of mass destruction?

US: Yo mamma so fat...... (well you can see the direction this is heading)

It all going to end in tears.