Bush is back

BIG SIGH.

Bush is back.

It is interesting to generally see the bigger US cities supported Kerry. Could it possibly be big cities are where people with passports live? Or perhaps disposable income rich GLBT people reside there?

It is more telling that the yeehaaww colonies backed Bush. Unsurprising really. Let me tell you my experience in MIddle America before my family moved to a bigger city.

Not a lot of international news. Newspapers preferred to cover local news, read: "firefighters save dog from burning house". Lots of greasy junk food and refillable soda fountains.

A distant in law said: Oh yes i travel, I was in Las Vegas last year. Internationally? Oh NO. I cant stand long flights. There is a big world out there? Na, I dont like long flights. I don't have a passport.

Reaction: my eyes rolled to the sky so violently, they fell out of their sockets and onto the floor. And I might add, it was so hard to be plastic and smile politely. It appeared that there were enough ignorant people in Middle America that are so devoid of having an international perspective they are like a blank page you can write nonsense on. Singapore is in China. Tropical means only Hawaii. Filipinos are Latin American cousins. Bush is actually smart and Bushism should be put into the Oxford dictionary.

These people live in areas that Bush may have forgotten; there are people who are by Asian terms, very Kampung, very rural village. Economically challenged. Streets uncared for. Small dollar stores. Forget about Tiffany or Kenneth Cole. And Victoria's Secrets is something only naughty prostitute like girls wear.

I saw shops that have been abandoned, rows and rows of them. It was like a scene out of Bowling for Columbine. The mood was catching. Staying there too long would destroy your spirit. You would end up like the dust on the walls of those abandoned shops. Where was Bush's pro-employment initiatives there?

So I am glad I have my passport to bring me to places where life isn't dictated by fear and depression, even as the US is insisting even residents from the visa waiver program would have to get fingerprinted.

It will be more of a hassle to get in to the US I am sure. I foresee the walls of Fortress America getting higher and higher. And with the news of evangelical vote, the divide between Christian pro Israel US and the Islamic world may increase as well.

A Channel NewsAsia report before the results were announced interviewed an American male living in Singapore.

He said that he could not get over how non Americans are so concerned about the elections that should only be a matter for American citizens to grapple with. He said that all the issues Bush was discussing during the campaign trail, even about terror, was relevant only to Americans. Therefore, he concluded, it was basically no one else's business. Perhaps he was right, since news reports showed that Americans voted finally based on shared values, not about international politics and the US's conduct in it.

Still that interviewee seems to have wasted his time living away from home. If a blonde like Cameron Diaz can tell television viewers that having travelled widely, she realized Americans are alone in the world, then it is clear that American politics does affect other countries and should be viewed as inseparable from World politics. One must also remember a massive CNN initiative with the Oprah Winfrey Show before Iraq was invaded (notice the use of the word), where noted anchors/reporters made it clear that in every part of the world, on the ground the US has lost moral authority in the way it was conducting itself on the global stage.

That American in Singapore has shut his eyes to the impact his country has on others. Perhaps he is in Singapore to live up to his capitalist background. Take the riches of another place for one's own gain, then leave, never caring what has been left behind. It is colonialism for the new millennium.

And perhaps he could not see that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Global negative opinion towards a nation cannot be the fault of those that share that sentiment. It is illogical to accept that. Those that would are blind and arrogant. Much like the arrogance displayed at the post victory news conference today where much was elaborated on how freedom and democracy is a must for every nation of the world, and that is the only way to protect the safety of Americans in the long term. Have Americans ever wondered, who voted them to decide what is best for others? And if American politics is only a concern for citizens, why do they think they then have the moral right to interfere in other nations' politics? And is it possible that a different way of life could actually be ok?

Arrogance.

In classic Bush like form. And like the Ugly American visitor, the Channel NewsAsia interviewee. He is pro Bush.

It is sad.

Four more bad years.

BIG SIGH.

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footnote: it is funny. If democracy is so fantastic, then why hasn't Bush forced it into Brunei? Is Brunei a democracy, being Islamic and having a Sultan as an overall ruler? Probably does not matter either way, Brunei is rich. Politics may be politics, but money still rules ultimately.