Despite what many commentators agree has been one of the greatest, if not the greatest acceptance speeches in the history of the Presidency of the USA, I am still predicting Senator John McCain to win the election in November, especially if he is bold enough to appoint a young black woman as the Vice Presidential Candidate e.g. Condoleezza Rice. I write this at 11.15 am British time and within hours of the expected announcement. The second issue affecting the outcome is whether the Republican Administration is able to handle the next anticipated major hurricane to hit the mainland since Katrina, particularly if the damage and loss of lives, however small, coincides with the Republican Convention
To-date I have only paid occasional attention to the contest within the Democracy Party to become the Presidential Candidate because of other interests and commitments and because I wanted to see how the contest between Senator Barrack Hussein Obama and Senator Hilary Clinton unfolded and what response was made by the Republicans to the evident mood among large swaths of the population in the US for a fundamental change in approach as well as in substance by their government.
Obviously the election is primarily a matter for United States citizens but as both the Republican and Democratic Political Parties lay claim that America is the greatest country on the planet and should therefore lead earth human kind, and because for the next two or three decades the United States remains the most powerful economic power, then what happens affects us all and therefore we all have the right to have our say in we think and believe is the best individual to be the Commander in Chief.
I cannot claim to have first hand knowledge of the American Party political system or how its government works in relation to the role of the Senate and the House of Representatives and the Judiciary but I know enough to know the complicated nature of government and the difficulty of any administration to translate political beliefs, ideals, policies and legislative programmes into an effective reality. Barack Obama is right that no government however ambitious and full of men and women of integrity and dedication can bring about fundamental change, as this lays with the people, willing to work hard in a variety of ways and to make personal sacrifices for the greater good, foremost for their families, secondly their local communities and also for the country in which they live and make use of its protection and facilities.
Over the past four decades, particularly since the assassinations of President John Kennedy, presidential Candidate Bobby Kennedy and the Rev Martin Luther King, the second, I have taken a keen interest in the Presidents and the working of the American political system, its strengths and its warts, from reading the Warren Commission and the official and unofficial biographies to switching between Fox and CNN as well as British News Services, to taking the news alerts of the New York Times, and more recently the Washington Post and watching countless documentaries and enjoying countless films with the West Wing the star drama series. I suspect that one hundred years time the man who will come to be regarded as the great visionary President of the twentieth century will be Richard M Nixon because for whatever reason he had the foresight to open the door between the United States and the rest of the capitalist world and China. In same way " you never had it so good", right wing Conservative British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan turned the tide against Apartheid and racism in Africa with his Winds of Change speech delivered in South Africa.
Because it is often right Conservatism rather than Left and Liberal Idealism which leads to fundamental and lasting change and because the left in power tends to become bureaucratic and to undermine and even take away civil liberties and attempt to crush creativity and individualism, the best person and the best solution may often be the opposite of what we first think and of what is said. It will not be a surprise that I am believer in the dialectic of Hegel but not the Materialism of Marx. I bet I am one of only a few who possess the second edition 1920 English translation of Lenin's Materialism and Empiro Criticism in which he attempts to use the progresses then made in scientific knowledge and understanding in an attempt to demolish those of us who regard science as always limited to explain the nature of the infinite space and time and our belief that human self awareness and human physicality is an insignificant part of the spectrum of beings and physical forms in the universe with the capacity to think, feel and communicate. It is through the interplay and sometimes conflict of opposites, of extremes that the equilibrium is achieved.
I have been torn between believing that Hilary Clinton could achieve as much positive change in the USA and the rest of the World as Barack Obama. He has been branded as the young upstart left of centre with no experience of power and involvement at the top as well as the problem of being black in a country where a significant underbelly of racism remains. Hilary Clinton also has her baggage with questions about her past interests and being the partner of a former President whose personal behaviour as well as political record continues to divide the people of the USA and others around the world.
Commentators argued that Obama is a progressive and offered the prospect of significant change while Mrs Clinton appeared to be representative of the old order and the power structure and would prove unable, possibly unwilling, to tackle problems in a radical way. The main objection to Mr Obama and similarly to a lesser extent, Mrs Clinton was the question, how would they function as the Commander and Chief? There will be a substantial minority in the USA who will object to Senator Obama because he is mixed race black and Senator Clinton because she is female
In this respect the chosen Republican candidate Senator John McCain new leader appeared to offer a better prospect in that as a War Hero he would undoubtedly command the respect of the military and his record in the Senate demonstrated a progressive approach to social and other issues, according to political commentators although Senator Obama claimed that this only amounts to ten percent of the policies and approach of the George Bush government and that he was also a known supporter of Bush and Republican positions of several key issues of concern to USA public.
Before the convention there were reports that a hard core of Senator Clinton supporters continued to find Senator Obama's style and record unacceptable and were threatening to vote for Senator McCain and that when it came to the formal declaration of mandated delegate votes at the Democratic Convention there were those who would vote for Clinton in protest. When the accumulated popular vote of primaries had been counted Senator Clinton had totalled 18 million and more than those of Senator Obama, although he had gained a balance of the delegate votes and was supported by those with the additional votes to decide the issue in such as situation.
My understanding is that those who aligned themselves with Senator Obama did so from the hard nosed belief that he reflected the mood of the people, from the new voters to the old and cynical, better than Senator Clinton. The one thing that Democratic Party could not afford was to appear divided when the eyes of America and the world focused on the Convention. Such is the interest in the UK that the Parliament channel not only showed the Convention addresses live but then created a loop throughout the rest of the twenty four hours.
There were several features to the Convention which follow a traditional pattern. It was a highly organised rally which some features which may appeal to the American psyche but which I found disturbing. The Party machine provides uniform banners which are supplied at varying intervals for the delegates to brandish. The delegates behave as if attending Christian revivalist meeting; another feature is that the entire family of the President and Vice President is presented, however small the children or old the grand parents. Then each speaker has to state their all American credentials, the respect and honour to their parents/ grand parents and ancestry, their home town and their state and how proud they are to be American, the best country with the best service men and women and the best political system in the world. They then explain what is wrong with the country and why they and not the opposition can put it right. They then attack the opposition with every means possible This is formula politics and it does not really matter what you say as long as it is what people want to hear and you are judged on how you say it. The main purpose of such a gathering is to inspire and galvanise professional politicians and party activities to work even harder in the common cause: the democratic gaining of power.
Some people have commanding charisma, John F Kennedy, Martin Luther King and here in Britain I had the good fortune to once share a platform at a Labour Party conference with Barbara Castle and she could have brought the audience to their feet cheering if she had just read a page from the phone book. The was also the disastrous final rally of Neil Kinnock, another brilliant orator. which is said to have tipped the Labour Party from the brink of victory because of over confidence about the intentions of the electorate. What happened when Senator Clinton, Vice Presidential nominee Biden and Presidential nominee Obama addressed the Convention will be covered in the writing for Thursday and Friday.
Wednesday was another day divided between politics and sport, TV programmes and work. The evening provided the second opportunity to watch Sunderland after their winning performance at Spurs which I had watched in its entirety on Sky. On Wednesday night at Notts Forest, where they had won 1.0 in a friendly on the first day of my visit to Nottinghamshire cricket they performed badly as several of the new recruits played with old hands and where it was quickly evident there was substantial work required on the training field before they would function as team. There were positive indications in a game where Sunderland had to rely on their unwillingness to give up until levelling the game 1.1 just before the end of normal time and thus taking the game into extra time. I have to confess that I decided to switch off in a similar gesture to leaving my seat to exist the ground several occasions at the ground last season only to watch them equalise before the exist (twice) on TV within the stadium by an exit door (1) and on TV at home later (1). When I switched on Sunderland had won he game 2.1 in extra time and we remained in a competition where we now have the greatest chance of reaching a final for several years. The dream is every northeast fan between the Tyne and the Ear is for a Newcastle and Sunderland game at the new Wembley and for once the dream has continued beyond the round when both teams are playing
Wednesday also saw the start of Durham's four day game against Hants, not at the Rosebowl but at Basingstoke, just as well I did not book accommodation for the Rosebowl. The condition of the ground appeared similar to that recently at the Riverside with 19 wickets falling quickly, Durham for 156 and Hampshire out for 96
I watched part of Morse, most of a Cadfael, part of a Sherlock Holmes and on Thursday the whole of an episode only to check that I had remembered the solution to the mystery and the outcome. I also completed the application to join the Newcastle Member's club.
Early on I took the car to Morrison's at Seaburn and then the bus into the city to collect my new glasses. They required no adjustment and fitted well and the difference between this prescription and the previous was so marginal that I could immediately wear and leave. I am still not enthusiastic about the black frame although its still is fashionable. At Morrison's I decided on lunch and enjoyed all day breakfast of one egg, one sausage beans and bacon for £3.19 with a medium size diet coke £.99 more than half the cost of the breakfast at Croydon Travel Lodge but only about a quarter of the value. This was a modest treat out and I decided that on a future visit I would try the Chinese buffet in the city centre. I then shopped spending a round £50 about £20 less that the equivalent monthly big shop on my visits there, with reduction achieved by avoiding cakes, sweets, biscuits, salami and cheese and other treats and because I already had the chickens and joints in the freezer to cover the next three.
To-date I have only paid occasional attention to the contest within the Democracy Party to become the Presidential Candidate because of other interests and commitments and because I wanted to see how the contest between Senator Barrack Hussein Obama and Senator Hilary Clinton unfolded and what response was made by the Republicans to the evident mood among large swaths of the population in the US for a fundamental change in approach as well as in substance by their government.
Obviously the election is primarily a matter for United States citizens but as both the Republican and Democratic Political Parties lay claim that America is the greatest country on the planet and should therefore lead earth human kind, and because for the next two or three decades the United States remains the most powerful economic power, then what happens affects us all and therefore we all have the right to have our say in we think and believe is the best individual to be the Commander in Chief.
I cannot claim to have first hand knowledge of the American Party political system or how its government works in relation to the role of the Senate and the House of Representatives and the Judiciary but I know enough to know the complicated nature of government and the difficulty of any administration to translate political beliefs, ideals, policies and legislative programmes into an effective reality. Barack Obama is right that no government however ambitious and full of men and women of integrity and dedication can bring about fundamental change, as this lays with the people, willing to work hard in a variety of ways and to make personal sacrifices for the greater good, foremost for their families, secondly their local communities and also for the country in which they live and make use of its protection and facilities.
Over the past four decades, particularly since the assassinations of President John Kennedy, presidential Candidate Bobby Kennedy and the Rev Martin Luther King, the second, I have taken a keen interest in the Presidents and the working of the American political system, its strengths and its warts, from reading the Warren Commission and the official and unofficial biographies to switching between Fox and CNN as well as British News Services, to taking the news alerts of the New York Times, and more recently the Washington Post and watching countless documentaries and enjoying countless films with the West Wing the star drama series. I suspect that one hundred years time the man who will come to be regarded as the great visionary President of the twentieth century will be Richard M Nixon because for whatever reason he had the foresight to open the door between the United States and the rest of the capitalist world and China. In same way " you never had it so good", right wing Conservative British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan turned the tide against Apartheid and racism in Africa with his Winds of Change speech delivered in South Africa.
Because it is often right Conservatism rather than Left and Liberal Idealism which leads to fundamental and lasting change and because the left in power tends to become bureaucratic and to undermine and even take away civil liberties and attempt to crush creativity and individualism, the best person and the best solution may often be the opposite of what we first think and of what is said. It will not be a surprise that I am believer in the dialectic of Hegel but not the Materialism of Marx. I bet I am one of only a few who possess the second edition 1920 English translation of Lenin's Materialism and Empiro Criticism in which he attempts to use the progresses then made in scientific knowledge and understanding in an attempt to demolish those of us who regard science as always limited to explain the nature of the infinite space and time and our belief that human self awareness and human physicality is an insignificant part of the spectrum of beings and physical forms in the universe with the capacity to think, feel and communicate. It is through the interplay and sometimes conflict of opposites, of extremes that the equilibrium is achieved.
I have been torn between believing that Hilary Clinton could achieve as much positive change in the USA and the rest of the World as Barack Obama. He has been branded as the young upstart left of centre with no experience of power and involvement at the top as well as the problem of being black in a country where a significant underbelly of racism remains. Hilary Clinton also has her baggage with questions about her past interests and being the partner of a former President whose personal behaviour as well as political record continues to divide the people of the USA and others around the world.
Commentators argued that Obama is a progressive and offered the prospect of significant change while Mrs Clinton appeared to be representative of the old order and the power structure and would prove unable, possibly unwilling, to tackle problems in a radical way. The main objection to Mr Obama and similarly to a lesser extent, Mrs Clinton was the question, how would they function as the Commander and Chief? There will be a substantial minority in the USA who will object to Senator Obama because he is mixed race black and Senator Clinton because she is female
In this respect the chosen Republican candidate Senator John McCain new leader appeared to offer a better prospect in that as a War Hero he would undoubtedly command the respect of the military and his record in the Senate demonstrated a progressive approach to social and other issues, according to political commentators although Senator Obama claimed that this only amounts to ten percent of the policies and approach of the George Bush government and that he was also a known supporter of Bush and Republican positions of several key issues of concern to USA public.
Before the convention there were reports that a hard core of Senator Clinton supporters continued to find Senator Obama's style and record unacceptable and were threatening to vote for Senator McCain and that when it came to the formal declaration of mandated delegate votes at the Democratic Convention there were those who would vote for Clinton in protest. When the accumulated popular vote of primaries had been counted Senator Clinton had totalled 18 million and more than those of Senator Obama, although he had gained a balance of the delegate votes and was supported by those with the additional votes to decide the issue in such as situation.
My understanding is that those who aligned themselves with Senator Obama did so from the hard nosed belief that he reflected the mood of the people, from the new voters to the old and cynical, better than Senator Clinton. The one thing that Democratic Party could not afford was to appear divided when the eyes of America and the world focused on the Convention. Such is the interest in the UK that the Parliament channel not only showed the Convention addresses live but then created a loop throughout the rest of the twenty four hours.
There were several features to the Convention which follow a traditional pattern. It was a highly organised rally which some features which may appeal to the American psyche but which I found disturbing. The Party machine provides uniform banners which are supplied at varying intervals for the delegates to brandish. The delegates behave as if attending Christian revivalist meeting; another feature is that the entire family of the President and Vice President is presented, however small the children or old the grand parents. Then each speaker has to state their all American credentials, the respect and honour to their parents/ grand parents and ancestry, their home town and their state and how proud they are to be American, the best country with the best service men and women and the best political system in the world. They then explain what is wrong with the country and why they and not the opposition can put it right. They then attack the opposition with every means possible This is formula politics and it does not really matter what you say as long as it is what people want to hear and you are judged on how you say it. The main purpose of such a gathering is to inspire and galvanise professional politicians and party activities to work even harder in the common cause: the democratic gaining of power.
Some people have commanding charisma, John F Kennedy, Martin Luther King and here in Britain I had the good fortune to once share a platform at a Labour Party conference with Barbara Castle and she could have brought the audience to their feet cheering if she had just read a page from the phone book. The was also the disastrous final rally of Neil Kinnock, another brilliant orator. which is said to have tipped the Labour Party from the brink of victory because of over confidence about the intentions of the electorate. What happened when Senator Clinton, Vice Presidential nominee Biden and Presidential nominee Obama addressed the Convention will be covered in the writing for Thursday and Friday.
Wednesday was another day divided between politics and sport, TV programmes and work. The evening provided the second opportunity to watch Sunderland after their winning performance at Spurs which I had watched in its entirety on Sky. On Wednesday night at Notts Forest, where they had won 1.0 in a friendly on the first day of my visit to Nottinghamshire cricket they performed badly as several of the new recruits played with old hands and where it was quickly evident there was substantial work required on the training field before they would function as team. There were positive indications in a game where Sunderland had to rely on their unwillingness to give up until levelling the game 1.1 just before the end of normal time and thus taking the game into extra time. I have to confess that I decided to switch off in a similar gesture to leaving my seat to exist the ground several occasions at the ground last season only to watch them equalise before the exist (twice) on TV within the stadium by an exit door (1) and on TV at home later (1). When I switched on Sunderland had won he game 2.1 in extra time and we remained in a competition where we now have the greatest chance of reaching a final for several years. The dream is every northeast fan between the Tyne and the Ear is for a Newcastle and Sunderland game at the new Wembley and for once the dream has continued beyond the round when both teams are playing
Wednesday also saw the start of Durham's four day game against Hants, not at the Rosebowl but at Basingstoke, just as well I did not book accommodation for the Rosebowl. The condition of the ground appeared similar to that recently at the Riverside with 19 wickets falling quickly, Durham for 156 and Hampshire out for 96
I watched part of Morse, most of a Cadfael, part of a Sherlock Holmes and on Thursday the whole of an episode only to check that I had remembered the solution to the mystery and the outcome. I also completed the application to join the Newcastle Member's club.
Early on I took the car to Morrison's at Seaburn and then the bus into the city to collect my new glasses. They required no adjustment and fitted well and the difference between this prescription and the previous was so marginal that I could immediately wear and leave. I am still not enthusiastic about the black frame although its still is fashionable. At Morrison's I decided on lunch and enjoyed all day breakfast of one egg, one sausage beans and bacon for £3.19 with a medium size diet coke £.99 more than half the cost of the breakfast at Croydon Travel Lodge but only about a quarter of the value. This was a modest treat out and I decided that on a future visit I would try the Chinese buffet in the city centre. I then shopped spending a round £50 about £20 less that the equivalent monthly big shop on my visits there, with reduction achieved by avoiding cakes, sweets, biscuits, salami and cheese and other treats and because I already had the chickens and joints in the freezer to cover the next three.
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