Just yesterday, we published the first words from Robert Thompson in over three months. He has been in the throes of illness, compounded by a nasty leg fracture, and found himself incarcerated in a hospital for all of those three months. The worst of it, for Robert, was lack of access to his keyboard. We all suffered from his silence.

He appears to be back at work, and we are grateful to hear his voice again and to read his words.

- Ed.

Our television screens have shown us over the past months the incredible (and excruciatingly expensive) election campaign in the USA, which seems not so much to be aimed at finding a candidate for the Democrats as to ensuring that they tear one another to shreds, leaving the way clear for the arch-reactionary Mr John McCain to assume the post of President of one of the more powerful and most aggressive states in the world.

For a simple foreigner such as me, it seems incredible that anyone can vote for a candidate who wishes to go back to the "golden" days when her husband was quite happy to ensure the deaths of so many Iraqis (mainly children) by his ruthless embargo. However, the most extraordinary moment was when she spoke of her "courage" in facing "sniper fire" when visiting Bosnia, and we were then shown television shots of how she had actually been greeted by little girls offering her bunches of flowers.

In case anyone might think that I oppose the choice of a woman as president, I myself voted in May of last year for a female presidential candidate, even though this came about solely because I considered her to be by far the least bad of two very poor remaining choices. Subsequent events seem to have justified my choice to have voted as I did.

I have no reason to write in favour of Mr Obama, of whom I know little so far; but anyone who seems in any way decent must be preferable to either Mr McCain or Mrs Clinton, who seem to me to be two faces of the ruthless rule of corporations which always do anything and everything to subject their country and the whole world to their whims and wishes.

It is sad that the electoral system in the USA is so constructed that it gives such massive power to those who have the greatest financial strength, and thereby gives little hope to the people who have no chance of choosing a ruler who could genuinely represent their interests.

I am also puzzled to learn that Mrs Clinton is determined to fight on to the Democratic Convention, since the only possible result of such a fight appears to be that she will thereby sabotage any hope of her Party's winning the election in November, despite her very recent bravado statement that she will work for whoever is chosen as its candidate.

Can someone please explain to me what is really going on in the USA presidential campaign?

© Copyright 2008 by AxisofLogic.com

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