The last gasp for the USA

[historian]

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/24/1085389333860.html
Apart from systematically destroying this country at home, it now appears that our cowboy dung in the white house has managed to wreck the USA in another aspect - complete loss of the high moral ground (which it should never have had in the first place - everything the govt does is for profit anyway - screw the population)

[H2O Man]

1. It will take 25 years

to repair the damages these clowns have done in four years. I believe that it is fair to say that if Kerry does not win in November, the potential for the United States to be great will be but a memory.

[stopbush]

2. And, in 25 years, the USA will no longer be the superpower it is today.

The EU will have passed us in most respects...and I'm not even thinking about China's emerging on the world stage.

We're toast.

[jean]

3. Let's try to imagine and emulate the grit our predecessors had, when

they had to build this country from scratch.

We can hang in and provide the backbone and the voice to reframe and rebuild this great nation.

[stopbush]

5. All well and good, but the rest of the world isn't going to stand

around and wait for us to recover. They're going to move on and pursue their own interests and growth.

What they *won't* be doing is looking to the USA for *moral leadership* (if they ever did) on the world stage. Our cowboy hubris nation has been fully exposed to the world for what it is - an intellectually challenged and empty moral shell.

Like all military powers before us, we have exceeded our capacity to direct and control events. We are spread too thin. But our biggest problems are monetary. We're selling off our country to foreign interests. If the Euro replaces the dollar as the standard for worldwide commerce, we're sunk.

[jean]

6. All your points are well taken. When we get leadership in place, people

who actually live in the real world and have intellect and integrity, the country can start to move forward. Right now we're in a cess pool.

[rucky]

4. Hope not. Blame is squarelyy being placed on Bush GOP-ers.

The world knows what's going on. But we still need to show the world we can step up. But first we need to get Kerry elected.

If that doesn't happen, then I'll agree with you. But Kerry IS our hope for restoring our reputation... and the world's hope for ending the madness.

[Warpy]

7. Getting Kerry in is only the first step

His DOJ will have to have the will to go after the Bush criminals both within government and outside it. There will have to be trials, convictions, and prison terms.

Only then can the US possibly sell the past 4 years as an aberration.

As for regaining any sort of technical edge, the hemorrhage of jobs will have to be stopped, possibly with targeted tariffs against corporations that move jobs overseas but still use the US as their primary (sometimes ONLY) market. A prosperous US workforce will create what it takes to supply research and development: enough tax revenues for grants to universities.

Starting up plants in the third world to sell to the third world is a great idea; mining the US for jobs and expecting to sell to an out of work and increasingly desperate US population is simply unsustainable.

Both going after the Bush gang and going after corporate greed will be tough sells to Congress. We'd better hope to sweep more Democrats into Congress, too.

[rucky]

8. Spot on... Those are the key challenges facing Kerry

and we haven't even gotten into the environment/energy