But whether its Clinton or Trump, let me pass on the opening paragraphs of well-known Australian writer Don Watson who was commissioned to write an essay on this coming US presidential elections in 2016.
This is what Wikipedia says about Don Watson (extracts and edited because of length): Watson took his undergraduate degree at La Trobe University and a PhD at Monash University[1] and was for ten years an academic historian. He wrote three books on Australian history. For several years he wrote political speeches for the then Premier of Victoria, John Cain. In 1992 he became Prime Minister of Australia Paul Keating's speech-writer and adviser and his best-selling account of those years, Recollections of a Bleeding Heart: A Portrait of Paul Keating PM, won both The Age Book of the Year and non-fiction Prizes, the Courier Mail Book of the Year, the National Biography Award and the Australian Literary Studies Association's Book of the Year. In addition to regular books, articles and essays.
His 2001 Quarterly Essay Rabbit Syndrome: Australia and America won the inaugural Alfred Deakin Prize in the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards. Death Sentence, his book about the decay of public language, was also a best seller and won the Australian Booksellers Association Book of the Year. Watson's Dictionary of Weasel Words was published in 2004 and continued to encourage readers to renounce what he perceives to be meaningless corporate and government jargon that is spreading throughout Australia, and to embrace meaningful, precise language. More recently, Watson contributed the preface to a selection of Mark Twain's writings, The Wayward Tourist.
American Journeys is a narrative of modern America from Watson's travels in the United States following Hurricane Katrina. It was published by Knopf in 2008 and won both The Age Book of the Year non-fiction and Book of the Year awards. It also won the 2008 Walkley Award for the best non-fiction book.
In 2014 The Bush: Travels in the Heart of Australia was published to critical acclaim for its content and for the beauty and effectiveness of Watson's writing. It is a combination of personal and family memoir, travelogue, history, natural history and reflection in which Watson invites readers to ponder the bush and its place in the story of Australia and Australians, both Indigenous and post-1788 arrivals and their descendants, those of the past and those of today.
This is what Wikipedia says about Don Watson (extracts and edited because of length): Watson took his undergraduate degree at La Trobe University and a PhD at Monash University[1] and was for ten years an academic historian. He wrote three books on Australian history. For several years he wrote political speeches for the then Premier of Victoria, John Cain. In 1992 he became Prime Minister of Australia Paul Keating's speech-writer and adviser and his best-selling account of those years, Recollections of a Bleeding Heart: A Portrait of Paul Keating PM, won both The Age Book of the Year and non-fiction Prizes, the Courier Mail Book of the Year, the National Biography Award and the Australian Literary Studies Association's Book of the Year. In addition to regular books, articles and essays.
His 2001 Quarterly Essay Rabbit Syndrome: Australia and America won the inaugural Alfred Deakin Prize in the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards. Death Sentence, his book about the decay of public language, was also a best seller and won the Australian Booksellers Association Book of the Year. Watson's Dictionary of Weasel Words was published in 2004 and continued to encourage readers to renounce what he perceives to be meaningless corporate and government jargon that is spreading throughout Australia, and to embrace meaningful, precise language. More recently, Watson contributed the preface to a selection of Mark Twain's writings, The Wayward Tourist.
American Journeys is a narrative of modern America from Watson's travels in the United States following Hurricane Katrina. It was published by Knopf in 2008 and won both The Age Book of the Year non-fiction and Book of the Year awards. It also won the 2008 Walkley Award for the best non-fiction book.
In 2014 The Bush: Travels in the Heart of Australia was published to critical acclaim for its content and for the beauty and effectiveness of Watson's writing. It is a combination of personal and family memoir, travelogue, history, natural history and reflection in which Watson invites readers to ponder the bush and its place in the story of Australia and Australians, both Indigenous and post-1788 arrivals and their descendants, those of the past and those of today.
In his latest work on the Trump-Clinton election for Quarterly Essay (quite an expensive lil' magazine) he wrote 'Enemy Within - American politics in the time of Trump' he penned as the first paragraph:
Every four years the people of the United States of America choose the person most likely to keep them free and safe; and best placed to decide what their country's interests are and how they should be pursued. Among those interests are the interest of national security, which means they are in effect choosing the person who will decide who should be spied upon, selectively bombed or invaded, and who left alone; who should live and who should die; if life on the planet should continue or pretty much cease.
Every four years the people of the United States of America choose the person most likely to keep them free and safe; and best placed to decide what their country's interests are and how they should be pursued. Among those interests are the interest of national security, which means they are in effect choosing the person who will decide who should be spied upon, selectively bombed or invaded, and who left alone; who should live and who should die; if life on the planet should continue or pretty much cease.
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Vietnamese children, victims of US weapons |
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Palestinian children, victims of US weapons (delivered by Israel) |
If such is the power of the USA, shouldn't its President be chosen by the people of the world rather than just the Americans?
And a word of advice for Palestinians who want to have their own state, a Penang Hokkien word for them, namely, taan koo koo, for Israel is guaranteed blind backing by 95 million out of 230 million US voters. Which US President dares to ignore Israel and support Palestine?
Even Benjamin Netanyahu had been so arrogant as to ignore Obama and talked directly to Congress.
To be President of the USA is to lord over the world, except for Israel who instead lords over the USA.
To be President of the USA is to lord over the world, except for Israel who instead lords over the USA.
Clinton is not popular with the Americans. About 70% of the voters feel that she is untrustworthy and dishonest. And the yankees don't like a woman to be bossing them around. Personally, I don't like her too because she voted for Iraq war and just look what is Iraq today? I think Trump would be the next President. Let's watch the reality show in November. Four more years of Democrats? You must be kidding. They have already got enough!
ReplyDeleteIt's a choice between bullshit and cow dung.
ReplyDeleteYes Trump will be the next President
ReplyDeleteTrump will be the next president, so the so-called progressives and Hillary supporters had better get prepared for this reality and stop lapping up vapid Hollywood liberal crap. The fact is that nobody likes Hillary while Trump is a change of pace. There's a global rise in conservatism from Europe to Asia, and America will lean towards the right too.
ReplyDeleteThis US Presidential Election is a choice between bad and worse.
ReplyDeleteTrump is...well... Trump. Unfit to be President, but many Americans are sick and tired of the Establishment.
Hilary Clinton represents some of the worst aspects of the US Establishment.
If Trump weren't such an unacceptable candidate, Clinton's history of as a manipulative and ethically dubious leader would be a big issue in the elections. Many, many people distrust her.
Unfortunately, it looks like the first US woman President is going to be poor specimen of a person.
A big contrast to UK's first woman Prime Minister, the Iron Lady.
I'm neither really pro-American or anti-Russian, but I do prefer balanced views on international affairs.
So, in the interest of balanced commentary, here goes the counterpoint to Ktemoc's photos ...
a) Syrian children killed by Russian Air Strike 2016
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/QYmZ5bC4Ic4/maxresdefault.jpg
b) Kurdish children, Halabja, victims of Soviet weapons , 1988 (chemical attack airstrike delivered by Saddam Hussein's Iraq)
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CAKxrcxXIAAea4a.png