calculon00 said:
People have the right to not vote as well, that's what makes it a free country. Not like that facist police state Australia, where they fine you $50 for not voting!
We are much more democratic than most countries and you don't have to vote, just go to the polling booth. I think that everyone should vote as it gives you real power, however small, to influence the running of your country. However, the 'donkey' vote is a great Australian tradition. People just scribble all over the ballot paper and drop it in. Australians are also more fit than Americans. At least you have to get some exercise walking to the polling station.
Bush can't conscript people, as it would be political suicide. I just hope that Bush doesn't manage to convince people that the next war will only take a day or two and be no problem. I think it is more likely that people are trying to convince him of things rather than the other way round.
I don't believe there will only be only one superpower, but multipolarity. Here are my predictions, although there is no time frame.
The EU will be the first major competitor with the US for economic and military power. They are well organised and well educated, but will be hindered initially by the poorer Eastern European members. But, they do provide cheap labour, and if Turkey gets in, man power for the military. I think that all the Franco-German hatred is wishful thinking on America's part.
India will emerge next, as they have a large and well educated elite which works for peanuts. Vitally, they speak English and have elements of British institutions and democracy which gives them a huge advantage in business. They are already taking over the electronics industry. I find it scary that specialists with the equivalent of a PHD work on a janitor's salary. How do you compete with that? They will still have their problems with ethnic tensions, but money will become more important. Cricket reminds everyone that they are all people.
China will slowly and steadily become a more efficient system and become an economic superpower similar to India, but with the advantage of more government control. Democracy will develop to a small extent until they realise that government control is not an advantage, and communism will quietly and gradually die.
To try to keep up with the others, American will try to form even closer economic ties with the other nations in latin America, with some success. They will not lose their monopoly on power and undergo an economic recession which forces them to be a bit less wasteful, but by conning South America, they manage to stay in the game.
Russia will be too late, as America will sabotage anything which might let it gain power. It will be preoccupied with dealing with its own internal problems.
Tensions over some problem, be it Taiwan, Pakistan or plain old imperialism will set the stage for World War III, involving most everyone. Then the multinational companies will intervene and stop it. The growing level of globalisation, economically and with information transfer really has made the world closer at this point, and it is too expensive and damaging to everyone's economy to have a war with the possibility of a nuclear exchange. Everyone is interrelated and nationalism loses its relative importance.
But that is my optimistic theory.
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