Thursday 25 November 2004

Pic of the day: ... therefore I must necessarily vote Republican. (Screenshot from the anime Final Approach.)

Thanks, but no thanks

Once again it is Thanksgiving over in the United States of America. And more than ever, most of of us Europeans are thankful to NOT live there. (This certainly does not apply to the same degree to people living in dirt-poor third-world countries. Those continue to flock to America, but then again they continue to flock to Europe too. When you lack money for food and clothes, you don't have much time for politics.)

In this month's election, the American people showed its true face. The American people's true face is almost 60 years old. The "baby boomers" were conceived in the happy days after the end of World War 2, when the soldiers came home. (Well, most of them came home. ) This made the children special emotionally as well as by sheer weight of numbers. Never had there been such a cohort of Americans born at the same time. It was only natural that they were treated as special, and so it was only natural that they came to see themselves as special. The old laws of society did not quite apply to them, and so we got the sexual revolution and free love and experimenting with drugs.

The baby boomers had a life to enjoy, and so took their sweet time settling down and having kids of their own. But they did, and got nice jobs, and the years passed. But when their own children grew up and started to take "free love" to its logical conclusion, the parents were not amused. (Not that parents ever are when their kids grow up.) And so they became republicans and voted for the guy who sends (poor, so far) kids to kill and die in some far off country. Perhaps when the survivors return from the New Crusades, there will be another baby boom, and history will repeat itself. "Those who don't learn from history should major in something else."

So today's Americans are richer than before, although some of their riches are on paper only and can vanish overnight. They are definitely fatter than ever before, and this will likely take months at least to get off. But they are no happier than before. And they are no more thankful.