Let me say clearly I don’t hate any country per see. True I’m less than enamoured with much of the USA administrations’ foreign policies and their Mega corps practices (both are unrepresentive but powerful minorities).
Clearly they are NOT the majority of the people any more that a Liberal or Labour government is necessarily representative of ALL Australians. Elections are a choice between a bunch of someone else’s compromises (lesser of evils)

rpg said The world would not be a better place, I believe, if the US went back to being an insular country unengaged with the world.

I almost agree but not quite for the reasons rpg gives.
I would submit that consecutive administrations’ policies have indeed been insular. They don’t recognize the international courts or many international treaties. The Bush regime tried to spin the Geneva Convention and lied about WMDs for what ever reason. Previous regimes have indulged invasions for their own interests to the detriment of the local. e.g. Latin America and the Banana wars (gun boat diplomacy), overthrowing almost countless sovereign country regimes because they weren’t favourable to them. Brazil and the coffee wars, war against terrorism etc.

Is this any different to the Brits, French, Germans, Spanish and Australia etc? No.

These excesses are simply more current and/or bigger.

I think rpg means isolationist. That would be a disaster both them and the world because no one can unscramble the egg, but they could however, rein in their administrations’ and mega Corps excesses.

I agree with Cazza and others with the fact that this and other elections are becoming negative rather than informative. In this way the ruling elites the political parties and their corporate sponsors can and do control the agenda and the popular opinion. Its easier to frighten than inform. But all governments are about control not equality some are simply more devious about it.
PS I’m not a conspiracy nut just a realist. Human nature is that we want control/power because it promises our gene survival. (Richard Dawkins' 'Selfish Gene').

aaaargh - yes, I meant isolationist Examinator, you are correct - on top of that brain block, I pushed post instead of review, which is why the spelling and everything was a bit of a mess - call it a senior moment and we'll be even.

My fear is that if the US is not there, something else may fill the void, that we may not like as much (or as little) - I guess I'm used to and happy with the US I know. As I mentioned, I travel there a lot for business and find them an easy people to get along with on an individual basis.

Their brand of politics is so much biased by their local politics which we don't understand very well e.g. they can raise changes to law at a local level that we cannot even image on a country wide scale, which is what we're used to. it is a very very different system that we cannot compare to our own and lose all perspective when we do.

It's not just America that has an image problem, Australia is right up there with them, all b it differently. With Costello out of the road it paves the way for the bloke in Mildura to hit Canberra. Then there will be two like minded pollys in the top job.