One of the problems in Spanish American political systems is the strong presidential system, a system that does not favour debate. Debate's main purpose in politics is to promote the flow of ideas and the open, fair competition between different views. This is hardly possible when you use ads and speeches that are basically preaches to the choir and monologues to the Nation.
Unfortunately, our main big neighbour to the North, the United States of America, has what is basically a two-party system, where debates between big national leaders is mostly limited to presidential candidates at election time. Canada? Thanks, very much.
I just read a new action film actor is promoting Romney's candidacy: Chuck Norris. So now it's not just the "Make-my-day" man but a martial arts hero. I immediately went to youtube to look for this ad. I didn't find it on my search right away, but I found found something else an interview with him that Fox News made last year.
One of the things that called my attention was how Mr Norris says Obama wants a One World Government. I immediately recognised that crap because I remembered some of the brochures evangelical fundamentalists
from the States used to distribute in Venezuela when I was a child...they still do. In one of those brochures they portray how the end of the world would come. It was something only a very obtuse person who didn't have much idea about the rest of the world could come up with. I was a child back then, but as I was already at least a bit acquainted with the Bible and also had a little bit of idea about "foreign countries" - mostly from reading-, I found the whole thing particularly bananas. The United Nations was part of the One World Government...which was going to be led by the Antichrist. The European Union, back in those days, had 12 member states...so the Baptist evangelicals who designed that brochure came up with the idea of suggesting those stars from the EU represented the stars on the crown worn by the Woman of the Apocalypse. And from this stuff is that Norris is coming from...and that is also why he says Obama is turning the USA into a socialist nation.
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| More widespread than you think |
I checked out further on the Net and saw that Norris is a staunch creationist.
This is really creepy...these are the people representing a large segment of the population in the nation that is still the First Superpower. I am no Obama fan, but if this is what the other half has to offer...
I think the Chinese must be happy with these developments. Or, as the Flemish say, the gringos are goed bezig...or as we say in American Spanish, "no tienen oficio". Oh, boy, this is not the country where Thomas Edison and Richard Feynman grew up. Surely, there are some potential Edisons and Feynmans out there...and they usually dislike politics...but somehow too many people are preferring as role models the Chuck Norris and Clint Eastwoods of this world.