[Sir Taliesin]

Originally posted by john: We can thank George Bush for setting us back years in in international relations,environmental causes,the U.S.economy,and the trust of Americans towards their government.Great job George,now take your retirement money and go home!!

I can agree somewhat with what you have said, but not toally. The "Old European" powers were also looking for some reason to buck the US, because we are now seen as the only legitimite Super Power. It's only natural that some one rise to challenge us. If the European Union is to ever have any real power it must challenge the US and try to also become a Super Power. I think that is what is behind alot of the "offically" (read France, Germany and Beligium) led challenges from that quarter. BTW I don't mean anything negative by the term "Old European". It just descibes the older member states in the EU as opposed to say Poland or some of the other Eastern Block Countries that just joined.

It's my opinion that the Old NATO alliance will cease to exist, except maybe on paper in the next 25 years. I don't ever again see us being as close as we were prior to last summer.

Personally, I'd be quite happy to see the EU become a Super Power, especially if it off-sets China.

The economy was going down the tubes when Dubya took over. The Tech Stock Bubble had burst already and the whole market was on the way down. CEOs and COOs across the board were looking for ways to show a profit for their existing stockholders. So jobs got cut and companies got conservative and quit spending lots of money trying to grow their companies, which caused the economy to spirial on down even more.

As far as trust in the Government going down, you can go blame Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Reagan (Can you say Iran/Contra? I thought ya could.)for that. I don't think anyone really trusted the Government much after those four got done with it. Clinton didn't help much either with "I didn't inhale" (yeah right!!!) and "I never had sex with that woman" (Blew there Big Boy and got caught didn't ya). Bush just didn't help it along very much.

Anyway just my little ole pennies.