Obama For President

The thing is these days things are never quite bad enough. Terrorism has not got to a stage where drastic measures have been required. 911 came close yet there was little or no follow up by the terrorists on US soil. Whether this has been by design or sheer incompetence on their part has not been established. I suspect the latter yet the level of hostility has remained at such a low level that it has become tolerable, like a small thorn in the foot. – it doesn’t require amputation. This has worked out well for Osama Bin Laden as he has been able to remain unscathed in his safe havens – not really dangerous enough to warrant the invasion of Pakistan. Clever? Or just lucky?

Nevertheless Bush has failed to destroy OBL and the people will probably choose a different party this time around. A while ago I suggested that a project be set up on the scale of the Manhattan Project to develop new weapons and techniques specifically to catch or eliminate the al Qaeda top leadership. As far as I am aware this was never done and the Bush legacy will pay the price for this defeat.

Some Republicans and Bush supporters are now looking at Obama in the hope of some change across the board. Things either need to get worse or get better and Obama offers more chance of that than McCain does. McCain will be just same old, same old.

I would suggest just get on and enjoy the ride. If things get worse then so be it, because things need to get worse for anything major to change. Against all odds things might even get better and people will be surprised. The odds are that things will change little even with Obama at the helm because Presidents are more reflections of the times they live in than anything else and nations lurch on, on an almost preset path to their destiny.

New Zealanders vote for Obama as next US president

New Zealand Herald -A new poll suggests New Zealanders want Barack Obama to beat Hillary Clinton for the Democrat presidential nomination.
A poll of New Zealanders asking who they would like to see run against Republican John McCain in the US election revealed 47 per cent chose Obama, compared to 31 per cent supporting Hillary Clinton.
The telephone survey involved 750 people aged 18 and over, interviewed between April 24 and May 1.
Results mirrored trends in the US, where Obama's core supporters are black, wealthy and the young, while Clinton's are white, working class and older, were mirrored in New Zealand.
Maori and Pacific Island voters preferred Obama, as did New Zealanders under the age of 45.
Clinton was more popular amongst blue collar voters.
There was not much difference between genders.

The poll found National and Labour voters recorded almost identical results with National voters preferring Obama 44 per cent to 33 per cent and Labour voters preferring him 47 per cent to 33 per cent.
And it seems National voters in New Zealand swing to the left when contemplating US politics, with 55 per cent preferring Obama over McCain (20 per cent) and 53 per cent preferring Clinton to McCain (25 per cent).

The Real Reason for the American War of Independence

Native Americans and the Crown

In 1763 the English King, George III, became distressed about the way native lands were being handled in America. This resulted in the Proclamation Line of 1763 which was an attempt to protect Native American lands from uncontrolled European settlement. The Proclamation stated, "Colonists could not live beyond the top ridge line of the Appalachian Mountains". The proclamation established the precedent that the indigenous population had certain rights to the lands they occupied. This greatly upset some colonists as they had already begun to settle there.

A quick look at the map above (click to enlarge) shows that the colonies at this time comprised a fraction of the continent occupying only the eastern coastal regions. To the west lay a vast land ripe for exploitation. The British Crown either wanted to keep all new land to the west for itself or was starting to develop a conscience regarding the treatment of native peoples. Cynics would argue the former however subsequent activities by the British such as banning the Atlantic slave trade and the Treaty of Waitangi in New Zealand would suggest the latter. For the United States to become a great nation with its own empire stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific it would be necessary to throw off the yoke of British Imperialism. Britain would always have imperial interests at heart making treaties and proclamations with whomever it chose. The Treaty of Quebec was another such document that caused anger in the colonies. Continued British rule would hinder the expansion of the American colonies to the west and war was inevitable.

The British Crown represented the last hope of the Native American people for keeping their land. They were under no illusions that American revolutionaries would observe treaties or proclamations without the law and order that the British Crown provided. Many of the leaders of the American Revolution, such as George Washington and Daniel Boone, were wealthy land speculators who had much to gain by establishing a new government that would not be bound by British treaties with the Indians.

The American War of Independence started in 1775. An estimated 13,000 warriors fought on the British side; the largest group, the Iroquois Confederacy, fielded about 1,500 men.

Many Tuscarora and the Oneida sided with the Americans, while the Mohawk, Seneca, Onondaga and Cayuga remained loyal to Great Britain. After a series of successful operations against frontier settlements, led by the Mohawk war chief Joseph Brant, other war chiefs, and British allies; the United States reacted with vengeance. In 1779, George Washington ordered the Sullivan Campaign led by Col. Daniel Brodhead and General John Sullivan against the Iroquois nations to "not merely overrun, but destroy," the British-Indian alliance. Unfortunately for the Native Americans the revolutionaries had won the American War of Independence.

This war caused a great deal of trouble for the British sparking the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, Second Anglo-Mysore War in India, Siege of Gibraltar by the Spanish, numerous battles with French and Spanish forces to keep control of the West Indies and so on. The Spanish, Dutch and French swooped in to assist the revolutionaries taking the opportunity to take advantage of Britain. It took the British years to deal to these European powers and restore order to the world. At the Battle of Trafalgar the British crushed French and Spanish naval forces. British forces invaded continental Europe to rid it of French tyranny.

By 1812 they were on their way to finally defeating the French when the United States invaded Canada. Again Native Americans fought on the side of the British. Canadian Indians, Colonial militia and British troops repelled the Americans and crossed into the United States. Tecumseh, a famous Shawnee chief joined British Major-General Sir Isaac Brock to force the surrender of Detroit in August 1812, a major victory for the British. The Creek Indians also battled against American forces in the south.

Even after 36 years of independence many Indians were willing to fight to restore the Crowns dominion over America. Unfortunately for the Native Americans the British gained nothing from the War of 1812 and accepted that America was lost. As the British forces returned to Canada some Indians sought refuge there, others would see the retreating Royal Navy ships vanish along with hopes of a better life under British law.

The Native American struggle would continue for almost a century however archaic notions of tribal lands and hunting grounds had no real place in a rising modern America. The wars had served to strengthen America’s self-reliance, greatly increasing industrial and war waging capability. Settlers established a society where private ownership and industry were paramount and the United States completed its conquest unhindered, subduing the Indians, the Spanish-Mexicans and themselves in the Civil War to finally create the great United States of America we see today.