The reasons why this nasty US presidential campaign is so symptomatic of our time

There is something fascinating but also very symptomatic at play than just another election time behind the current US presidential campaign this year: not only Obama has been represented since his 2007 win as a new figure (domestically & abroad) of change (including a new approach to foreign policy that would revolutionize the world order…) but also the way the contrast between his administration& the GOP has sharpened a bold & polarizing policy gap when it comes to a various range of contemporary issues that every developed country faces beyond local differences: from his a response to a major economic downturn to his bold health care reform to his positions when it comes to the Middle-East peace process, the war on terror, fledging democracies through the Arab spring or China’s behavior in global trading practices…
In many ways, Obama’s assessment & handling of this very unique set of 21st century challenges is playing as an illustration of an ideology of change & hope vs  what the other camp describes as a pragmatic & fiscally driven political platform…

In this context, every pundit & pollster has been insisting in the past 6 months that the economy would be the number 1 issue that would drive the campaign debate & the result of the election: yet, what we have seen for the past 8 weeks proves that:

1. the debate between the 2 elections camps has successively shifted from Taxes , welfare programs to foreign policy (Middle East, what to do with Iran, Syria or Egypt…) to Medicare/Obama care to racial divide, Gay rights or abortion or Immigration…the latest focus on Medicare coming in the wave of Paul Ryan, the Republican’s VP nominee & architect of a drastic deficit reduction plan & alternative to Obamacare…
2.  as there is no denying that these shifts have been driven by the Obama campaign trying to understandably deflect the debate from a mixed if not unconvincing track record on the economic front...
3. what plays out & is sometimes plain screaming is a fundamental wedge between 2 very different ideological platforms underlying these various issues: in one hand more government control & regulation, entitlement & wellfare, social engineering & redistribution of wealth... in the other individual freedom first, free entreprise & opportunity to financial success & wealth, limited government with fiscal responsibility, American pride & exceptionnalism in the world...

So no wonder this election is getting so nasty: both the ideological vision and the impact of the themes on citizens and future generations are such that they can shape or help avoid life-or-death events  such as 3rd World War -either stemming from the Middle-East or other rogue terrorism , plain bankruptcy for the most powerful economies –Europe or the US- or not much less dramatically, a decent and sustainable heath & pension scheme , a balanced Federal government & regulation that guarantees basic  individual freedoms, the universal access to employment opportunity or home ownership that once defined the American dream…
So it is only human that people get more emotional & intense when the welfare, safety or integrity of their living and their children are at stake: you would also argue that there is so much campaign money and that politics marketing has reached a never seen before level- thanks to the Supreme court- that amplifies the national & global online buzz through now ripe & scaled social media instruments…after all, even the global Procter & Gamble or Unilever machines don’t get half-Billion dollar budgets to launch their products !
Also through in the fledging superpower status that the USA once had  and who is still trying to champion in the name of American exceptionalism...which still makes for a global model  & lab experiment that all other nations love to hate & scrutinize.

So is it a good or a bad thing and should d it come to a surprise that we find ourselves in one of the nastiest campaign ?
Not so surprising given the nature of times, maybe a revealing & symptomatic tipping point in this new 21st century.
One thing is sure, whatever the eventual result of this US election: we now live in a global debate landscape where iconic figures fight hard & dirty for  a universal model of society in which we want to live…quite the opposite of multiculturalism  laissez-faire & free-form multi-local social experiments from the 70 and 80’s that were marked by the fragmentation & eventual explosion of a bipolar world giving birth to many colors of politics both in terms of style, nation leaders and models…
Consolidation, ideology & global salvation are the defining trends of this half century, like it or not.

The natural order of the world

Spending time theses days at our South Florida house in this torid hot summer, I get to see many little things around the house, by the pool, our canal & tropical garden and can't stop marveling at the incredible complexity & interconnections that are at work everyday: lezards come out early morning on the tile to munch on insects, ants or mosquitoes...the same lezards are sometimes picked up by a bird...this same bird can be the pray of a cat or a bigger bird like hawks that we see flying in the sky or just eying potential prays from the top of a high palm tree...Even the Moscuvy ducks seem to be part of the chain by picking on maggots, mosquitoes or algea while roaming on the grass or in the water...Some of these ducks get eaten by bigger fish in the canal while manatee will eat grass...
The point is that, anywhere in the middle of the African jungle or Amazonian forrest or South Florida subburbia, it's the same overall balance of nature through an unforgivingly harsh yet effective natural selection circle...and despite the crualty of it in some forms, you still marvel at the fact that all of this keeps everyhting in balance and makes sense for the cycle of life.The major disruptions come from humans when they imported a few pet pythons 30 years ago (now in the thousands in the Everglades and a major nuisance left unchecked as they have no natural predator) or iguanas...
The human race is the only one that has the power to help each other & other species...to rescue, save them or nurture...We are the only animal that has developed the skills to prevent diseases, develop technologies & know-how aimed to save...that's why mortality rates around the globe are decreasing & our planet's global population is getting to a crazy 7 billion-it was a mere 3 billion when I was in school-: you have to wonder if this planet has the natural resources necessary to accomadate this growing population in a sustainable way...? That is probably the most crucial & underrated question of this new 21st century that nobody seems to embrace at its real magnitude.
So how do we recognize the magic natural order of nature while embracing & managing the consequenes of human intelligence, sensibility & progress ? that is probably on of the most underrated questions of this century...