Bill Sykes' Newsletter
from America.
(September 2004)
An ex-Brit gives his views-(without fear
or favor)---of the American Scene
A conventional last word:
 The Democratic
Party convention, held in Boston a month or so ago, went
by without undue incident and Senator John Kerry, the Presidential
Candidate and his Vice Presidential Candidate John Edwards
were selected by the Democratic Party convention to fight
the current incumbents of the White House, (President George
W Bush and his Vice President Dick Cheney), for their jobs.
The Republican Party Convention commences in a couple
of day’s time, on Monday the 30th of August 2004,
in the city of New York, and I would say that this convention
will not be without incident. There are a lot of very
angry people out there who are setting out to demonstrate
against the current administration - so, even though
I would say watch out for fireworks, I hope that if there
are any fireworks that they are of the verbal kind and
not the pyrotechnic kind, as a rockets red glare bursting
in air could be indicative of a serious security breech
which could end in a potential disaster. A security cordon
placed around the area of the convention centre has been
aptly named the "Frozen
Zone", perhaps a better description would be the "War
Zone" as I’m sure there is much malcontent
within the expected large crowds of demonstrators who
apparently deplore the methods employed by the Bush Administrations
in the handling of the Iraq and Afghan war situations,
the current state of the American economy, and also the
financial burdens being placed upon the American citizens
by the ever increasing national debt.
 The security for the Democratic convention was given
a "high" alert
status, but I’m sure that the security for the Republican convention
will be given a "sky high" alert status, causing much disruption
to the activities of the general publics in their lack of access to certain
areas of the city of New York.
The cost to the people of New York for security at the convention has been
estimated to be around 300M dollars.
Yep, you’re quite right, three hundred million dollars. I would suggest
that this is a lot of money for a circus event, even if the finale of that
event involves the release of lots of balloons, (balloons can be dangerous
things if insufficient security is applied to the supervision of those who
are responsible for filling the balloons, and particularly the kind of gas
used for inflation purposes), just thought that this deserved a comment for
obvious reasons.
 Political clowns, dressed for the part will obviously
make some people chuckle and some people groan. Indeed
there will be times when any Democrat who admits to listening
to, or watching the Republican Convention, will burst
into outrageous laughter at what maybe they consider
to be less than believable speeches containing unbelievable
promises coming from some of the delegates at the podium.
But there again, let me be fair, the Democrats did the same thing at their
convention - whether
we like it or not, I’m afraid that it’s all part of the American
way of choosing a President.
If you are still reading this somewhat satirical and liberal interpretation
of the American way of choosing a President of the United States, perhaps
you should now take a well-earned "time out" in order to regain
some degree of composed relaxation from the cultural shock of the different
way this nation chooses its highest Executive, and breath a huge sigh of
relief that you the voting public in Great Britain and Europe don’t
have to go through the same performance and somewhat humiliating experience.
We welcome feedback about any of the contents of these
newsletters. Please send all correspondence to bill_sykes@huddersfield1.co.uk
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