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Discussing American Politics... Thai Style

1. Al Gore

Came down to the lobby this morning to see my friend S looking at a picture of Al Gore. Now that he's won the Nobel Peace Prize, I guess people here are expected to know who he is.

"Do you know who this is?" he asked.
"Yeah." I said. "It's Al Gore"
"Do you think that he looks fatter now than when he was fighting against Bill Clinton?"
"Erm.." "I don't really think about whether people are fat or not, I think about whether they do a good job."
"Oh..."
"Al Gore didn't fight against Clinton. He was a democrat. He was Bill Clintons Friend"
"Did he fight against Bush ?"
"Yes"
"Did he win?" (me thinking - do I really need to answer this?????)
"No. He didn't."
"He's fatter now. You can see. Look."
"I can't remember what he looked like then. He looks the same to me."
"He's fatter.. Believe me..."
"I think that if Al Gore had been elected, things would have been much better. There probably wouldn't have been a war in Iraq."
"Really ? He's so fat."

2. The Last Presidential Election

The week before last, one of the other teachers at school got hold of a pirate copy of 'An Inconvenient Truth.' I've seen it a couple of times already. It's a great movie. For anyone thats never heard of it, it highlights Al Gore's campaign to make people more aware of global warming (a trendy issue here in Thailand at the moment), and the main culprits.

We'd finished our morning summer school classes and had nothing much to do for the rest of the day, so we sat around watching it for a bit. Our little Thai boss came over, to see what we were laughing at as, despite being a 'serious' documentary, there's some very funny bits in it too.

In one scene, Mr Gore comes on stage, introduces himself and then says, "I'm the man that used to be the next president of the United States."

She asked why we found it so funny. We explained that he was the guy that stood against George Bush, and that, despite 'winning' the election, and getting the popular vote, he lost. George Bush was declared the winner.

'But Everyone knows that George Bush was the winner' she said.

One of the other guys explained what happened in Florida. How Mr Bush had convinced the Republican judges to prevent any futther attempts at a recount. How the country's right wing media pushed for Gore to let it go, labelling him a sore loser. How, later, results had shown that Gore was the real winner, and should have been the next president. How he was cheated out of the victory he'd deserved.

'So George Bush was the real winner' she said.

Create Date : 21 ตุลาคม 2550

Last Update : 21 ตุลาคม 2550 23:25:15 น.

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