"It is a law of nature that whatever is big in the US becomes big in the UK a short while later...'I hate conservatives, but I really hate liberals.'"

While a little older, this piece was interesting because of the two points that it drove home for me:

One, America is the cultural leader and while we still take "cue"'s from across the pond, Great Britain follows us just as much, and if not more. Two, the younger generation of Americans, those that could vote just last time or maybe will start next time, are just as fed up with the liberal party as they are with the conservatives.

As far as number one goes, it makes sense to me. We follow European trends and we like to think that things in Europe are hip and new and cool, but they follow us as well. It's not just about the clothes, but the TV shows and the movies and the parties and the drugs. No one group - american or european - leads continuously in this. We play off each other, each trying to come up with something bigger and better. This is all done with media, the ideas and styles crossing the thousands of miles through movies and TV. I think at this point and time we don't even realize how intertwined our culture's are – it's just a part of life.

Number two is a little more complicated. There are a lot of youths that don't like Bush or his policies or his wars. But a lot of these same kids want nothing to do with the liberal party either, fed up with their inability to pull together or win an election or get their laws passed. I don't know if this means we'll eventually pick sides and join the rat race, or if we'll fight the system and come up with a different way to get what we want done. In any case, it doesn't speak well of our politicians if the people they're supposed to be recruiting as voters want nothing to do with them. I think that this is driven home by the media's constant message of "look what these people are doing wrong!" on both sides. There isn't a whole lot of them doing their job well – we don't usually care, then. All we see is when they screw up and the shit is about to hit the fan.