The US presidential election has come and gone. The majority of Americans have renewed the lease of George W Bush's White House for a second four-year term after which he has to hand over the keys to someone else, comes what may.

To me, the verdict by the American people is similar to our own in our March general election. A case of 'better the devil you know' rather than open up a new can of worms.

Bush may be paranoid, broken every law in his own land and others, snubbed his nose at international opinion, shown utter disrespect to the minority and used the full power of the state apparatus to push his agenda through.

His cronies and friends have benefitted greatly from the war in Iraq and the war repatriation cost by Iraq to Kuwait. Republican cronies have run up billions in cost in Iraq, most of it US tax dollars going into Iraq and back into the pockets of the few American elite.

Just change the words 'George W Bush' to 'Barisan Nasional' and the situation is no different here in Malaysia. All those things mentioned above have also happened here, continue to happen and will carry on happening in the future.

But our electorate has no qualms in returning a regime many think are corrupt, despotic and without morals - though still hugely very popular with the majority.

It would seem that the whole world is slowly but surely moving towards an era of self-preservation and selfish individual needs.

Who cares if the authorities are throwing people in jail without open trial, if police are given extrajudicial powers to shoot and kill people without accountability, if some are hounded for just thinking differently from the majority? (All this happens in both America and Malaysia)

No one cares if 'militants' are jailed under the guise of preventing terrorism. Who cares if those in power help themselves and enrich their cronies as long as 'normal peace' is maintained for the rest of us under the guise of maintaining national security?

In the case of the American election, the only thing I found amazing is that those who suffered most by Sept 11 sided with Kerry while in fairly safe areas went with Bush. Anyway, the results will now be used by Bush as a mandate and also to claim that whatever he did in the past has been vindicated by his people, although that was never the case.

That is also similar to the situation in Malaysia where the general election victory by BN has been taken by them to mean that the rakyat endorses all their policies, which include the abuse of police power and financial resources and the slow but sure devastation of our mental and physical infrastructure.

We have to stop kidding ourselves that justice and fair play matter in the modern world anymore. The future is indeed very bleak for our children unless of course they are 'crony children' without any social conscience in them.

That is the picture of our future generations.