Thanks for the pat on the back, FC
You're free to discuss the Dutroux trial, I will gladly bring input. However, I am not closely watching it, it is being distorted way too much by history and the media.
By the way, elections are coming up in june as well. We have more political parties than you do in the states, but they all suck for some reason or the other... On a sidenote, voting is required by law in Belgium, so we have a 100% population turn up.
I guess I could start participating in some of the discussions again, trying to cristallize my point of view and pour it into a well-formulated post. However, I am still an outsider, which means I have limited understanding and knowledge of US homeland politics, and everyone else zero understanding and knowledge of belgian politics and habits. Sure, you can Google for "Belgium + <incriminating fact>" and come up with articles to throw in my face (it's happened before), but I feel it still doesn't allow you to write like you know everything which is local to me, and try to prove me wrong.
This feeling probably will work both ways, which is why I'm not sure how my comments are being interpretated, since they are coming from "this dude from that little country that sounds like it's France". Which is what I'm trying to avoid alltogether.
However, I still think this is a fairly mature forum, so there
should be enough margin for me to participate. I'm not sure if there is, though.
To Lothar & Drakona, (and as a proof of our differences in local politics). Belgium is a federal state, just like the US. Flanders is a federal state (6million inhabitants), Brussels as a city is one (1million), and wallonia is one (3million). We have a federal government and a regional one for each of these federal states. Even though we are a small country, we have a complicated political system. Now, in the flanders politics there are several parties (which have their counterpart in the brussels and wallonia state). What we call "right" is liberal, what we call "left" is socialist. On the central-right side, you have the VLD, which are the liberals currently in power (blue political color). Centrum-left you have SP.A (red) which is the socialist party (also in power, in a coalition with the VLD). There are also the green party (called Groen!), a party called Spirit which is in a cartel with SP.A, also the nationalist party called NV-A (right, yellow) which has formed a cartel with the christian democrats (orange). Then you have the ultra-right facist party called Vlaams Blok (also orange) which has recently been succesfully tried in court on grounds of racism.
There are smaller parties but they are either of too little importance or already in a cartel with a similar, bigger party.
So, we have a very complicated political system. We have more choice when we vote, also. We have an opposition who is watching and criticizing the ones in power.
What I wanted to say, Lothar says this board needs more left views. I would fall under that criteria, since I don't stand for what right stands for. However, right seems to have another meaning here, because according to the belgian political landscape, I am liberal, thus oriented towards the center-right side.