I need to stop with the politics talk. It's a strange sort of masochistic thing I do... I have too many liberal friends so I seek out right-wing opinion and am totally shocked when people admit to thinking that our current administration is OK. This is so mind-blowing to me that I question things, but usually this just enrages people.
I think the internet is a lot like email in that tone does not come across as it should. If I put three question marks after a phrase, it's not because I want to make it look like I'm really upset, but it's because I really just don't understand how the hell you could think that. Please clarify.
Anyway. I really hope our country doesn't go down the shithole. I don't know if Americans living in the US are aware of how much esteem we have lost on the international scene. Not a day goes by that I don't enter into some conversation with people about our government. Most people just want to know "Why?" It's terrifying that I don't have an answer for them. About anything. Even armed with the facts, I can't justify our country's current actions.
The kids at my high school felt such venom towards the Bush administration that they would stop me in the halls to talk about it. These were obviously views that they learned from those around them - parents, friends, and family. I had nothing to defend our country. "Uh... I think Bush wanted Hussein's oil?" That was the best I could do. I would like to know what a Bush supporter would say to a fifteen-year-old Maroccan kid living in the projects outside Paris who doesn't understand why we're in Iraq. Would they say some bullshit about the WMD? Because this kid reads his newspapers, and knows there weren't any. Would they say Hussein was a threat, and needed to be "disarmed"? Because this kid knows that there are several other leaders of other nations that are considered dictators.
These kids aren't idiots. They read the papers and stay up to date. I cannot defend my country's actions to them.
Maybe I'm incredibly naive. I'm trying to learn some languages to converse with people. Going to new places, I am always afraid to admit I am American, and I hope that language can bridge the gap that my nationality creates. But overall, I feel that people are moving away from understanding and towards hatred. Am I the only one who feels that things are going backwards?
I have friends from all walks of life... and I really mean that. People often say that if they have one black friend or one gay friend, but I'm swimming in a hodgepodge where I sometimes feel I'm the only one like me. It's great to get lost in a sea of different colors, sizes, languages, and cultures. I lose myself and learn more about others. The more I pull myself away from the country I once knew, the more I see Americans as frighteningly xenophobic. It scares me that our culture - one that I suppose I always saw as so open and inviting - is actually the most closed on earth.
I'm so sad for our country. I'm so scared for our future. Sometimes, I hesitate to say I am American. It means I have to explain, again, why we are in Iraq (I don't know). How it is that we don't have universal health care (still a mystery to me). How it is we still have the death penalty, again (I'm anti, but what can I do?).
We need a change. From half the world away, I can feel it. People around me are praying for a change, for the good of the world. Africans, Arabs, Asians, South Americans, Europeans... everyone except the Americans.
I like your open mind. Truth, I think, needs to be the bottom line.
All hope isn't lost yet.
I am also shocked when people think Bush is doing an okay job, or even worse, that they plan on voting for him.
I'm not a politics expert on any accord, but I realize that international relations are fucked with him at the helm; it is time for a change. Many people, as you said, do not realize the contempt that is felt towards America from everywhere else. And some of these people that I've seen respond to criticisms of USA with, "you're just jealous of us." Yeah, right.
Living so close to Canada, it's always a thought for me that is there.
Yeah, I sometimes feel slightly the same - a little ashamed to be British. I live in a country where a million people can protest outside Parliament, and our Prime Minister will still ignore us and continue kissing Bush's arse.
I agree with what you said - the result of this election won't just affect Americans, it'll affect the whole world. And hopefully in a good way...
I empathize and have a suggested response. The bottom line is that the Bush administratio really thinks that the long term solution to conflict in the Middle East and the terrorism born of poverty and ignorance is flourishing democracies. Unfortunately, they somehow believed that they could create democracy through war, they forgot that people are proud, that being "liberated by force" is offensive, that their basic needs have to be met before they think about what form of government is best, that democracy emerges from the will of the people and can't be imposed from on high.
The sold Americans on the invasion by pitching a powerful combination of fear (they've got WMD) and goodness (we have a more responsibility - Saddam's evil). It was an all out campaign of to manipulate public opinion using the combined power of the executive and judicial branches of government. And that came so closely after 9/11, when we had such a need to believe in the wisdom of our government, that we fell for it. For God's sake, just a year ago more than 60% of Americans though Saddam was involved in 9/11!
And so here we are. Most Americans know we shouldn't have gone into Iraq, but now that we're there we have a moral obligation to stay until our departure doesn't result in civil war or total chaos. The country still gets its regular diet of fear and "spread freedom" messages from the Bush administration. It's easy to swallow and hard to rebut.
Tell your friends from outside the states that Bush isn't America, that there are millions of us who share their dismay, and that we're doing what we can to bring America back into the world community. Ask them not to hate us, but to root for us to find our way back to the country we can be.
And have a great month long vacation (I'm SO jealous).