What do the rest of the world think about America and americans?
MSNBC decided to try to find out by interviewing people from around the world. The views were mixed (and predictable?) – a model of freedom and democracy at home and a violent oppressor and suppressor of those same human rights abroad
What surprises me most, in viewing the clip, is how varied opinions of the U.S. are. The Palestinian is against the U.S., for obvious reasons; the Israeli is for the U.S. for the same obvious reasons. The Chinese love the U.S. because they benefit from it. And the Cubans are against it because they don’t. In Kenya–as in just about every other country in the world, the U.S. is seen through the rose-colored-glasses of American television and film. One man mentions that everybody says they’d like to go to America, not to a different country like Australia. Yet millions of Americans would rather live in a country like Australia. A Cuban calls America an “empire”. And though I certainly wouldn’t want to live in a totalitarian state like Cuba, he’s absolutely right. This country is an empire, in all but name. And it’s falling, just like every empire before it. Many Americans think this is the greatest country in the world. But that’s a subjective term, there is no greatest country in the world. However, arguably the U.S. was the best influence of any country in the world from 1776 (1783) to 1917. But in 1917, President Wilson went against his isolationist ideals, and allowed the U.S. to become involved in a foreign war in which it had absolutely no business. And this, especially beginning with the atrocious treatment of Germany in the Treaty of Versailles in 1918, began a chain reaction that is the root cause of most of the world’s problems today. So arguably the U.S., since 1917 (1918) has been the worst influence of any country in the world. In 1835, Alexis de Toqueville wrote, “America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” And that’s exactly what’s happening. Because America has ceased to be good, America is quickly ceasing to be great. I’m an American by birth, not by choice.
An excellent resume of the situation, Scott.
I have often opined that Great Britain would have been a whole heap better off, if, after the second world war we had simply minded our own business. If we had got on with the task of looking after our own country and people instead of worrying about everybody else’s, and had retired gracefully from the world stage, then we (and possibly a few other countries as well) would have been a damn site better off now.
This is, of course, complete wishful thinking, as the average bloke in the street, yer man on the Clapham omnibus, has been raised on a diet of nationalistic bollocks about how great we are (The Empire! Two world wars and one world cup!….) and would never stand for the idea of us sitting back and behaving like The Netherlands, or Sweden, or anywhere else with a better standard of living than ours.
I mean… they’re just not British…dammit!
