HOW OTHERS SEE US
The Bush administration has blundered its way through eight years of miserable foreign policy. The result? People in countries that once admired the United States and looked to it for leadership now despise our country and see it as a threat to world peace and stability. Around the world, our President is the butt of jokes – and now Sarah Palin is provoking laughter in all corners of the globe. Unfortunately, most Americans don't understand or care about this situation. But we should all care because this loss of respect affects every one of us in a variety of ways, the most important being a lack of support when the U.S. needs friends and allies in times of conflict.
This page is an open invitation to contributors from outside the United States to express their views and concerns about the United States and the current administration in Washington.
I would like to take this opportunity to introduce Mark DeWolf of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Mark is a teacher and author of both textbooks and fiction. He has traveled much of the world and has taught in Singapore. He is a close observer of the U.S. and the political situation here. I have invited him to make some observations from his unique viewpoint. The first contribution to this page will be his.
America, where are you?
Where is the United States of America that I once knew – or thought I knew? When I was a boy growing up in western Canada, your country, just 20 prairie miles to the south of us, was like the Kingdom of Oz, a place where wonderful things happened, where people who worked hard achieved prosperity, where the words “freedom” and “justice” were engraved on each citizen’s heart, and where heroes, both western and super-powered, fought evil-doers on behalf of good, decent families like the Andersons and Nelsons we saw on television. The Hollywood movies that my family and I loved to watch showed the American commitment to courage, fairness and community spirit. The songs on the car radio, recorded in Nashville and New York and Los Angeles and Detroit, perfectly expressed the feelings that my friends and I shared about girls and cars and the good days of Summer. Even the comic books that my parents worried about so needlessly communicated messages that I believed were American values: truth is better than falsehood, kindness is a virtue, cheaters never proper, and bullies are to be despised. The summer holidays of driving the highways of Montana and Idaho, reading each Burma Shave sign as it flashed by, and, at the end of the day, setting up our tent in a lakeside campground, were simply glorious, and the American people whom we met were friendly, helpful and cheerful, confirming my belief that, next to Canadians, Americans had to be the best people in the world.
Today, when I think of individual Americans whom I know or meet casually, I realize that this belief has not changed very much. What has changed, however, are my feelings about what America as a nation is doing, and how the most powerful country in the world is behaving.
I read a lot, and the more I read, the more I discover that my view of the United States as a place of heroism and justice and goodness has always been rosier than the historical record supports. As an adult, I realize that no nation or national leader is likely to behave like a John Wayne hero, or Superman, or Jim Anderson, that perfect TV father. The business of governing millions of people, ensuring the nation’s prosperity, and securing its borders depends too much on such things as international trade, financial markets, the vagaries of politics, and the behavior of countries or groups outside one’s borders. While I am willing to believe that many world leaders would very much like to be “good guys,” they live with the knowledge that our world does not allow them that freedom. They must compromise, manipulate, cut deals, exert pressure, and, in desperate times, deceive their citizens in order to achieve what they hold to be the good of the nation. Kennedy knew this, and so did Lincoln.
This view of politics and government can be criticized as overly cynical, but I am willing to bet that there is not an individual in a position of great power anywhere in the world who could honestly say it isn’t true. It is the sad truth, and the best that can be said about good political leaders is that they are uncomfortable with this knowledge, and they try hard not to let it smother their more noble and generous instincts. Simply put, good political leaders are more like Kevin Spacey’s character in L.A. Confidential (a decent man forced by his job and his situation into ugly acts) than the comic book or Hollywood heroes of my boyhood. I believe this is an adult’s way of looking at the way our leaders run our countries, and I evaluate every act of government, Canadian or American, in light of this understanding.
But when I look at the record of George W. Bush and the administration that he has headed (please note that I do not say “controlled”), I am horrified to see the difference between good people tackling a dirty job and corrupt people pursuing a dirty agenda. And when I look at the record of American actions over the last eight years, I am saddened by what has happened to the country I so much admired and respected. The Canadian media cover U.S. politics and world affairs quite effectively, and while our most perceptive commentators tend to be “progressives,” there is a strong code of journalistic fairness that compels them to take a balanced approach to what goes on south of the Canada-U.S. border. As a result, Canadians know quite a lot about Bush, Cheney, the Clintons, Obama, McCain and Palin. We follow events in the U.S. closely, and are very aware of the political and economic currents that push your country this way and that.
And the verdict of most Canadians? George Dubya is a poor excuse for a president, his administration is dominated by people who could never be confused with “good guys,” and lying to the American people is accepted practice in the corridors of power. Yes, I know that many Americans would feel anger at a citizen of another country daring to criticize the country they still love and defend. If you stop to think of it, this is not much different from parents getting upset when a stranger comments on how badly their children are behaving in public. Love triumphs over truth.
But many Canadians are deeply concerned about your country’s bullying ways, and not just during the years of George W. Bush. We are concerned that the actions of the U.S. government do not reflect the values of most U.S. citizens. We are concerned that democracy in the U.S. is being eroded, partly because of the huge amounts of money being spent to sway voters, and partly because U.S. political campaigns are increasingly nasty and deceptive.
Democracy can only work if voters know what is going on. Only if they have an accurate and truthful picture of their options can they cast their votes effectively. For that reason, truth-telling is the most important issue in any election campaign. But the practice of using attack ads, as well as the rumours and tall tales that now appear online, is becoming commonplace. It is beginning to spread to Canada. The beliefs and tactics of people like Karl Rove are influencing the actions of my country’s politicians. As in the U.S., Canadian voting numbers are shrinking, due in part to a belief that voting doesn’t change anything, and it’s all a pack of lies anyway. In a nutshell, Canadians do not so much hate the U.S. as worry about it. Watching the current presidential campaign, we worry that the American people are being hoodwinked once again – and we worry that American policies and actions, based on lies and manipulated information, will eventually harm our own country.
We aren’t used to thinking of our American neighbour as a possible danger or as an enemy, but every military adventure, every unfair barrier to trade, every objection to protecting our shared environment, and every other act done in American self-interest (by which I mean what Bush and company think is America’s self-interest) makes Canadians more concerned about the relationship we have with our long-time neighbour and ally. We still like Americans. We still believe that most Americans hold true to the values that found their way into Hollywood movies and DC Comics. But we despair when we see what eight years of George Bush and the Republican Party have done to your once-proud nation and to the state of the world.
Where are you, America? Will you not come back again?
Mark DeWolf
Thank you Mark. I appreciate you taking time from what I know is a busy schedule to make this contribution. I wanted to let people know what other people in the world think about the U.S., how they feel about the Bush administration and how their agenda has affected the rest of the world.
Dave Boley
MORE TO COME
CLICK ON THE LINKS BELOW FOR THE SEPARATE CATEGORIES
MY PERSONAL RANT THE BUSH PRESIDENCY THE McCAIN-PALIN AGENDA
ENERGY GLOBAL WARMING AND THE ENVIRONMENT THE ECONOMY
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