fionamaria and Argos: I challenge you and the people in the countries you represent to provide a better alternative to global leadership. Maybe China? There are 100 million people in China who live on less than a dollar a day, and is governed by a bureaucracy that rules on nepotism and is founded on the principle of leadership by those whose pasts dictate their future. Maybe the EU? Many of your member states hold credit that vastly outpaces their Domestic Product, and continues to grow at a pace that is economically and socially unsustainable in order to support welfare state policies that entrench failure in the workplace and ethnic strife on the streets.. What's more, the people of the EU resent the notion of global leadership (look at the numerous failed attempts at passing an EU treaty). The EU's supposed bastion of stability and peace is pockmarked by rampant, institutional racism against Arabs and Africans. Your population is declining. You have no work.
And please, before you go into a fit about "fat, oversexed, ugly, and illiterate" Americans, I challenge you to take a look at the counterfactual; In the America that you (fionamania) seem to decry as bereft of moral values, there remains the strongest religious identity in the Industrialized world. Furthermore, we have maintained this without integrating church and state (unlike the EU, which subsidizes churches in the face of declining membership).
We have our problems, most of which can be directly attributed to the last eight years of governance, but that will soon be history. Our next president may likely be a black man who was born to an Kenyan father and who was raised, poor, by a single mother. Name one European, Chinese, or (insert here) civil society anywhere in the world that is both ready to allow that and capable of maintaining global leadership.
Your ire is vastly misdirected, as the US condemns genocide in Sudan, The EU sits idly by. As the US sends warships filled with food aid to Myanmar and Peru, the EU increases food subsidies to support Swiss Cheese and Winemakers (which, by the way, has been growing on California vines exported to France for the last 100 years). While the China executes demonstrators, and the unemployment ques lengthen across the EU, American leadership has isssued articles of impeachment against its president, and its economy continues to grow at a clip that outpaces population growth.
We have our faults. Just look for a better alternative. Today, and every day for the next century, I assure you that you will find none.
 The Weekly ObsessionThe 'Weekly Obsession' is a new video series dissecting the issues that dominate our 24/7 news cycle  Sum TotalBehind every statistic, there's a good story. A look at how facts and figures can add up to something greater than themselves.  7 ThingsIn this series, NEWSWEEK interviews the artists, celebrities, musicians and newsmakers that fascinate us. In their own words, cultural icons get real about their art, their passions and life on the A-list. (Or B-list, as the case may be.)
Sponsored by
|
Discuss