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From: cbd@iham1.UUCP (deitrick)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Thoughts on America Bashing
Message-ID: <416@iham1.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 18-Jul-85 11:44:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: iham1.416
Posted: Thu Jul 18 11:44:33 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 20-Jul-85 06:43:09 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
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	The Palestinians hate America.  The Iranians hate America.  The ______
(fill in the blank) hate America.  We seem to be universally reviled, despised,
scorned, hated, and even (gasp!) disliked.  The question of "Why is this so?" 
needs to be discussed, and I'll go first.
	First, let me point out a real contradiction by some examples.
	The countries in Central America hate America, yet the refugees from
the wars in those countries try to come to America.  It certainly would be 
easier to go to some other Central American country (Mexico, for example), yet
they risk their lives to come here.  Why?
	Naabi Berri (sp?), the Shiite Moslem leader involved in this most recent
hijacking, has a green card from this country.  Pretty peculiar for someone who
hates America.
	Statistics published in the trade journals would have one believe that a
large fraction of the students in American engineering schools are from foreign
countries.  A lot of the graduate students I knew when I was in grad school
were from the Middle East.  Two were Palestinian.  One of those Palestinians 
wanted to become an American citizen. Strange that he would want to permanently
live in such a despicable place.
	Five or six years ago I spent two weeks in Europe.  I spent most of that
time with European university students.  The Europeans were very critical of
America and Americans ( "You Americans are this. You Americans are that. You
Americans are this other thing.  America is too this.  America is too that.
America is too this other thing." Got rather tiring after a while), yet nine
out of ten of them eventually admitted that they wanted to see and work in
America.  One student went so far as to ask me about probable salaries for
graduate civil engineers.
	Horseback riding is a very popular sport in Germany, which also produces
the best riders in the world.  One of the best German riders (on the German
National Event Team, an alternate for two Olympics, and also the Vice-President
of a German manufacturing company) left fame and a comfortable life to come to
this country and train horses (he's training mine). He's very critical of
American horsemanship and is constantly talking about the way they would do
something in Germany, but wouldn't go back there permanently for love or money.
	The pattern seems to be to revile America out loud but do all you can to
get here.  Just that we are so much in the minds of people in obscure places
around the world means we offer no small fascination to the rest of the world.
I submit that the source of that fascination if simple: we offer OPPORTUNITY.
We offer economic opportunity, mostly, but also the opportunity to shuck 
stifling tradition and social strictures.  We offer that opportunity, most other
countries do not.
	America is also a powerful country (why we're powerful is a subject in
itself), and, as such, we are bound to make enemies, both deserved and
undeserved.  I sense a strong current of resentment ( and perhaps envy ) in
the anti-American rhetoric.  That leads me to believe the rest of the world
resents ( and envies? ) us because of our power, affluence, and potential.
	Before the trigger-happy flame-throwers out there load up on the
jellied gasoline, be aware that I'm not saying America is perfect.  We have
problems (someone will no doubt point them out for us), have made a lot of
stupid mistakes and will make more, and have bad points as well as good.
However, that mixture of good and bad is normal in anything real.  I believe
the good outweighs the bad.
	If all these people hate us, we must be doing something right!


					Carl Deitrick
					ihnp4!iham1!cbd

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The opinions expressed in this article are mine 
and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of
AT&T Bell Laboratories
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