When was the last time you saw a wave of millions of people around the world celebrating America? They are pouring praise not only on Obama, but on the American people. There is huge hope for a better world and people everywhere, in every corner of the planet, are optimistic.
To those of you who say the world hates America, it's not true. I've met many people who don't hate the US, but they are disgusted by some of it's actions.
People around the world look to the U.S. for political and moral leadership. When the U.S.A. lives up to it's ideals, to the principles the founders laid down, it is most powerful and influential.
The problems are huge. The hopes are high. Many are hoping this opportunity does not slip away.
Are these hopes justified? Is positive change really coming? How can this good will we are seeing be used to solve problems at home and abroad?
Or is it all a just a passing fad of empty words and false promise? Are we naive or can things really change?
well as the British paper the Times said :
Around the world, the expectations are impossibly high, as the President-elect has already acknowledged. In Europe, many of those who have cheered him seem to expect a US president who will use all of the USs power and financial weight to solve the worlds problems, regardless of its own interest.
They will be disappointed.
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We certainly have a role to play, but what the hell does the world expect us to do? Aside from Iraq and Afghanistan, what else would they like us to do for them?
Why do we have to fix the world's problems? We have major problems of our own to deal with, and i say to the rest of the world, i do not know what you want, but get in line behind our own citizens, before we help anyone else.
You take care of your own first and foremost.
-what do the countries of africa who have so many problems want? We have no troops to commit to stop the endless cycle of wars there, and whether folks like Bush or not, he has never gotten credit for doing some worthwhile things for the continent. what mroe can be done? Sudan, now the Congo, AIDS...sorry we should not be doling out foreign aid to africa if our own citizens are losing our homes. They come first.
Considering our last misadventure in africa when we sent in troops to help in peacekeeping, (Somalia) that should not occur again.
-in regards to Climate Change/Kyoto, etc. frankly, i do not care about the rest of the world. we should be moving towards alternative energy for our own future security and health, and we do not need the rest of the world to help us reform our own energy problems. once we break ourselves of foreign oil and the attendant misery of dealing with the middle east, the sooner we can leave that awful region.
-in regards to NATO, it is simply a waste nowadays. Let Europe handle its own problems and spend more of their GDP to patrol the Balkans, which is their own little mess.
I do not care about defending Europe from the Russians anymore. If the europeans are concerned about the Russians, let them spend more.
The only people we would ever fight a forseeable war against in the future are the Russians or the Chinese, and the likelihood of major war is madness. Not to mention how intertwined the US and Chinese economies are.
-How much more aid are we supposed to give? We are essentially bankrupt, and have our own citizens to take care of.
-If people want hope for a better world, let *THEM* create it. When we ignore problems in the rest of the world people call us callous and detached, when we intervene, we are nosy, pushy, imperialist and unilateralist.
-Does the world hate america? Maybe not at the moment, but anti-americanism was not exactly a Bush administration phenomenon only. Anti-americanism was widespread long before Bush, Bush just brought it to a boil.
-The rest of the world seems to want an america like in Gulliver's Travels, where we are Gulliver and they are the Lilliputians. We are a nice sweet benevolent giant, that they can keep tied down, and we somehow exist to convince them that we are really not all that bad and nice, and they use us at their convenience to subdue and attack the Blefuscudians they need handled, but then when they demand we do their bidding in becoming subservient to their demands, and we do not listen, everyone gets angry and tells us how selfish we are because we may have our own issues or beliefs, be they right or wrong....and it is okay for them to have their systems, and agendas, but when we have ours we are non-compliant and arrogant.
- as for the rest of the world being "disgusted by the US Actions", well, i say pot and kettle. I am disgusted by the French involvement in the Rwandan Genocide. I am disgusted by the fact they exploit French West Africa to retain their clout and power. I am disgusted by the Chinese in Tibet and their threatening of Taiwan and brutal repression of their own citizens.
There are plenty of other countries whose actions are just as disgusting. That does not make ours right, but throwing stones in glass houses is something many in the rest of the world seem to do with regularity where the US is concerned.
-nothing will change in the world. mended relations with europe does not mean much will be done differently, with the exception of the scaling down of the war efforts.
-Europe wants certain things from us...well sorry, international relations is a quid pro quo. Looking out for #1 is the raison d'etre for all countries...the europeans want what is best for *THEM* not for us. Hopefully things will be repaired but they are going to be soprely disappointed if they expect america to just begin kowtowing to demands. Obama's first responsibility is not to the world...it is to American citizens.
Whatever "goodwill" is out there, it will evaporate soon once people realize that the United States mission in this world is not, in fact to be subservient to what the rest of the world wants, but to serve its own interests.
You may see this as selfish, but every coutnry does it...the difference is because of US power, it is magnified onto the world stage.
China is a growing power, and will surpass us one day...what will the world say about China, based on its record thus far? For whatever slights and arrogance the world claimes of america, imagine the power of america, magnified with unbridled economic power, a population of 1.3 billion and growing, not to mention expansionist, and with no regard for human rights what so ever.
The US can longer help the rest of the world considering the situation now arising. We can only offer bandaids, and friendship, and cooperation whrere it can be made, like on nuclear non-proliferation, terrorism and other issues that can be agreed upon iwth little discord.
- things will nto change in a world this big, diverse, angry, divided, violent and growing larger every day.
the world is marching towards its eventual sad conclusion, overpopulation, lost resources, deforestation, pollution, species disappearing, warfare, corruption, etc.
the world is a very deluded place if it thinks Obama is somehow going to save us from problems that have managed to resist and get worse despite every charismatic leader in history...JFK, Mandela, Clinton, Bishop Tutu, Pope John Paul 2 etc etc etc etc
the world's problems are becoming impervious to solution, much in the way a simple virus mutates after developing an immunity to the anti-biotics and morphing into a super-virus, with no cure.
We cannot solve the world's problems...the rest of the world were thrilled to get Clinton in 1992...what exactly did that change in the grand scheme of things?
very little.
it will be the same with Obama. he will probably do a decent job, the talk will be high minded and inspiring, but, alas, there is really very little that can be done to solve the world's problems...sad but true.
it is an unfortunate reality.