Ubuntu & the underdeveloped world

[Travis Newman]

> This 'hate Americans' thing is kind of odd. I know a large number of
> people who work in organisations working desperately to fight the
> influence of the US corporatocracy and war machine, yet haven't yet met
> anyone who claims to even dislike, let alone hate, Americans as such. On
> the contrary, there are Americans amongst their number.
> 
> It's a pretty obvious distinction to make between a country's policies
> and population, especially where so-called 'democracies' allow the
> largest minority to have all the political power (and the richest to own
> all the real power).

Agreed. I don't think I've met anyone who hates Americans, but people 
who say they hate America usually mean they hate the government of 
America. It IS an obvious distinction that I really wish people would 
start making. I mean, yeah, hate Bush, hate Rumsfeld, but keep in mind 
that there are a LOT of Americans who feel the same way (and a lot of 
them even voted for him because they felt Kerry was even worse-- and 
it's sad when you have to choose between two candidates you hate)

 > Certainly we are NOT all the same.  There is an incredible amount of
 > diversity of both race and opinion here.  My advice to those of you
 > out there who "hate Americans" is --- don't blame us all for the
 > actions of a few.  Whatever those people did to make you so angry at
 > America, I can assure you that there are many people here who would
 > totally agree with you that what they did is wrong and that we don't
 > consider them to be representative of our own opinion or way of life.

EXACTLY! That's what I absolutely love about America. No matter where 
you live, there's someone close by that has a completely different 
situation than you do. Different advice, different customs, different 
ideas. The thing that America (the people and the government) need to 
start working on is accepting and learning from these different cultures.