Ubuntu & the underdeveloped world

[Eric Dunbar]

First of all: EVERYONE WHO'S PARTICIPATING IN THIS THREAD -- PLEASE
SUBSCRIBE TO SOUNDER at LISTS.UBUNTU.COM AND THEN POST TO THAT LIST.

On Sat, 18 Dec 2004 21:16:40 -0800, Karl Hegbloom <hegbloom at pdx.edu> wrote:
> On Sat, 2004-12-18 at 21:49 -0500, Travis Newman wrote:
> >
> > > Even if a majority of Americans are narrow-minded people, that does
> > > not mean there's some given right to speak offensively about them, or
> > > rather us (Not sure whether I consider myself American. Haven't spent
> > > enough time here to make such a decision.)
> >
> > Agreed, and again, the ip address comment I don't think was meant to say
> > that all Americans are the same.
> 
> 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.

Unfortunately, a plurality did end up voting for a particular
individual for President so a plurality must take responsibility for
his actions (though, the rest of the world does recognise the
undemocratic nature of US elections so the majority certainly can't be
held accountable for the behaviour of their leaders).

That said, the bulk of Americans that I've known over the years have
been decent, normal, civilised people. I've also met a few
stereotypical American jack-asses over that time but fortunately
they're a minority.

(maybe it's just that the stereotypical American jack-ass usually
doesn't leave the country given that he or she doesn't even know where
his own country is on the world map... or maybe there just are really
that few... though, the American media itself tragically suggests
otherwise... outside of the US we usually get a really sanitised
version of what occurs inside that country... anyone who's ever had
the misfortune of watching "fair and balanced" Fox News or the Bill
O'Reilly show (I managed two minutes (1.5 min of that ads ;-) before I
had to run in disgust) will know to what I refer)).

>  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.

I really feel for the decent Americans out there. There are a lot of
paranoid Americans on the web that instantly interpret any
disagreement or disapproval of American foreign policy or domestic
behaviour/laws as a personal slur (& give everyone a bad name).

Obviously you're not one of these but, it is my experience on these
lists that it's posters (certainly not all, or even a majority or even
a sizeable minority) from US registered domains (a euphemism for
Americans ;-) that go ballistic (pardon the pun re the
waste-of-money-son-of-Starwars initiative ;-) if they sense any
disapproval of the US (and, trust me, the bulk of the world sees the
US not as a saviour but as a loose cannon... even moreso with your
current Red President... note the parallels -- the "Reds" were the
enemy of human rights in the US in last century, now once again, it's
another group of "Reds" that are proving to be the enemy of human
rights in the US this century... I really hope that the analyses
saying the conditions don't exist for another US civil war are
correct... saw a cartoon recently... can't remember the source but it
was funny... the (gun-control, evolution pushing) Constitutionalists
vs. the (NRA, gun-toting, anti-evolution) Creationists).

PS As a final plea, can we please all move this over to Sounder!!!

Anyway, time to get outside and enjoy the cold before tomorrow (-22 C
(<0 Fahrenheit... now, why the US didn't get rid of a (-n illogical)
GERMAN unit in WW II when everything else was renamed is beyond me
;-))

Eric.