Friday, July 25, 2008

Worth Pondering

From the cover story of Newsweek for May 12, 2008, by Fareed Zakaria:

Look around. The world’s tallest building is in Taipei, and will soon be in Dubai. The largest publicly traded company is in Beijing. Its biggest refinery is being constructed in India. Its largest passenger airplane is built in Europe. The largest investment fund on the planet is in Abu Dhabi; the biggest movie industry is in Bollywood [Bombay, India], not Hollywood. Once quintessentially American icons have been usurped by the natives. The largest Ferris wheel is in Singapore. The largest casino is in Macao, which overtook Las Vegas in gambling revenues last year. America no longer dominates even its favorite sport, shopping. The Mall of America in Minnesota once boasted that it was the largest shopping mall in the world. Today it wouldn’t make the top ten. In the most recent rankings, only two of the world’s ten richest people are American. These lists are arbitrary and a bit silly, but consider that only ten years ago, the United States would have serenely topped almost every one of these categories.

…While we argue why they hate us, “they” have moved on, and are now far more interested in other, more dynamic parts of the globe. The world has shifted from anti-Americanism to post-Americanism.

3 comments:

Tony said...

There was a very good article on a Muslim American site. Unfortunately I forget which one it is, though no doubt with enough research I could find it. It was written by a woman who had actually survived the revolt against Saddam Hussein after the first Gulf War, then escaped to America. In the article she talked about hypocrisy in some anti-Americanism. Basically, someone has the attitude of, "America is a terrible country...now how do I get there?"

It's a bit like that old saying, "America, love it or leave it," but with some it is, "America, hate it and move there to get all the benefits of being a citizen." The woman's point was while she didn't always agree with American policy, people flocked there for a reason, and they would have to sooner or later realize it.

Rosko said...

I actually have a coworker who constantly talks about his hatred for our government and its policies, dreams about his annual visits to Europe and "how much better it is over there" but when faced with the question "why don't you move there?" says "because if I did, I'd only ever be a second-class citizen". "Love it or leave it" is right.

I guess that was an extremely long run-on.

Anastasia Theodoridis said...

One of the most beautiful things about this country is that you can be a severe critic of any given administration, and/or a severe critic of this pagan culture - and you don't have to leave! You can stay and try to make her better.

To be a good, loyal, patriotic American surely means to cherish the political ideals upon which this country was founded -- without necessarily having to go along with the government when it violates those ideals.

And it often does.