Sarah quoted Tony Blair: > "I am not surprised by anti-Americanism, but it is a foolish > indulgence. For all their faults, and all nations have them, the US > are a force for good; they have liberal and democratic traditions of > which any nation can be proud.
Well, thank you for that ;-) All these topics of war and politics and anti-Americanism are constantly being discussed in my little group of friends and acquaintances in L.A. Interestingly, all of them except for one are on the left and all support regime change in Iraq. They are the ones shouting me down if I express the slightest reservation! As for the revived anti-Americanism movement (which is quite apparent and disturbing to everyone I talk to) the knee-jerk reaction among all is that we would dearly love to just pull up stakes everywhere and stop getting involved at all, in any way, with other countries. Really, we are beyond fed up with it. I joke that we should form a new "Atlas Shrugged" political party. The other side of that coin is that most Americans do have an instinct to want to help others. It's a significant part of our culture that I don't see changing anytime soon. One in the group is from South Africa and has lived all over the world. He recently told me with a laugh that "yes, everyone hates the U.S., but deep down they really admire it and do expect it to come to the aid of the rest of the world and be the force for good." It's sometimes very hard to want to follow and support that premise when so many are attacking and undermining it. Kakki
