With the world's population reaching 6.5 billion in 2006 our understanding of the United States of America is possibly lower than at any other stage in history. We 6.2 billion or so look on in dismay as this great transformer of a nation twists and turns in the winds of it own making, its flag flapping and fraying at the edges in a maelstrom of confusing aspirations and agendas.
If self-doubt ever attended the mass-consciousness of the citizens of the United States of America it is today. These are glib, sad and sadly obvious words with which few Americans, save for a handful of Bush-loyalists, would disagree. It is not is not the Civil War, the Second World War, Korea, Vietnam, 9/11, Iraq One or Two, the Sandinistas, Castro, Chavez, Oil, Out-sourcing, Over-sourcing, Katrina, Nicole, Brittany, Bling, Bob or Bing that are the problem. It is much, much more. It is almost as though the problem could best be described as "everything and anything." That is why so many friends in the US simply say ‘don’t go there’ when anything even vaguely resembling ‘the question’ arises. How long can the US endure this uncertainty? More to the point and of greater significance, for how long can the US endure, period?Though we are but 6.2 Billion, sitting here in the audience there is little we can do to offer a helping hand for it is the helper who holds the answer, the US itself. We see a great country which has gone into debt, often on our behalf to save us from one horror or the other. We see a nation founded on well-meant ideals, on freedom, on liberty and equality. And now, in-equal in so many ways, we stand by while our mentor gasps and flounders, stricken with ineptitude and without good counsel.The United States Congress, the Senate, the Whitehouse, the media and the citizens of US need, in their own words, a 'time out.' To stop, take a breather, and look around you. Reassess the real situation; not the situation in Wolf Blitzer's Situation Room. Or the stunned self-righteousness that flows from Lou Dobbs or the simply stunned look on Larry King's face when an enlightened Jon Stewart makes a remark that leaves Larry's brain in park.
“70%” of the population of the US is against the Dubai Ports deal, according to Lou Dobbs. He sounds incredulous as he goes on to say, with utter resentment, that the CEO of the Dubai-company feels that the US needs to ‘educate itself in the deal.’ To think that anyone would suggest that the US needs educating; seems beyond belief to Dobbs. He is equally amazed that George Bush and his staff are in apparent agreement with the gentleman from Dubai.
So it has come down to this; the US is indeed a know it all. And if there is any doubt, just ask a CNN reporter. Is it any wonder that we 6.2 billion sometimes look at the 300 million with a little mistrust? Does the CBC run Canada? Does the BBC run the United Kingdom (They’d like to think so; but the British, who invented the media, would never let the BBC get away with such a thing.)
Which of that 70% who now oppose the Dubai deal voted for George Bush in two elections? Which of the 70% who now oppose the Dubai deal, agreed with the administration that Iraq hid weapons of mass destruction? Who among the 70% of those who now oppose the Dubai deal agreed with the decision to go against the United Nations and invade Iraq?
Perhaps the next time an important decision needs to be made on behalf of the citizens of the United States of America they should forego the tired and outmoded and democratic process and ‘go straight to the source’ as CNN would have it. Call Lou Dobbs; it seems he is educated, while the 6.2 billion are not.
