Sadly, there are people going to the polls right now ONLY because they want to vote AGAINST George Bush hoping that the world opinion of the U.S. will change after the elections. I think the majority of informed Americans are well aware of what the world thinks of the U.S. Stating we do not have a clue is both unfair and ignorant. Do you know every American? Do you know what we know? The question is whether or not 'the majority' of Americans see the world's image of the U.S. as one of the most important issues in the election. I know quite a few young adults that believed Kerry's speeches that if George Bush remains President the U.S. will have a draft within 2 years. Many young Americans are voting simply to prevent a draft (that would never exist anyway). I know a few that are voting because they believe that if Kerry is President the U.S. will pull out of Iraq next year. They believe what Kerry stated at the beginnning of his campaign and have chosen to ignore his recent statements that the U.S. must remain in Iraq now until the Iraqi government asks us to leave. I think what the typical American thinks is very much shaped by the media - and that is true around the world.



John,
>
>>>Finally: I already said I think that Americans are decent and generous. But you are also very inwardly focused, which is understandable when you are so big and strong, but also makes it difficult to understand real motives for people in distant lands. It is easy to simply write off their observations as unreasonable, but that does not solve the misunderstandings that are increasingly common in this world and which are causing so much concern and fear in western democracies at the moment.
>
>
>>I don't think we're crazy enough to believe our country is not above reproach on any issue, but it IS OUR country. I haven't seen many, if any, posts here about how terrible France is for being a socialist state and involved with selling arms to Saddam, or Germany, or Russia, etc. Where is the outrage on those?
>
>Since when is socialism on the level of france a bad thing. If you're against france for this, you're against the majority of europe.
>
>And lets see. Selling arms. Isn't that what the US always was good at? Who did sell the warlords in afghanistan arms to fight the russians? Who did sell sadam loads of weapons to fight iran? That was in fact on a much, much larger scale than what some companies in europe did on incidental scale. Sure those companies were punnished, but it probably did not reach the US.
>
>>Sure, the US needs to be aware of our position in the world, but I think we are.
>
>I don't think you've got a clue
>
>>What other country displays the generosity ours displays? None! That's not even counting the assistance our churches send out all over the earth. We have a process for dealing with our issues known as an election and that process is currently underway. It has served us well for a couple of hundred years, and I hope it will continue to do so. We aren't so thin skinned that we can't take some constructive criticism, but some of it here has been over the top.
>
>ROFLMAO,