By Martin Fletcher, NBC News Correspondent: China organizes hasty retreat from Libya

[CardSharp]

No they'll hate us even more. The Soviet Union had near parity with the Wall Street regime and was still hated. The US's views of the world are dictated by racism, self righteousness and fanatic nationalism.

America is more complicated than that. No less menacing and screwed up but more complicated than what you make it out to be.

 

[below_freezing]

America is more complicated than that. No less menacing and screwed up but more complicated than what you make it out to be.

What I've seen is a dangerous sort of ideology closely related to German Nazis:

1.) American (German) Exceptionalism
2.) The strong belief in American (German) interests being world interests.
3.) The strong belief that America (Germany) can do no wrong.
4.) Both were nominally democratic but in reality are ruled by a small elite.
5.) Both launch wars of aggression against weak countries.
6.) Both believe in exploiting the labor and resources of conquered countries.
7.) Their major difference is, there's no visible face of the Wall Street regime the way Hitler was a visible face of the Nazis.

 

[Tigershark]

Americans are modern-day imperialists. In the 18th and 19th century, imperialists powers like Britain and France justified their overseas colonies as civilizing missions. They were there to bring Christianity and science and civilization to the savages. The current American rhetoric is the same thing, just replace the word "civilizing" by "democratizing", and replace Christianity and science with the spread of Western-values and human rights. Why did George W. Bush topple Saddam Hussein? Because Bush wanted to bring Democracy and Human Rights, and spread Western values to the Muslim world. His actual reason? To install a pro-American regime in Iraq and to exploit her oil resources, not to mention installing a permanent US base.

I doubt the average American spends his/her spare time thinking about world domination, but their leadership certainly does. And when the leadership invokes American values in their foreign adventures, the people are obliged to follow, or risk being called unpatriotic traitors. And when the Iraq war was exposed to be false, Americans cannot pull out because they must support their troops and their nation cannot seen to be retreating.

It's a rather sad story when you see how the public is chained to the ambitions of the political class. It goes to show that a democracy is not inherently peaceful or just. The public has to be educated, and be willing to check the ambitions of their government.

 

[Akasa]

A biased press is not a free press

 

[Akasa]

Articles like this show the importance of the rise of non-Western English media, like CCTV, PressTV, and Russia Today. The article is nominally about the efficiency of the Chinese evacuation of workers in Libya, but thematically, it is about American concern for its own decline, and the alienness of the Chinese workers, who unlike Americans, do not wear "headphones or play with a telephone or digital device. They are all slim and fit, no sign of impending obesity." The article ends with trepidation of the American reporter that the future will look more Chinese and less American. Throughout, as Aramsgogo as pointed out, Martin portrays Chinese workers as mindless communist automatons that are out to dominate and enslave the world. With such an endless stream of anti-China propaganda, it's little wonder so many Westerners are filled with fear and jealousy about China's peaceful rise. It's critical that China increase its own English-language media to counter such one-sided smear campaigns.

Check out NTDTV (New Tang Dynasty Television) and you can see that your analysis is perfectly correct

 

[Akasa]

What I've seen is a dangerous sort of ideology closely related to German Nazis:

1.) American (German) Exceptionalism
2.) The strong belief in American (German) interests being world interests.
3.) The strong belief that America (Germany) can do no wrong.
4.) Both were nominally democratic but in reality are ruled by a small elite.
5.) Both launch wars of aggression against weak countries.
6.) Both believe in exploiting the labor and resources of conquered countries.
7.) Their major difference is, there's no visible face of the Wall Street regime the way Hitler was a visible face of the Nazis.

I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that fast, but there is one striking similarity that I want to point out.

Up to 1939, when Germany launched campaign after campaign of military invasions, the world did nothing. The world did not even criticize the German government. At that time, everybody was either afraid to criticize the German government (fear of war) or viewed it as a natural action of a country.

When the US military launched its invasions of Iraq, Panama, bombing missions of Serbia, and more, the world barely criticized the US government and most even viewed it as a justified action. That paved the way for the US military to launch even further attacks.

I'm not saying that the US is in the same path as Nazi Germany, but the US should really consider slowly reducing its military activities abroad. I'm sure that Mr. Obama has the willpower and the commitment to do that. I hope that the US would seriously consider that for the sake of the national economy and stability.