Not really sure what's going on here. Maybe it's just that I'm a little tired.
As a card-carrying member of the Militant Left, I don't really make it a practice to blindly follow anything my country might do.
I always despised the statement "Love It or Leave It." I thought that slogan would have been more appropriate in Germany around 1935.
But I will say this: "Born in the USA" is a song about a Vietnam vet that comes back disillusioned, and basically his life is crap. It makes about as much sense to suggest an American use that as a chest-beating theme as it would for me to offer "Anarchy in the UK" for a British flag-waving ceremony.
Additionally, even from the Radical Left, I can tell you that the difference between China and the US in this matter is that we are quite used to playing the surveillance game.
There may be some incident that both the US and the USSR, or later Russia, got involved in and covered up, but we usually don't run into people's planes.
We also don't make people who make grave mistakes national heroes.
When I see this continue with the Chinese propaganda machine, instead of getting angry, I really start to feel sorry for the Chinese government. It's like they need a lesson in how to be a super-power or something.
I guess there is no way with the prejudice that seems to exist in the world towards the United States, that we'll ever be seen as anything more than an agressive, boasting child, that just "doesn't get it", no matter what we do. Oh well. Never try and teach a pig to sing. It's a waste of your time, and it annoys the pig.
It seems particularly absurd in this instance. I don't think anyone in this country is being fed some kind of roadkill line about what happened.
Maybe every film we see on CNN is some wild concoction a la "Wag The Dog" or something, but from what I've seen, this guy was a little too cocky, and it got him into trouble.
Personally, sure, I'm sorry a guy got killed. I never like to hear that someone died. But should we as a nation take the blame for his death? Should we feel like it's our fault he died? No.
In closing, I think probably the main thing that differentiates the US from a lot of countries in this world is that we DON'T swallow every word that is "fed" to us by our government. I think we kind of wrote the book on how to demonstrate against the policies of our government on a number of issues, throughout the decades.
And I can't speak for every American, but quite a few of us are rather adept at telling toejam from Shine-o-la. Even if we're card-carrying liberals.
Let's stop looking at this as another example of running-dog imperialist yankee war-monger aggression, and realize that it was a horrible accident that took the life of a Chinese pilot, and damn near killed 24 Americans.
I'm just another working slob myself, but I'm getting sick and tired of being labeled as some sort of gun-toting, hate-filled moron, who thinks I'm better than anyone else in the world.
Sometimes I feel like if I ever did have the opportunity, the time, and the funds to travel abroad, I'd spend most of my time trying to dispel the stigma that seems to be attached to anyone from the United States.
Hell, if that's what I want to do with my time, I can save my money, and stay here and argue with conservative right-wingers ad nauseum.
Hey Eagler, you got your ears on?
Mk
