Letters to the Editor
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A Two Step Approach
1 - Impeach the criminals Bush and Cheney
2 - Have Brand America mind its own business by ending the illegal Iraq War and shutting down all US foreign military bases.
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Clinton Talk
Incidentally, we have also had some classroom discussion about Hillary Clinton, whose campaign is also of particular interest to the girls. Indonesian culture reinforces traditional gender roles, and most of the girls feel that a women are "too soft, maybe" (proving, perhaps, that they don't know that much about Hillary Clinton). An interesting perspective, considering that Indonesia has already had a female president and that the school's leadership positions are filled by strong, smart girls and women. One of the things they like about President Bush--and there are a few--is his strength and resolve.
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"The Black Kennedy"
I think all the Kennedy comparisons Obama gets are telling. It's true, no doubt, that having a likable, charismatic President could help restore our nation's image abroad. If that's your highest priority, you should probably support Obama. But the downside of Kennedy's administration, one which I think you'd see in an Obama administration as well, is that nothing got done. For all the talk about change, or as he put it in his campaign, "getting America moving again," all the progress in domestic policy - civil rights, voting rights, Medicare - was made by his successor, Johnson. Kennedy's legacy to us is the Peace Corps. "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country," were, despite Obama's plagiarized suggestions to the contrary, just words.
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@ Effie Perine: Voices
This is the kind of conversation we need to be having with people in other parts of the world and I, for one, am thrilled that you have taken the time to respond to this article in such a thoughtful way.
It's also touching to me that your students have so much optimism and hope in the things that we, as Americans, can do. It sheds a glimmer of sunlight on what has been a very dark period for our country...and the world.
There are many of us here who hate what America has become these past seven-plus years and who have fought mightily against the administration and its policies in whatever appropriate ways we have available.
When I think about our reputation abroad I think in microterms I suppose: how the Bush policies have contributed to the mistreatment of girls and women, particularly in impoverished countries (denying birth control in foreign aid, not providing enough money for education efforts about HIV/AIDS, not providing enough money and support for drugs to treat HIV/AIDS), resurgent Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan and its inhumane regard of women's and girls' rights, and the humanitarian crisis in Darfur that lets mothers and children die needlessly every day.
As you might guess, I'm a woman who believes that "the least of these" around the world are most often women and children.
If we (Americans) accomplish anything with a new president I hope and pray that it is to fully acknowledge and assist these citizens of the world, who are at once both innocent victims and the brightest hope for our future.
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Rebranding vs Regime Change
I'm an ex-pat, and over the past few decades I've lived and traveled all over, so I think I have some sense of it.
Rabid anti-Americanism is mostly based on something like scorned lover wrath, on disappointed hopes. It is only so rabid because underneath remains so much affection. (It is why Canadians tend to be popular in many parts of the world: they are sort of ersatz Americans, sort of the same but without all the baggage.) America promised much, but basically delivered the current Middle East.
(Oh that, and US trade practices. It has been rather amusing watching Clinton and Obama bashing away at NAFTA and how it hurts the US: most Americans do not realize what an absolutely wretched reputation the US has in the rest of the world on trade matters: liars, bullies, cheaters, and immensely exploitative and uncaring-- cf US agricultural and intellectual property trade policies. You can re-brand all you like, but that reputation is going to take some serious work to make go away; frankly, it is probably more entrenched than US responsibility for the Middle East mess.)
Once upon a time, the US took a position of sort of a reluctant first among equals; not so much the US ideals, but the fact the US entered the world stage with little colonial baggage and a burst of idealistic rhetoric made all the difference. The US was a sort of indifferent leader of the Free World, mostly because it never really cared all that much about foreign affairs, and frankly, that was welcomed. Reagan started to change that, and Dubya totally changed it: from now on the US would not lead towards shared goals, but dictate what the goals were, no matter what anybody else thought, and command obedience.
I'm also a little dubious about rebranding based on recent experience, didn't Dubya hire a couple of heavy Madison Ave types to rebrand the US in the Arab world? Worked out pretty good, huh? ("What we have here, son, is a failure to communicate.")
At the end of the day, its more of a Where's the Beef type of question, or if you want to get biblical, by their works ye shall know them. The US has some works to do.
Branding might be an important first step, but the way the rest of the world looks at it, what they are hoping to see might more accurately be called "regime change." With precisely the same connotations the Bushies had when they used the phrase about Iraq.
Which is why Obama will be getting my vote: not because of his brand, but because he is most convincingly and authentically Not George W. Bush out of the available choices.
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this 're-branding' is gonna be much harder than you think.
the vietnam war cured me of believing in america. worse, when i got the idea that 'american' history was a set of lies, and started looking at history as told by the other side, or third parties, vietnam was not only a war crime, it was typical.
a lot of people are going to have american propaganda shattered by current activities in the middle east, and ending the activities won't change the character of the people that did them. it just means that the bad guys got a bloody nose, and pulled back. americans would never have discovered the iraq war was wasteful, or stupid, or criminal, if it was successful.
and it may yet be successful. whoever is in office will be greatly tempted to stay in iraq, to guard the oil, and buy it cheaply. so i won't applaud obama in a hurry, or expect much from clinton, or be suprised by anything mccain does. americans have never let christianity impede their foreign policy,and in the declining years of the empire, greater violence can be expected to compensate for fading prosperity.