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• Tuesday, March 31, 2009 08:12 PM

  "But compared to China we are the good guys."

  My reply to that? If you ask the Chinese, they'll tell you they are the good guys. If you had asked the people of the old USSR, they'd say they were the good guys. If you ask the Taliban, they will tell you they are the good guys (and Godly on top of that.) Ask the Saudis and their religious police? Ditto. Ask the Israeli troops bombing and bulldozing in Gaza? Also good guys. The Palestinians? Hama? Yep. They too are the good guys.

  My point here is that the self-perception of a nation's people is often not an objective thing. It is the product of indoctrination ("God bless America!, Land of the Free!, fighters for truth, justice and the American way!") over a period of years and at every level from school to home to the public square.

  China does a lot of pretty bad stuff. (Tibet or Tiananmen Square anyone?) But so do we. We invade nations which have no attacked us. We leave masses of our people without adequate food, shelter or healthcare while doling out trillions of dollars to mega-conglomerate banks and Wall Street firms. We lock away a higher percentage of our populace (and for much longer, more draconian terms) than even the Red Chinese or the USSR (and even Saddam Hussein in Iraq!) at the height of their powers.

  The world is not a place of good and bad, black and white. It is a place colored in a million shades of gray. And the opinion about who is good and who is bad? That often depends on which side of the fence you are standing.

  —Roman Berry Read Roman Berry's other letters
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