"For America, it is blowback time."

i wonder how many folks in the u.s. have any idea of how negatively the u.s. is viewed around the world... probably quite a few but my hunch is that it's often based on superficial information, stereotypes, and a lack of real understanding...

i'm always interested in chatting with taxi drivers in the various cities i visit since they're generally a reliable barometer of local public opinion... over the past few years, in addition to the inevitable question, "are you american?" the second question is almost guaranteed to be, "and what do you think of bush...?" if i share my own negative opinion, look out, it's "katie bar the door...!" sometimes, we have gotten so involved in the conversation that, when we arrive at my destination, the driver pulls over to the curb and turns the meter off and we keep right on going...

here's a few snippets from a great article if you'd like to get a better handle on how the rest of the world sees the u.s. - and why...

(from the international herald tribune)

Sixteen years ago the cold war ended and an age of globalization dawned, of which America is the driving force and emblem. This age has lifted tens of millions of people from poverty. But it has also proved divisive and dangerous in ways the United States never imagined when the Berlin Wall fell.

America, with its certitudes, its movie stars and Starbucks, has never loomed larger on television screens or in individual psyches, where it lures but also repels. The United States sees itself spreading its gifts, inspiring a global tide of liberty, but often it is seen as the symbol not of opportunity but of a threatening modernity: trampler of tradition, mouther of hypocrisies, poor listener, bully, robber baron disguising its intent in a cloak of noble convictions.

[...]

A global world is full of false images: no longer the mind-bending inventions of totalitarian societies but the cascading inflections of ideas and images endlessly retransmitted by the latest advances of technology. America, in this sense, is trapped in a web of its own creation.

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