Commentary: Time to shut up

[unhappycamper]

Commentary: Time to shut up
By Ben Barber | Special to McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Sunday, February 13, 2011

Maybe it’s time we shut up.

We are constantly telling the Egyptians and the Tunisians, the Ukrainians and the Georgians, the Israelis and the Palestinians, the Pakistanis and the Sri Lankans, how to behave. If I missed your country, just wait.

And what it boils down to is this: we want them to behave like us. Of course it is an edited version of us, minus our own corruption, poverty, crime, pollution and big money politics.

But this is the 21st Century and they know all about us. They listen to the BBC in Arabic and the somewhat exaggerated version of Western life in Al Jazeera. What they unfortunately lack in the Middle East today is the Arabic version of the Voice of America.

Guess what folks — in the middle of the greatest crisis in the Arab-Western relations following 9/11, the U.S. government stopped funding VOA in Arabic. Instead, the State Department decided to fund a Western pop music station — Radio Sawa — which gave a few news bulletins on the hour.

[old mark]

1. We don't seem to have a lot to brag about, and I think it might do our country some good

to think about our own problems and reality without telling others how wrong they are.
K&R.

mark

[dipsydoodle]

2. They're still at it. They never learn.

White House to Iran: Allow opposition demonstrations there.

In LBN here today : http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=4731277

Thanks for your post.

[ejpoeta]

3. there was a time we lead by example. didn't have to TELL others how to be like us.

they wanted to be like america because it was open and free. but truly, we were never this image we portrayed ourselves as or that people saw. wish we were. You cannot make others be like you. They are not us. They are their own countries and they have to want something themselves. It may not be what we want for ourselves either. They may want something different. Instead of butting in and helping terrible corrupt people get into and stay in power, why don't we let the people of those countries decide what they want. Why don't we concentrate on being that city we keep imagining ourselves to be. Some beacon..... if we ever really were one we have long ceased to be it.

[ananda]

4. If you look at the USA through the social media of the young..

... it can look pretty good to other young people, especially since it's
filtering through the educated classes who have money.

The harsh realities of poverty, class warfare, corruption, and corporatism
do not filter through our media nor through the social media of the young.

[GeorgeGist]

5. and put up ...

with not being the greatest country ever.