God bless the USA

Today was my first official day at King's College. As I am taking several classes on the War Studies department, it was not a surprise to me when I found out that my first lecture was called : Cold War and its consequences. When I saw the title in the powerpoint, I cringed a little and thought to myself: this is going to be one of those really boring lectures.....but god knows I was wrong.

I think I highly underestimate the consequences of going to University in the US, because I was not prepared for what happened today and my reaction to it all. Basically, in within 3 minutes into the: "what was the Cold War" question, students were openly calling America the one and only cause of the war, saying that americans bought the bullshit that it was a war for democracy when it was actually all about capitalism and not losing economic markets etc...More surprising than these statements (which are not really surprising at all, it is just that the students said it as if they were so superior to american politics that it gave me the chills) was that I was really angry at such ignorance.

Here's what I have to say about all of this anti-american sentiment that seems to be everywhere: I understand how you feel. I do not by any means agree with a lot of political decisions made by american politicians, they are extreme and uneducated decisions. And I also agree that the consequences of those decisions were/are very dangerous. Now, I will not agree with students who perceive americans as "specially dumb people". Here's a little secret for you: every single country has a very BIG percentage of ignorant and uneducated citizens. I am not even talking about the part of the population that doesn't have access to information, I am referring to the elites of all countries. The ones that have plenty of access to all sources of information, but chose ignorance instead of knowledge. These people exist everywhere, not just in America. The problem is that America is a so called "superpower", which means that the decisions made by the people in America have bigger consequences than the decisions made by the people in Latvia. As a consequence, the ignorant people in the US are more dangerous than the ignorant people in Brazil. As you can see, this has NOTHING to do with Americans being more stupid, it has to do with them having more power.

Actually, a good deal of citizens in America will agree with your views against american politics, or haven't you noticed who is sitting in the White House at the present moment?! If their people are so dumb, why did they elect a president capable of drastically decreasing the anti-american sentiment around the world?
Hating the big guy who makes the big calls is the easy part, how about starting to realize how many countries support their decisions? Don't be surprised to find your country on the list.

This is very simple logic. The voice of authority has little room for mistake because everyone else is sitting on their desks, watching and being directly affected by their actions. But that doesn't make the voice of authority any more or less prone to making mistakes.

So please, feel free to criticize the decisions made by the American government (I do it all the time!), or by any government for that matter. However, DO NOT assume an air of superiority when you do this, because your country is not by any means exempt of ignorant citizens. Actually, if you are not able to understand that there are ignorant people everywhere, chances are that you are one of them.


[This post is either the result of heavy american brainwashing, so subtle that during my years in america I didn't realize that I was becoming a member of the american lovers society. OR it is a result of living in a culture for long enough to realize that even the so called "bad guys" are the victims sometimes.]