When you write "our ideas", I wonder just which ideas you mean. I suppose you mean "my ideas".
Maurice, first off, you have got to quit using racial remarks on SI. I know you are not trying to be offensive, and think you are just being funny, but anything that can be construed as "racial" will be taken that way. We have just had too many problems here to tolerate those kind of remarks.
The ideas that have to be transmitted are the ones from the enlightenment that this country was founded on. You know, "Life, Liberty, and pursuit of Happiness." Individual freedom.
One of the most interesting books I have ever read was a biography called "MIG pilot", published about 25 years ago. It was the story of the Russian who brought his MIG to Japan to get the reward from our government for turning it over.
His description of his experience upon being brought to a Virginia "Safe House" to be debriefed is classic. When they took him to a supermarket, he was sure it had been rigged by the CIA to brainwash him. He just could not believe the wealth of this country. He gives many examples of this type of reaction in his book.
One that stuck with me was the Russian audience reaction to watching the movie "Grapes Of Wrath" when he was a kid. It was one of the few American movies that the Government allowed to be shown. He said the Russian audience was amazed at how RICH the Joad family was. They owned a TRUCK! This was unknown in Russia.
I believe it is this kind of unintended background that sells this country to the world. The VCR Copies of American movies, Satellite TV, and the Internet is doing more for us than all the Government PR combined, IMO. |
