Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: greenspirit who wrote (153755)	6/16/2001 12:39:15 AM
From: goldworldnet	Respond to of 769667

What do you think about this post? Message 15952989 All the Best, josh

To: greenspirit who wrote (153755)	6/16/2001 12:01:09 PM
From: asenna1	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

"Something less than 25% of all Americans have passports and it follows that the American experience of the outside world is extremely limited. While Europeans are exposed to a constant flow of fascinating information about American life, there's no reciprocal interest in the US about Europe, except when we have floods and foot and mouth and atrocities in the Balkans. Then the US takes notice, but this only serves to underscore the impression that life outside the great republic is far from comfortable. William Pfaff, writing in the Los Angeles Times the other day, noted a mistake made by the new secretary of the treasury, Paul O'Neill, who had commented that something had to be done to help the Japanese achieve a higher standard of living. As Pfaff writes: "In fact, Japan's problem is that its living standards are so high - much higher on average than in the United States - that Japanese consumers can't think of much they want to spend more money on." Among my friends in the United States I find a similar frustration with our misapprehensions - the idea, for instance, that every schoolyard is being raked by a 12-year-old with an assault rifle, or that you are quite likely to see a car chase through the streets of Manhattan. In fact, Americans drive much more slowly than Europeans and for the most part lead lives of dull plenty in the suburbs. Except in the big cities, America is astonishingly slow and conservative. HL Mencken, the great journalist of the first half of the century, certainly understood this when he attacked the way Americans refuse to discuss religion: "The result is that all religions are equally safeguarded against criticism, and that all of them lose vitality. We protect the status quo and so make steady war upon revision and improvement. That is a profoundly clever observation about the US, which is so often mistaken for the jittery crucible of invention. In areas other than commercial enterprise, it has been remarkably slow to challenge the status quo - segregation and gun law - mostly from fear of offending the Bill of Rights and Constitution." guardian.co.uk