From: MEDELMA@cms.cc.wayne.edu (Michael Edelman)
Subject: Re: POLL for non-U.S. residents:  Is U.S. envy of world?
Organization: Wayne State University, C&IT
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 12:37:48 GMT

In article <1992Aug20.225911.21121@dale.ksc.nasa.gov>
sdavis@laforge.ksc.nasa.gov (Steve Davis) writes:
 
>A735FJO@HASARA11.BITNET writes
>> "I know what is right for the world, and I know what is right for the USA
>> "I brought peace over the world, now let me bring peace in the USA"
>> "We have changed the world, now let's change the USA".
>>
>> Apart from that one should work on his/her faults first,
>> the above makes some of us (over here in Europe) puke.  Most of us,
>> however, just laugh about this outraging stupidity.
>
>  I, for one, am very embarrassed when American politicians make statements
>such as those above.  I'm sick of hearing claims that America is the envy of
>the world, and that all other nations in the free world look to the U.S. for
>guidance.
>
>  I think an informal poll might be in order, primarily targeting those posting
>from outside of the U.S.:
>
>****   Is the United States of America the envy of the world?  ****
>
 
Here's a poll with a forgone conclusion- but not because the pollster's
premise is generally true.
 
Most of the participants in this list outside the US have their connections
as a consequence of their association with Universities- a rather select
sample, wouldn't you think? Universities and Colleges are the most insular
environments in the world. They are for the most part completely out of
touch with what's happening elsewhere in their countries.
 
Case in point: In 1980, Ronald Reagan won what could reaonably be considered
a landslide victory over Jimmy Carter- but in universities, faculty probably
went something like 80-90% for Carter. There's just no connection between
the shared beliefs of the university community and the real world.
 
If we look at the opressed peoples of the world we still see the US held up
as the role model of freedom. In China, the student revolutionaries built
a model of the Statue of Liberty as as symbol to rally around. When ex-
President Reagan made his tour of Eastern Europe in 1981 he was cheered in the
streets as the great liberator- something generally carried in short columns
buried deep within the nation's media ;-). Did anyone see that great picture
in the Philidelphia Enquirer of Reagan taking a swing at the Berlin Wall
while the crowds cheered him on? Didn't run much elsewhere.
 
Yes, the US is still looked on as the great symbol of freedom and ooportunity
by the oppressed, and by the immigrants who come teeming into this country
every year. But don't ask the people in the media or the universities...
they still think Carter was the greatest president of the modern era.
 
The pollster asking for responses might add a little honesty to his poll
by dividing up respondants into categories: US firms overseas, foreign
firms, schools, etc., and reporting the total number of respondants in each
category. That way we might learn something.
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 Michael Joseph Edelman           Wayne State University
 medelma@cms.cc.wayne.edu         Computing & Information Technology
 mje@pookie.pass.wayne.edu        Detroit, Michigan
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