On Fri, 14 Sep 2001, Randy Bush wrote:
the successful part of our culture is about tolerance and learning to live with folk different than we (for many values of 'we' and 'different').
The reality is that American culture is mostly completely ignorant about folks different from Americans. Most immigrants came here precisely because they _share_ the American ideals, and you never encounter those who think differently. Even with that - immigrant communities do not really mix. They merely co-exist. The "successful part" is nothing to be proud of, really. The American culture's broad appeal is mostly in its being the lowest common denominator. If you want the truth - take a look at correlation of school grades and percentage of non-hispanic immigrant children in American public schools. The "success" is based on making people so dumb that they can no longer tell their cultures apart.
resist the cycle of violence and hate.
Resist the cycle of ignorance and isolationism. Instead of reading CNN on the Internet, go and read European, Russian, Chinese, Arabic, Israeli news. You'll find that you're being brainwashed. An average all-American newspaper is no better than Pravda. TV is even worse. A docile population fed on the politically-correct diet of endless repetition of fuzzy warm feelings and little carefully selected facts is much easier to lead into accepting ineptness and stupidity of those in power. Airline security, my ass. Is there anyone seriously thinking the terrorists are stupid enough to do the same trick twice? Missile strikes on the empty bin Laden's bases, yeah, sure, that will help a lot. As for "violence and hate" - those can be quite constructive. Non-violence wasn't invented by hippies or Ghandi, you know. Lev Tolstoy before revolution became quite en vogue in Russia with his absolutist non-violence gospel. The last Russian tzar, Nikolay II, was a decidedly peaceful man. So he sent Lenin in exile. If he did some violence by actually killing him & his elk (and he had all the reasons for that -- his companions were actual terrorists: fire-bombing restaurants, robbing banks, etc), twenty year later there wouldn't be the wave of the red terror which ultimately killed 40-60 _million_ Russians and Ukrainians. If you care for more history lessons - the current situation with US vs "third world" eerily reminds the later years of the Roman republic. --vadim