This is Floyd Wynne with THE VIEW FROM HERE     3/2/06

            Why do people hate America?

            A recent book with that title was adjudged an international best seller by the New York Times.   It was written by two people who have ties to Islam.

            The entire 224 pages is filled with falsehoods about America.   They maintained that the American Constitution was adopted from the Iriqouis Indians.   That America was guilty of aggression from the outset when it took over lands occupied by the Indians of the country.

            According to their theory….most of the world hates America.

            They liken American influence to that of the hamburger turned out by McDonalds….in that, in their words, it has corrupted the rest of the world with its corporate influence.

            They also likened John Wayne movies to the attitude of us against them.

            They also criticized America for not giving more to feed the world, charging rather that our policies really destroy many populations of the world by destroying their food practices.

            The end result of the book is that America, as a country, is ruthless nation intent on taking over the world.

            Now….after reading that book it set me to considering the same question, but asking…..Do people hate America?

            I came to an entirely different conclusion.

            Firstly, America is not English, Irish, Arabian or most any other individual nation.  America is made up of virtually every nation on the globe.  Yes we call ourselves American, but that covers all of us, regardless of our nationality.

            Most nations abroad simply don’t understand what America really is.  Like the writers of this book, they come from a mentality that looks backward to yesterday.   In America we look forward to tomorrow.   Our cultural ties are tied to our daily living, our ambitions, our desires and our hopes for the future.

            Too many nations, particularly in the Middle East regions wish to return to yesterday.  Their form of religion is alien to us in that it seems overly harsh, severely male dominated and prone to extremes.   Again, this may be a misunderstanding on our part.   In America we can and do worship as we please, covering all faiths and religions.

            However most all Americans look forward to a better tomorrow while many Middle East countries seem to want to remain stuck in the middle ages.

            While the writers of this book complained about Americas military aggressiveness, I would question whether they would rather have had Hitler victorious in the Atlantic and Togo in the Pacific.  They give America no credit for the millions of lives we have expended on behalf of the freedoms of other countries of the world.   Perhaps Hussein should have kept Kuwait and continued his atrocities in Iraq…..or the Taliban have continued their atrocities in Afghanistan.

Already we have sacrificed thousands on behalf of these two countries.

            The writers also blamed American customs and our competitive society with subverting the rest of the world with Hollywood movies, television epics and on and on.

            Yes, we have been very diligent in combating all threats to the freedoms that we enjoy, and thank goodness we shall continue to do just that.  True, we must not try to run the world…..and that seems to be these writers biggest criticism.

            There is no nation on the globe today with the mixture of nationalities and cultures that America has.  

            If there are people in the world who hate us…..it is because we love and cherish individual freedoms and do not spend our time and efforts on yesterday, but continue to strive for a better tomorrow.

            This is Floyd Wynne and that’s THE VIEW FROM HERE.