Why Do People Hate America ?

I probably wouldn't have bought this, much less read it. I took the kids to New Hope, PA, and busied myself with browsing a bookstore while they went boutiquing. They're over 18 ... it's not as if I let toddlers wander the streets. I bumped into a stack of paperbacks, and this title fell to the floor among several others. I picked it up to put it back on the stack, but I wanted to have a look at it first ... and that was the end of that. I bought it after reading a few paragraphs. I was an American sailor on several deployments to the Mediterranean during the 1970's. I remember feeling the flush of anticipation when seeting foot ashore in my first port of call, Naples, Italy. My Dad and uncles had told me how well Americans were received there during WWII, and I guess that I expected a similar reception. Naivete ... it's a good thing it doesn't last long. This book shed a little light on some things that happened, that I couldn't comprehend at the time. I'd never done anything to anyone, and yet here were people who seemed to hate me just because I'm American. It's a dreadful sensation ... the feeling of being a REAL alien in a strange place in a strange time. It's a good read ... I can't vouch for everything in it, but I can say that the hostility is very real.

Despite some factual errors and occasional rampant PC-isms, this is a highly illuminating book written from outside the American sphere of influence. Of course it wasn't until 9/11 that most Americans were remotely aware that anyone in the world hates our nation, but that animosity has been building for decades. Americans' lack of knowledge of the outside world bred that sense of all-is-well isolationism that lead to people being shocked by the obvious. And despite what the President says (in his continual drive to gain votes and corporate support), people around the world do not hate us because of squishy concepts like freedom. They hate us for real and legitimate reasons, and we did not lose our innocence on 9/11. That's because we didn't have any to start with.Sardar and Davies do a fine and informative job outlining the deep and diverse roots of worldwide animosity toward America. There's our military interventions around the world, including 50 years of closed-minded partisanship in the Middle East. We've reduced third world nations to wretched economic servitude through manipulation of the puppets called the WTO and IMF, and forced "free" trade conditions that actually only ensure the free movement of American goods. We force upon the world extreme versions of "true" democracy and "free" capitalism that don't even work here. American corporations are controlling what food is grown and eaten, and media conglomerates bury native culture under an onslaught of American entertainment. The authors cover all these dire trends with equal research and insight, although the chapters on culture get a bit whiny and repetitive. Regardless, it is not necessary to agree with all of Sardar and Davies' particular contentions to realize that other people have plenty of very good reasons to hate us. Don't be so shocked next time something big happens. [~doomsdayer520~]

The heart of this book is not why people hate America, but rather on how Americans have lost touch with reality. This book joins three others books I have reviewed and recommend separately, as the "quartet for revolution" in how Americans must demand access to reliable information about the real world. They are Bill McKibben on "The Age of Missing Information" (a day in the woods contrasted with a year reviewing a day's worth of non-information on broadcast television); Anne Branscomb's "Who Owns Information" (not the citizen); and Roger Shattuck, "Forbidden Knowledge." These are the higher level books--there are many others, both on the disgrace of the media and the abuse of secrecy by government, as well as on such excellent topics as "Who Will Tell the People: The Betrayal of American Democracy" by William Greider, and "The Closing of the American Mind" by Allan Bloom. Here are a few points made by this book that every American needs to understand if we are to restore true democracy, true freedom of the press, and true American values to our foreign policy, which has been hijacked by neo-conservative corporate interests:1) "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." Dr. Samuel Johnson said this in 1775, on the eve of US revolution from British tyranny. When patriotism is used to suppress dissent, to demand blind obedience, and to commit war crimes "in our name," then patriotism has lost its meaning. 2) According to the authors, Robert Kaplan and Thomas Friedman are flat out *wrong* when they suggest that "they" hate us for our freedoms, the success of our economy, for our rich cultural heritage. Most good-hearted Americans simply have no idea how big the gap is between our perception of our goodness and the rest of the world's perception of our badness (in terms set forth below).3) According to the authors, a language dies every two weeks. Although there are differing figures on how many languages are still active today (between 3,000 and 5,500), the point is vital. If language is the ultimate representation of a distinct and unique culture that is ideally suited to the environment in which it has flourished over the past millenium, then the triple strikes of English displacing the language, the American "hamburger virus" and city planning displacing all else, and American policy instruments--inclusive of the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund--eliminating any choices before the Third World or even the European policy makers, then America can be said to have been invasive, predatory, and repressive. At multiple levels, from "hate" by Islamic fundamentalists, to "fear and disdain" by French purists, to "annoyance" by Asians to "infatuation" by teenagers, the Americans are seen as way too big for their britches--Americans are the proverbial bull in the china shop, and their leaders lack morals--the failure of America to ratify treaties that honor the right of children to food and health, the failure of Am