Is America Crazy ?
Americans who live abroad -- more than six million of us worldwide (not counting those who work for the U.S. government) -- often face hard questions about our country from people we live among. Europeans, Asians, and Africans ask us to explain everything that baffles them about the increasingly odd and troubling conduct of the United States. Polite people, normally reluctant to risk offending a guest, complain that America’s trigger-happiness, cutthroat free-marketeering, and “exceptionality” have gone on for too long to be considered just an adolescent phase. Which means that we Americans abroad are regularly asked to account for the behavior of our rebranded “homeland,” now conspicuously in decline and increasingly out of step with the rest of the world.
In my long nomadic life, I’ve had the good fortune to live, work, or travel in all but a handful of countries on this planet. I’ve been to both poles and a great many places in between, and nosy as I am, I’ve talked with people all along the way. I still remember a time when to be an American was to be envied. The country where I grew up after World War II seemed to be respected and admired around the world for way too many reasons to go into here.
That’s changed, of course. Even after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, I still met people -- in the Middle East, no less -- willing to withhold judgment on the U.S. Many thought that the Supreme Court’s installation of George W. Bush as president was a blunder American voters would correct in the election of 2004. His return to office truly spelled the end of America as the world had known it. Bush had started a war, opposed by the entire world, because he wanted to and he could. A majority of Americans supported him. And that was when all the uncomfortable questions really began.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/01/11/country-crazy-inquiring-minds-elsewhere-want-know
= new reply since forum marked as read
I'd alert but it's probably already been allowed to stand by a jury.
Heretic is a buddy. 
11:11 AM
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On Sat Jan 17, 2015, 03:29 PM an alert was sent on the following post:
What the fuck do you know? n/t
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6095859
REASON FOR ALERT
This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate.
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You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Sat Jan 17, 2015, 04:11 PM, and the Jury voted 1-6 to LEAVE IT.
Juror #1 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: And preferably the entire subthread.
Juror #2 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No comments were provided by the alerter? No comments were provided by the juror.
Juror #3 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: I think the alerter has missed the fact that the poster is using humor to make a point. Not doing a very good job of it, but since when do we penalize for that.
Juror #4 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: It is meant to be humor. Be sure to read the entire subthread
Juror #5 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: Therapy?
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: Did A HERETIC I AM alert on himself?
Juror #7 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Thank you very much for participating in our Jury system, and we hope you will be able to participate again in the future.
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[/img] I was juror #6. 
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Repuke blue-eyed Caucasian Jeebus, anyway. 
It is not even in the top 10.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/10/worlds-highest-murder-rates_n_5125188.html
That was the only one I took time to look up...
40% of America's wealth (and 10% of the population controls 80% of the wealth). The 6 heirs to the WalMart family fortune have as much wealth between them as the bottom 35-40 million Americans combined.
Yay, capitalism!
by the group Sodexo which has brought worldwide attention to itself for low wages, unethical treatment of employees, and torture.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodexo
