ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!
If it doesn't effect them directly, they don't take the time to do any "horizon thinking" --- it's only what's goin' on in their own back yard they understand.
Sad, but true.
--Good thing to know there are a few of us that see beyond the fence ;-)
I've got an Afghan neighbor. She liked John Kerry in the last election. She thought he was an honest man....GOD HELP US ALL.
She was out in front of her house, gardening, when I was precinct walking for the special election in CA in a couple of days. I was passing out door hangers to my list of houses, saw her. We'd talked before--trying to get her to see the light, so today, I remembered....my President doesn't back down, and neither do I....so, I walked up to her, complimented her on her garden, and said hi. During the course of the conversation, I found out she didn't know about the election. She asked me who was running. I said where we are this particular election is not about people, it's about issues this time. We talked about Prop 73 first. I said a girl can't get her ears pierced in CA without parental consent, but they want to get an abortion without it and Prop 73 stops that. She went off about how terrible abortions are--I don't fault her there. She acted as if America was all about letting people have abortions. (Definitely NO "horizon thinking" goin' on there!) Then, she started talking about Bush being so terrible for going to Argentina---I tried to explain it to her, but she would NOT hear of it. She just thinks Bush meddles in other people's business all the time. She doesn't think we should have gone to Iraq. I said what about all the horrible things Saddam and his sons were doing to their people? The rapes of the women by his sons. She stopped me short---"Muslim does not rape." I said, "Are you telling me you seriously don't believe Saddam's two sons raped any women?" She said no, and kept repeating that Muslims don't believe in that---and that it ONLY happens here in America. "Every night on TV there is something so bad that Americans have done to their own people. Muslims do not do this. If America wants to tell people what to do, they should take care of their own country first." I tried and tried to explain things to her --that only the bad stuff gets on TV, but to no avail. Then, I came home and realized that I've been approaching this all from the wrong direction. I'm going to ask her if I lived in her country, and was having a discussion with her as my neighbor, and all I said was negative things about her country, how would she like it? Then, I will promptly tell her that if it is so bad here....she can always go back to her dear Afghanistan. It's weird. I don't know why she is like this. She'll go off complaining about how terrible the Russians were, but then blames America for letting the Taliban in and not coming to rescue Afghanistan sooner. Sheesh...like all we have to do is run around preemptively attacking without cause. We were there because of 9/11, and in Iraq because of all the ignored resolutions--and Saddam was a terrorist with an address. I just can't believe she's so short sighted....which brings us back full circle to the article. Thanks again for posting it.
Sorry this is long - thanks for letting me vent. I love my country and she's making me angry---but I want to change her mind, not just go off in a huff and make no ground.
She must be watching CNN.
When occasionally I watch CNN, just to get an idea what propaganda they are spreading, I always think, that if I only watched CNN and got all my news only from them, I would also have to conclude that the US is really a bad country. CNN is really that bad. They should rename themselves Al Jazeera West.