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Originally Posted by JAD_333
I hope your list also includes books that tell of America's triumphs and of American men and women of high caliber who were responsible for great achievements. A book like the Ugly American can be easily blown out of proportion by a young, impressionable person. You've seen the result. The young, bright, well educated person, well versed in all the negatives about his country, to the point of anger, and seemingly oblivious to all the far more positive things.
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JAD,
The Ugly American does tell of great achievements by Americans amongst the vignettes of those who don't make a good name for America. It is a balance that shows both what not to do along with what to do. Also, you appear to be forgetting the audience I'm talking about
I'm pretty confident that they are not American haters.
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Originally Posted by JAC_333
I suppose it takes a close call like almost growing up in a NAZI dominated country or living in Spain under Franco to realize that America really is a "beacon of liberty." That isn't the American Way; that's the American reality, the Canadian reality and the reality in a few dozen other countries. The American Way is something else. It was and is a combination of altruistic and economic outreach by a properous and generous people whose sincere desire to help the less fortunate was, unfortunately, sometimes left in the hands of lousy stewards. So, you think it's good that we should now come back to a "reality" in which the good things count for little while the incompetence and insensitivity of some diplomats and aid workers is all that really matters?
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You're misinterpreting what I'm looking to do, much of which I believe stems from the fact that you haven't read the book. The book clearly demonstrates that the way to win favor is to do within the context of the culture you are operating in, and it does these through a couple of vignettes. Our soldiers are operating as mini-ambassadors everyday in other countries, and if they go about it in a way that comes off as American arrogance, then we won't see success or else it will come at a higher cost, no matter what the intentions are. As the saying goes, good intentions aren't enough.