Outside the Fishbowl

Today I had lunch with this guy Tei whom I met here in Japan. Tei is trying to start his own company, is American, and has lived in Tokyo for 10 years. Like some Americans who have been away for a long time they eventually ask questions about what things are like back ‘home’. We eventually gotten around to that subject before I asked him is he was going to vote; to which he laughed. What followed was a conversation that was longer than we had for lunch, and something that was touched on in the current issue of Foreign Policy (sorry can’t find the link). You see inside the US things have changed, but out here (and the Middle East) things have not changed much.

Looking from the outside the fishbowl to the inside things look a little crazy. Of course not everyone talks politics all the time; but I look at elections like the Superbowl, so I talk about it with people. So what do people outside the fish bowl see? Well for one there was just this long debate between the president and the legislative branch to determine what if torture should be allowed with prisoners. The Bush II (Cheney in Command) has admitted to secret CIA prisons; which is a charge that he has denied before. There was a Canadian citizen that was sent to Syria to be tortured even though the Canadians wanted him back. Then there is Iran which the administration sounds like WMD in Iraq II (Iran Strikes Back). Then people hear things about how the United States wants to bring freedom and peace to people around the world, but we support dictatorships like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Azerbaijan.

Some people will read that and point at how unpatriotic I am. Those are just facts and I’m not passing judgment with them. People can come to their own conclusions about those things and it says nothing about my patriotism.

So before passing judgment about how people outside the “fishbowl” hate the United States think about this. Things out here have not changed much. People are not paranoid about terrorism beyond the usual. People have not overreacted to events outside the fishbowl because they live here. Some out here ‘hate’ the US (no so much in Japan) but it isn’t usually the US that they hate but the hypocrisy, empire building, shortsightedness, bullying, and general ass hole attitude that they hate. It does not matter if America are these things or not, but people have that perception; and that is someone’s individual reality.

Here is an awesome Foreign Policy article, but I think you need a subscription to read it. This is one of the best things I have read all year (though Bush worshippers may not like it).