by David Nuttle

Created on: September 11, 2008

In the developing world, where I have worked for over five decades, Americans are often viewed as being citizens of the so-call "Consumption Empire." This label was created as a result of the U.S. having only 05 percent of the world's population, while consuming about 24 percent of all global resources. A single American uses more resources than 370 Ethiopians, 31 Indians, or 13 Chinese. Each day, Americans eat over 200 billion more calories than needed, while throwing out more than 200,000 tons of edible foods. Meanwhile, over 800 million people are living on the brink of starvation. Every American generates over 52 tons of garbage by age 75. Americans use 10 times more energy than most others in the world, and we are the global "hogs" of petroleum consumption although we have the technical means to meet most of our energy needs by alternative means.

A few short years ago, many people still viewed America as the "beacon-on-the-hill," a shining example of democracy with all of its freedoms. Today, most people see America as the "outhouse-in-the-swamp," due to what seems to be a "flood" of arrogance, ignorance, greed, corruption, and failed leadership. In addition, some people believe that America was defeated by the al-Qaeda terrorists as evidenced by the fact that the U.S. now tortures terrorist suspects, and seems to be little different than the terrorists. Moreover, it seems that Americans were all too willing to abandon many of their basic freedoms by allowing the approval of our Patriot Act removing some of our most basic freedoms. The people of many lands understand terrorism from their own experiences, and they know that when any government refuses to grant freedoms to its own populations, based on a stated need to combat terrorism, the terrorists have won by helping to turn people against their own governments.

Those persons, in other nations, who follow U.S. politics generally believe that wealthy, poliitcally powerful special interests have now formed a type of modern oligarchy that controls what happens in America. This so-called modern oligarchy seems to have used its wealth to employ hundreds of lobbyists, and pay millions of dollars in "political payola" (large, sustained campaign contributions) to effectively control sufficient numbers of U.S. Congressmen to "capture" the U.S. Government. In more recent reports, it has been disclosed that these special interests have also provided illegal drugs, sexual favors, and a "flood" of very expensive gifts

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