I believe that the criticism from President Chavez represents popular sentiments elsewhere. We have never done much to improve opinions of the South American peoples.

We have heard the same kind of sentiments from other areas of South and Central America. We have heard some of the same kind of comments from just south of our border from time to time. One thing I feel that we need to remember is that these countries have been influenced by countries that have had a long standing animosity towards the US. President Chavez has had much influence from countries like Cuba and other communist countries. It should be no surprise that he would carry their sentiments of animosity towards us. Any country that is controlled by communist influences will naturally has distaste for a country that has as much freedom as ours does.

By talking bad about our country these leaders are attempting to hide their own oppression and dishonesty. They figure if they talk loud enough about our problems, it will take the attention of the world off of their problems. They know that their form of government does not really work, so they feel that they have to attack a country where the government does work. They want their people to feel that they have the best life possible, so they must make us look bad in order to accomplish that. It is simply a ploy to draw attention away from them.

These same sentiments have been heard elsewhere also. It always seems that we get the harshest criticism from those who do not enjoy our freedoms. If all you have know is an oppressive government, it is hard to imagine how mush better it is to have our freedom. It is hard to even imagine having our freedom.

I could say a lot about how our current government has hurt our appearance around the world, but I won't. I will just say that the opinions of other countries were much different when we were under a different administration. Our next President will have to do mush to rebuild the reputation of the US around the world.

Countries that do not have our style of free economy are also jealous of us for that reason. Many of them have an oppressed and corrupt economic system that pails in comparison with ours. They do not know what it is to have a free market. Their government must criticize our market system as a way of making their system look less bad. Once again it is a ploy to take the focus off of them.

Learn more about this author, Ronald Holmes.
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