Is it just me? In the process of getting older, approaching 50 sooner than I would like, and being in the teaching field, major observations that I have made include that today's young people and even American citizens in general do not display the American values that were the cornerstone for which I thought American stood. Such values included Hard Work, Treat others With Respect, Respect Your Elders, and others.
As a result, America is not perceived well overseas, and within America there is the proliferation of a culture that pours money into Get Rich Quick schemes, Credit Cards maxed to the hilt, kids listening to music and watching videos that promote pimps, HOS, Bitches, and every 4 letter word under the sun! Top corporate executives think nothing of financially raping their employees as long as they have a golden parachute.
Nowhere do I hear a voice promoting in the Media and in Education, the type of Core Beliefs and Values that America and Americans should have.
What do you think? Post your thoughts.
1 comment:
Actually, the U.S. Canada Free Trade Agreement to which you referred (i.e., the automotive companies shifting parts back and forth between the U.S. and Canada) was the second in a series of trade preference programs. I believe the original agreement was called the GSP -- Generalized System of Preferences. It opened the industrial world to duty free imports from southeast Asia. This is how Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan, achieved sophisticated consumer electronics industries. The Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act (CBI) was a subsequent trade program advanced by Jimmy Carter and implemented during the Reagan Administration in order to advance the economies of our southern neighbors and to provide a location for the U.S. to have cheap labor in our own backyard -- thus competing with the Far East imports. Then followed NAFTA, the Andean agreement and finally CAFTA. Those U.S. companies that have prospered are the ones that have been on top of these programs -- lobbying our negotiators for preferential rules that determine which products are eligible for duty free status and on what terms. Ross Perot was right -- not about the great sucking sound -- but about the beneficiaries being the K Street crowd who could get results for their clients as the rules of origin were created for key product sectors.
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