I do think so. The modern-day British people, as a whole, can be fairly said to be a generally fair-minded people. That can be said of many other modern-day Europeans and Amercans. The good German is respected highly for acknowledging past mistakes committed by a section of the rabid right.

Crimes against other nations and their own people are committed by a rabid section who overwhelm or brainwash (as Farmer said) their fellow countrymen into a frenzy of fear and aggression. Regretably, a section of Japanese people refuse to acknowledge heinious crimes not only against China and Korea, but all of Southeast Asia. At the same time, there are many very good Japanese who feel sorry for what happened and are vowed to prove themselves as a peace-loving people.

There are so-called human beings (in all countries) driven by greed and power. They have no conscience and are a breed not even comparable to beasts of the jungle. Their will kill, maim, torture, etc even their own brothers, sisters or parents if anything or anyone should stand in their way of profit. The overt ones are such as Hitler and Saddam. The greater numbers sit in boardrooms, rapacious and cunning. The rip-offs of pensioner's retirement livelihood do not manifest themselves directly in bloodshed, but the unseen despair and anguish of the victims. Communism was born from the torn souls and guts of victims of rapacious capitalists.

White Americans who fought for civil rights and justice for black Americans, at great cost to themselves, are that special breed of human beings whose souls are the image of the God who made them. They represent the hope of America as a great nation of courage and justice. But some call them fools and brand them as "liberals" or "nigger-lover". It is this shining image of such brave Americans that balances what is seen by many as an aggressive America dominated by a minority of the extreme fundamental right (not overtly), as seen over the past many decades.

When a country is powerful, often the most ruthless few succeed in usurping power (even through a "democratic" process), because it is only the ruthless who crave for such heights of power and have the souless resolve needed to rise to the top. They are aided (for different reasons and objectives) by powerful business interests, and a population of decent people with moral values and beliefs that makes "the bigger the lie, the more it is believed" and the "bigger the unpleasant truth, the more it is disbelieved".

Most Americans are such decent people that it is almost impossible to reconcile this fact with the image of the USA in Vietnam, Napalm, the Shah of Iran, the Saddam of US prodigy, etc. And US leadership is not Hitlerian, far from it. So, what drives the United States of America? What drives anti-Americanism? It conflicts totally with the spontaniety and decency, and bravery, of the ordinary American.

Threats to peace-loving people are not only bred in dictatorships and authoritarian states. The industrial revolution was the engine of colonisation of the third world, the siesmic changes resulting in the horror of the conflicts, the defeat of Germany in WWI, that ultimately led to WWII.

My own view is that American experience of world history, given the USA's quick rise as a nation (especially after Europe was destroyed by WWII), suffers from a lack of perspective, experience and understanding of the rest of the world. This young kid grew up fast and strong, and quickly learned that he has to cope with a real tough world no more an ocean away. That notion of security was shattered by Pearl Harbour and WWII, the rise of Communism and the Cold War. So, the kid must always be bigger and stronger, must act in a pre-emptive manner, must be street-smart, machiavellian, cynical, but underlied by an innate decency, a Richard Nixon who at the same time extended the first hand of friendship to China.

Geography and economics contributed to America's lack of deeper contacts with the rest of the world, especially beyond Europe and the Americas. How many Americans felt the need to use another currency for accounting, another language to build bonds and business, another place for a holiday? How many Amercans learn other nation's history at school? How many felt the need for this, until perhaps more recently.

China, as just as big a country, was for long periods equally self-sufficient and inward-looking. There were centuries and centuries of peaceful living for the ordinary people, marred occasionally by dynastic changes, internal wars, natural disasters, floods, etc which brought untold miseries. Harsh injustices, deprivation and cruelties (which I described in the previous posting) were at village levels, or during periods of inept governance, perpetuated by greedy officials, an all-powerful magistracy and bureaucracy, rapacious landlords or village chiefs. But from the utter chaos and incessant wars of the Spring and Autumn period and the Period of the Warring States (some 2,500 years ago) were born the great philosophies of Confucianism and Taoism, as the way to order in society, stoicism, acceptance, obedience, etc. There were perhaps equal numbers of bad and benevolent emperors, but none sought conquest of other nations. The more war-mongering rulers fought pre-emptive wars around China's borders and in most cases peace was quickly concluded with the defeated opponent.

Confucianism helped to bring order to family relations and society for centuries. But it also retarded the growth of the Chinese people in many ways. Absolute obedience to the male head of the family was the equal of a sacred duty, as was filial piety, a deep-rooted consciousness of duty to one's ancestry and long dead forebears, etc. The place of women in family and society was nothing more than service to the male.

But it speaks for the Chinese people's adaptability (at least within Chinese society, but not external relations because China looked inward) that Chinese women's position has improved vastly (except at conservative village level) without any great upheaval or liberation movement. Chinese philosophies also reinforced a great capacity to accept hardships and sacrifice. Peasant rebellions occurred only when large sections of the population were in economic despair. Not until foreign nations parcelled various parts of Shanghai and coastal China in the dying decades of the last Imperial dynasty (the Ching), were there politically-inspired uprisings by ordinary people (dynastic challenges were political movements though). This brief narration is to explain why Chinese are generally peace-loving, non-aggressive and non-conquest seeking. But China's inwardness hurt itself only. America's inwardness has great consequences for the world.

It is my personal hope that Americans make a serious effort to learn about the histories and cultures of other peoples and nations, not only of the Chinese, but various Islamic nations, etc as well. Only with this will America be able to play its leading role as a nation to be truly admired.