When you travel, work and live outside the borders of the United States, (keep in mind that I'm not talking about vacationing in Cancun or a cruise to the Mediterranean) the world appears to be a very different place than the one we know. Our standard television news sources in the U.S are generally considered to be among the poorest in the world so we subsequently have little news of events that do not directly concern us. Whenever I am in the public library or the bookstore I like to pick up a copy of the International Herald Tribune or the Christian Science Monitor to get some perspective on the world outside of the borders of America and to read about events that never make it into our press. The BBC World Service is generally more informative than many of the news programs especially about the events in remote corners of the world. National Public Radio offers very detailed and informative news about people, places and newsworthy events. The stories are not limited into segments lasting 15-30 seconds and are not sponsored by commercial ads. Network television news in America limits itself to only a few minutes of international news and only to the stories that American's would be interested in. After the news is over the networks return to entertainment programming.We have recently elected a President who, by his race and multi cultural upbringing, represents an amalgamation of a greater international community and is, for these same reasons, exactly the polar opposite of the type of man we have elected to the office in all of our history. President Obama is not white, he is not a product of the Washington beltway and he does not come from American aristocracy or a powerful family. Mr. Obama is the kind of President that the rest of the world will regard seriously because he is so different. As a result of President Obama's election, we American's will be held in higher esteem by the rest of the world because we have chosen him as our President even when we were offered a more traditional, white conservative male as one of the front runners. As an exceptional orator and communicator, President Obama should be the able to help convey our views and opinions to the rest of the world. His presence as our Commander in Chief cannot help but elevate our image to those who we must do business with and communicate with in the critical years to come. The election of President Obama by the people of the United States, whether we agree with his policies and opinions or not will make the day to day business of living in the world community easier and safer for all of us.
The world is a very different place than it was in the days of FDR, JFK and even Jimmy Carter. The world is smaller, more efficient and more accessible. Barriers that once defined a nation or a group are being redrawn with the new tools of the global internet. Commerce, war and nation building are happening on a scale that bears no resemblence to the world of even ten years ago and if we do not have the tools as a nation to forge alliances and plot new solutions to our problems, we will continue to be dominated by countries that have developed these solutions. In my opinion, as we move ever more precipitously onto the world stage and find fewer and fewer ideas to grasp onto that we once thought of as purely American, we are lucky to have this articulate, serious, pensive and dedicated President to lead us where the old guard never could.
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