ralph, i respect your opinions unlike types such as kman and outandup you seem to have some decent level of education, reasoning, and understanding. That said, i dont personally love my country, i like it, actually i like certain things about it, not all or most, but a lot, i also like a lot of things spanish, and italian, and american, what grantt is pointing out here is that the u.s. currently seems to be on the forefront of mass ingnorance spoon fed by the media (the dumbest most insulting to our intellingence shows have originated recently from the u.s.), blind propaganda and bigotry, obesity, genetically modified food, weapons of mass destruction (and yes according to the un right now the u.s. is THE major manufacturer, and YES retailer of w. of m. destr., bold indifference to any international agreements on the environment, and world piece, and all in all a decaying and desperate empire trying to halt al quada (if there ever was one, cause i ve seen no evidence, none brought to trial, and the only known guy is one of the bin laden family, aka g.w. bush neighboors, aka bush family co owners of the figaro newspaper in france...) while at the same time they cant solve east jersey problems.
So, what if other nations have done this before, is that any justification for the brutality, ignorance and greed of u.s. foreign policy, is this any justification for u.s. culuture crumbling under the weight of mac fvcking donalds, and gaps, and hollywood, aka shit for meat, child labour and crack whores respectively?