The Oblivious Empire

I agree with what Mark Hertsgaard is saying in his essay. I know very little about what is going on in different countries. I do read the paper and watch the news but they can only tell me the governments side of the story. I try and stay updated with the news so that I can form my own opinions, but if I only hear what the government is saying then of course I end up siding with America. I truly beleived that the Middle Eastern countries hated us because of our power and our freedom. I never once stopped to think that that was exactly what I was being fed by the news. In the essay it describes the amount of economic sanctuations that we inflict on other countries and then it states how many of us, Americans, are aware of this. It just proves that I am very uneducated about our foreign policy. It is freightening to read about the problems that we are causing around the world.