One of the other points that was made in BFC was that the US is a country that very openly uses violence in a response to anything that goes against their current agenda. Some examples were dictators that we install who decide not to be our puppets anymore, or countries that decide to follow a government that we don’t like. On top of this, we seem to have a trend of finacing wars in other countries just, some would say, to continue selling them our weapons. What does this teach our children? That it is ok to blow up thousands of people just because they are not playing our game? I am not personally sure how much of an influence this is on making the US such a violent country, because honestly I don’t believe that most of the people here even know what is going on in the world, or why. Still, I believe this very black and white, good vs evil idea that Bush is promoting (the evil doers!) does teach our children hatred, that it is ok to hate a mass group of people just because of a certain difference.

I recently watched a movie (that a friend suggested to me after I talked his ear off about these issues) that covers the American involvement in El Salvador during the civil war. It is a pretty depressing movie, covering the involvement of the US in sending millions of dollars in aid to the goverment, to contine the war with the “guerillas”. The point made in the movie is that the guerillas were in the begining just common citizens who were opposing the military dictatorship, who used very violent tactics to rule the country. The media’s invlovement in twisting the facts presented to the US at the time is also shown, such as glossing over the brutality that is going on on the government’s side of the war (there were these death squads that would pretty much shoot anyone out past curfew, using tactics taught to them by the US training camps). The sad part is the war lasted in the end 20 years, largely due to the US’s constant funding towards the Salvadorian government, and managed to ruin what was one of the most developed countries in Latin America. The bright side is in the end both sides agreed to just stop fighting and form two political parties, as well as combine both armys. So, now they have one of the largest armys in Latin America…