Tex. I am laughing because you are SO RIGHT. I don't know why they consider Argentina Third World. I can't see how it's any more Third World than the U.S. (now don't be afraid to straighten me out on that but that's an honest statement). And now true confessions. When my son wanted me to come here I thought he's out of his mind. Why would I do that. My mental image of South America was bamboo houses with dirt floors (a la Belize perhaps). Now I know some of you are laughing and you're entitled. But that's how limited people can be that never left their native land.
But that isn't all. I've described what I thought to others who have said, "I know, I thought that too!"
Another great example of limited US knowledge of South America. When I told people I was coming to Buenos Aires, I'd say legitimately 3 out of 5 times, someone made some comment like, "Wow, I've always wanted to go to Brazil!" or some other statement referencing that BA is in Brazil haha. And the other 2 people would start singing a song from Evita
(To be fair, I wouldn't have known much about it here either if we didn't work with an office here)
Regarding politics, I've had a few brief political discussions with Argentines so far, but it's mostly been relegated to us both talking about how messed up we feel our governments are, and in different ways.
And regarding American imperialism, doesn't anyone recall the awesome movie "Team America: World Police" made by the creators of South Park a few years ago? It was a movie made all with puppets, and a brilliant parody of American imperialism. This was a classic song featured in the movie, if you haven't seen it, and it totally nails it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGQaH3-LK54
Maybe I'm a "bad American" but I really can't get into the whole "greatest country in the world" thing when we have so many huge, underlying problems. Sure, for me with a middle-upper middle class upbringing and a good job, it's a pretty good place to live and I don't have to worry about much, but the country is in huge debt, poverty levels are through the roof, we're falling wayyyy behind other countries in things like education, thousands of people are killed with guns every year, and we're all being spied on
Point is, some things need to start changing and based on the constant gridlock in our congress, it's not going to happen any time soon.
That being said, it's possible to live somewhere and be happy and not be overtly patriotic at the same time. My problem with many fellow Americans is some of them are so overly patriotic that if you criticize anything about the country, their first response is always something like, "well then why don't you just move to Canada?'
