The World As We See It

The World As We See It

How do you see it?

It is amazing how different the world is today from when I was a young lad. 63 yrs ago when I entered this world communication came through the radio, telephone, telegraph, hand written letters, and newspapers. You could go to the highest mountain in the world screaming as loud as you want, and no one would hear you.
Today you type one small sentence and hit the send button, and millions of people all over the world have the option to read what you said.
I just posted a few stories that I have written over the past year and a half for my family, and this has open a new door to me with the rest of the world. In doing so I have exposed myself to the opinions of others. We all live in our own little environment going from day to day without thinking much about the world around us.
Years ago governments could control the spin on stories in the press, and radio broadcast, but not today. From the Internet, to cell phones that take pictures, or are used to text have given us insight to how the world really looks. In the news the last few days are a good example as the Iranian people are protesting their elections. Just a few years ago we would have heard the story with only the spin from our local governments.
In my posting of the short definition of how I felt about The American Flag I recieved a comment from someone named Jupiter. He challenged me on the content of the definition, and rightly so, considering not everyone in the world agrees with America and their influence on the world. The challenge for us as Americans is to no longer elect people, who we think will be best for America, but to try and find the right individuals to do what is best for mankind, including the rest of the world.
The dialog I had with Jupiter was very interesting because it gave me a little insight into how the rest of the world sees us. With out the Internet this would be extremely difficult in the past. Although Jupiter is very disenchanted with the government in the United States, and their policies I doubt he has a quick answer as to resolve the wrongs my country has committed throughout the world community, but then again I failed to ask him about that. The important thing here is that he was able to express to me his concerns. I understood his argument even agreeing with a lot of what he had to say. If there were some way to resolve all the problems he addressed I would vote for it immediately, but since I have yet to find a better system, I will keep trying to make what we have here better.
I believe that young people have an advantage here to band together through the Internet to develop a system that works or at least to listen to ideas from around the world on how to make things better. I hope that with people like Jupiter expressing their concerns, people listen, and this starts us in another direction to make the whole world a better place to live.
Here in the United States I hear people talk about how the price of something is to high, then complain that the poor people in other third world countries are only paid paltry sums. You cannot buy from companies that exploit third world countries or you are part of the problem. The world economy is out of balance, and we need to try and bring it in line without stifling the desire to work hard to do better.
Thanks to people like Jupiter I have a better perspective of the world today than I did yesterday.

Robert L. Murdoch 06/20/09