A Blog That Has Shifted My Perspective

I read a blog a few months ago that has created a change in my perspective......a change in the way that I view my own country and the world around me. Actually, it wasn't a blog. It was a picture of the man in Norway who killed all of those children who were attending a Summer camp. The title given to the picture was "White Man's Disease".  So I went back and forth with the guy who posted the picture in an attempt to correct him by giving him examples of human rights abuses by people of all color down through the ages as well as in the present. This had absolutely no effect on his thinking. And so I quickly realised that he was just unbalanced and incapable of rational thought. To him, all of the evils of the world first appeared on this planet two hundred and some odd years ago in the United States of America. Slavery, greed, war and all the rest were first visited upon this planet in America a couple of centuries ago. And so while I was giving him examples of present day slavery in Africa, going all the way back into the dark recesses of our history, in Egypt and the Middle East, and while I was giving him examples of human rights abuses that have occurred throughout the entire history of the human race, abuses that are still so rampant today in many parts of the world, far worse than in the U.S., I began to realize how fortunate that I am to live in America. And I began to realize that despite all of the problems that exist here, there is so much to appreciate. There is so much to admire and to be grateful for, here. 

But this has also had another effect on me. I realized that I was only focusing on the problems in my own country. And I also started noticing that people from other cultures seem so quick to criticize the U.S. but never mention the problems that plague their own cultures. It has become almost fashionable to find fault the U.S. while ignoring the most hideous examples of abuse that are occurring elsewhere. And while it is understandable that as a citizen of this country, I am concerned about the problems that exist here, I am also a citizen of this planet. I care about people everywhere. And I think that it's a good idea to start seeing the world as a whole. So I will be trying to find a more balanced approach in my blogging and videos etc... What effects one nation effects us all. We are all a part of a greater whole.