Sales Soar of Book Chavez Gave Obama

jim:
re: you seem to judge them by different standards"

I'm glad you got my point about how easy it is to lump events in a time period together and blame any president, and certainly some Presidents are certainly worse than others,... of course to me, the recent Bush remains in a class by himself.

re: " i want him to be a good president, so do you, i want him to do it with honor, you don't. there is no honor in appeasement."

I would disagree with you that candid historical discussions by an American president with the rest of the world is somehow 'appeasement' and 'without honor' or 'runs down the country'.

As to doing everything with 'honor' .. that word like 'truth' has a way of having a different meaning depending on one's political slant..
Taliban blows up schools for 'honor', women in some countries are murdered for family 'honor'.........

same thing with the word 'appeasement',...
Obama is certainly not doing what is known as 'appeasement' from WW2 : the foreign policy of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain towards Nazi Germany between 1937 and 1939.

re: "you see sometimes things look good but turn out bad, and thats what a president gets judged on, how did things turn out,the road to hell is paved with good intentions."

you can use that same approach to see what a country has done historically,.. I am less concerned about Pres. Obama political speeches around the world than you seem to be......... I don't view them as a threat to America........ and I do not believe that the 'honor' of America is some how being lost by America coming to grips with it's past, good and bad...... to me, it's THAT kind of political strength and character that is 'honorable'.

The best book ever wrote about latino-america.

The subtitle does not exist in the spanish version.

mr.tony..... if you hold reagan responsible fot the 80's can i not hold carter responsible for the late 70's? you seem to judge them by different standards. and with a democratic controlled house and senate carter couldn't get his agenda passed. see, its not what you wanted to do that you are judged, its what you did.and carter left us worse off then he found us. as far as i'm concerned we have not had even one 'good'president in my lifetime[born1949].one[lbj] stuck me in vietnam because i was poor, and allowed middle-class and wealthy kids to get a draft deferment.[what was up with that?].nixon was, well, nixon. ford was a caretaker, carter was ineffective, reagan ushered in greed, bush 1 was out of touch, clinton could have been good, [but was selfish]bush 2 was a disaster.thus we find ourselves in the mess we are in today. a whole series of bad to mediocre presidents got us here.as for the french, their government is what i was refering to. the people in paris are like the people in new york, and i would hate for america to be judged by that standard. the french in the countryside, particulary in normandy, are lovely.i am a social liberal,i think the government should help the poor, the disabled,the hungry. but i have been all over the world, and despite our failings i know this is the place with the most opportunity and the best of countries. and while i am prepared to debate another citizen in private and admit we are not always right, i am not willing to apologize to the japanese for hiroshima [as obama did]or slavery[which clinton did]or allow the 'draft dodgers' back in the country[as carter did']or pardon nixon[as ford did']or make blacks a permanent underclass[as lbj did']. you see sometimes things look good but turn out bad, and thats what a president gets judged on, how did things turn out,the road to hell is paved with good intentions. by the way, i am a black man.proud that our country elected a black man. but he will not succeed by running us down to not only our allies but our enimies. i want him to be a good president, so do you, i want him to do it with honor, you don't. there is no honor in appeasement.

jim:
re: 'he's like the french, who never forgave us for winning ww2.'

-about 'The French'...
I have a friend who's father died in France in WW2, defending a small 'in the middle of nowhere' type town.... I ' won't get into all the details, but "The French' of that town searched for my friend over 60 years later, and flew him over to France, where after arriving at that town, all of 'The French' of that town honored my friend and expressed their deep gratitude for his father's sacrifice.

It's very easy to use 'historical' reference to qualify and 'justify' your opinions, but without the details ...... making a generalizations about 'The French' makes you seem like the folks who were ranting about 'freedom fries' not too long ago.

jim:

so according to you, Carter was directly responsible for all of that?

we might be about the same age if you were born in the early 50's.....

too bad no one adopted his energy policies, you must have forgotten how much Reagan increased the deficit, supported Iran, Savings & Loan collapse,

re; "i tell you i'm a moderate and you doubt me.."
your love America or leave it sentiment hardly seems moderate.

again, how much better we wouls be now, if Carter's national energy policy that included conservation, price control, and new technology would have been continued..

while it is true that his last year in office was difficult... to blame Carter for oil shortages and resultant economic problems across America is a shallow argument, ......

and, as much as you like to quote history, to blame Carter for the rise of Islamic fundamentalism, without also giving the history of American involvement with the Shah long before Carter as causative factors , is also shallow...

I think Bill and Bernardine already gave him this book.

To understand the present is important to learn about the past. Americans (from US) don't know about the history of the Americas. At least, this will make people have an idea of what happened to our countries and then with an open mind will learn why there are Chavez, Castros and Morales in Latin America nowadays.

The book is actually about how developed countries became so developed - DRAINING latin america's gold, silver and other minerals from the "New World", building cities to make profits as fast as possible instead of developing it, killing the regional crops to grow what was valuable for the foreign market, etc etc etc.
It's not just about the United States but a lot about Europe in general and specially Spain, Netherlands, France and other traditional colonizers.
A must read book to understand how some countries are so rich and others so poor. Poor countries were actually the richest ones but learned too late how to do business in a world called JUNGLE.

I wanted to say point of view (not you)

I read the book. It's worth reading it, although I don't agree with Galeano point of you. I'm from Argentina, and I think that if we want to progress is not with resentment.

That's the Obama touch!!!

Some people in america like to still read what is relavent. GREAT!

mr.tony.... you must not have been alive when jimmy carter was president, 17% interest rates, oil shortages,20%inflation, the hostage crisis in iran etc..... yeah he was a great president. even bill clinton dispised him. now i don't doubt the man's inherent goodness, but my god, he was perhaps our worst president ever. what ideas did he have that were not installed? he had a democratic house and senate, why couldn't he get it done?he was an idealist, which is ok if your a college professor, but not a president.a good man?perhaps. a good president?laughable.

brang

How come all these people around the world always brang up what the USA has done to other countries. Like what we did to Latin America. Well, what about what the Spanish did to the Incas and Aztecs, I heard it's kind of hard to find any of those people.

Everything Obama touches turns to gold.

Yes we can!!!

mr.tony........ just so you know it was the british and the french that killed most of the native americans, by the time americans got involved there were not many left. and by the time my people escaped the british it was long over, so none of it was my fault, nor was slavery. both things were[are]repulsive to me. the french and british laced blankets with smallpox killing most of the indians, and my people in ireland were starved and their farms and homes confiscated.i'm old enough to remember some of americas mistakes yet young enough to know that what is written in the history books is wrong. history has nothing to do with what happened, its just 'his story', so go on, mr.tony, believe what you want, i tell you i'm a moderate and you doubt me. who cares? the far left and the far right will be the undoing of our country. who will write the history then? probably the chinese.i hope you are young so you see the end, i'm not young and will be dead when the end comes.

jim

re: " if you don't like it take your union card and leave. and by the way if people like me[moderate]"

yes indeed, your position represents true 'moderation'.... LOL

jim:

America would be a great deal better off if it would have taken many of Carter's policies to heart....... Reagan was elected, and then he supported and armed Saddam, with that famous pix of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam.

It's interesting that you consider an open policy discussion with the rest of the world, 'apologizing'.

re: "so i don't apologize for whatever america did, we found freedom here. the british subjected my people to unspeakable things."

and most of the new Americans revisited that oppression you mention by participating in slavery and killing native americans.

re: " i am a baby boomer and i saw what the far left did in the 60s"

well, why don't you tell everyone what you think the 'far left' did in the 60's....

I just bought this book, and I am looking forward to learning more about Latin America. I think as a whole, we are too ignorant about the history of our own continent and our own hemisphere.