Romney has gone on a trip to show that he can be a bang up diplomat even though he has no foreign policy experience. This trip has already been a total disaster. He's prove he has no diplomatic skills, as he p.o.ed our best friends in England by criticizing the Olympics. Now he's in Israel. When he got around to talking about Israel's neighbors, after a long speech in which he spoke only of Israel, it wasn't good.
When Romney finally did broach the topic, he raised the ire of Palestinian officials by attributing Israel’s successes to “the power of at least culture and a few other things,” and contrasting Israeli economic gains to those of its Palestinian neighbors. At a fundraising breakfast on Monday morning, Romney said:
[A]s I come here and I look out over this city and consider the accomplishments of the people of this nation, I recognize the power of at least culture and a few other things. …
As you come here and you see the GDP per capita, for instance, in Israel which is about $21,000 dollars, and compare that with the GDP per capita just across the areas managed by the Palestinian Authority, which is more like $10,000 per capita, you notice such a dramatically stark difference in economic vitality.
ABC News reported he stated that culture is what always makes the difference. He compared U.S. to Mexico saying we have a superior culture. Of cousre he shows total ignorance of the fact that that "culture" consists of many military interventions into Latin America, including a war with Mexico in which we stormed their capital.
The assertion that culture is what makes the difference is disproved by quick consideration of Canada. Canadian culture is almost identical to American, even their business habits are similar and they have a good prosperous way of life. They kicked our asses in the war of 1812 and they didn't do badly in the French and Indian war. Yet we came out ahead in the long run, not becuase we have a pure culture or because we have a Superior culture (it's almost the same) but because we have a much larger population and a much larger part of our land mass is more temperate.
Romney made these remarks to court the American Jewish vote. His extension into the discussion of Mexico vs U.S. is no doubt aimed at the tea party types who are alarmed by immigration and who want to close the boarder to more Latin presence. The superior culture bit sounds like a thinly vailied reference to race. Is this the guy we want to be President? He has no ability in diplomacy and may have racist attitudes, doesn't understand the effects of power or its destructive potential and doesn't understand how societies work.
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