What do you like BEST about the country you live in?--Al

-- Al Schroeder (al.schroeder@nashville.com), May 09, 2000

Answers

We all live in several little countries, don't we? I like that I live in a town where there is a low crime rate, where I can walk anywhere and not feel threatened, where I can speak out anywhere without fear of reprisal.

Several days a week I drive AIDS clients to doctors' appointments. For the most part these are low income folks. The guy I drove the other day says that on his block they sell cocaine on one side of the street and methamphetamine on the other side and that two days before someone had been shot outside his door. A woman I drive is always fearful that someone is going to break into the car when we are parked at a stopsign and won't let me drive away until she's sure all the doors are locked.

amazing how our "countries" are so different.

-- Bev Sykes (basykes@dcn.davis.ca.us), May 10, 2000.

My country the U.S.A. - where I am free to be what I want to be, to speak out about anything I wish, live as I wish within the limit of my resources.

-- Denver doug (ionoi@webtv.net), May 10, 2000.

The best thing I like about my country is all the different ethnic groups that live together in a community. I'll the different kinds of foods and diverse cultures, I believe that having knowledge about different groups and cultures make me a better person. The country I live in is Canada.

-- Elena Scourtoudis (escourtoudis@hotmail.com), April 03, 2001.

I live in the UK. I like it because we can demonstrate, we can tell the government that they suck. We demoed against: war/bush & blair/racism and we demonstrate for a better way of life.

We celebrate 1st May to remember the Chicago Martyrs and working class solidarity.

We can criticise our history of being one of the most barbaric histories the world has seen. Britain steamed across the globe and the imperialist chant was the Sun never sets on the British Empire. In reality the Blood never dried.

We cheer our heroes for doing heroic things but our rulers often confuse it with their bloody heroes. The heroes are: Darwin, Newton, Newcomer, Trevithick, the Pankhursts, and for me the political refugess Karl Marx and Frederick Engels that lived here and died here. Not many people like the Churchill, Thatcher, however the Duke of Wellington and Lord Nelson are a bit old to remember for their impact on history was very small.

Not all of us are proud of our flag, the flag that has brough war and famine across the globe but we are proud of our revolts, that got us what we wanted. However our rulers are trying to take it away and so the struggle to build a better britain is not fought in the board rooms or by the media jingoism of war but in the work places and on the streets challenging and pushing for a better future.

And the way I see it, we have been doing it the longest and doing the best. Despiste our problems I think the UK is the best place on the globe and everyone can learn from us, but more importantly we can learn from everyone else. How do we go forward and march for progress it we don't learn from other people's triumphs and failures.

Things go up and down and so the movement at the moment is in ascendent. What the future holds can be a gasp of hope to the world if we get it right and if we get it wrong does not bare thinking about.

-- Richard Stephens (smurf1917@aol.com), February 19, 2004.