It sounds real good, deep and profound to me, but how about "a free press, freedom of assembly, labor rights and equality" in the United States?

Some 57 million American workers who currently don’t belong to a union would join one tomorrow if they could, according to a 2006 survey by Peter D. Hart Research Associates. http://www.wslc.org/legis/organizing.htm http://www.sharedprosperity.org/bp182/bp182.pdf The AFL-CIO rounds the number up to sixty million http://www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/voiceatwork/efca/57million.cfm (it's about 40% of the employed US workforce, in round figures; the majority of these people are lower-income earners).

Everybody knows that in America today you can get harassed, sacked or denied promotion even if you just try to join a labor union. Maybe Mr Bush would be better off setting an example by endorsing the US Employee Free Choice Bill ! It is true that in the history of the USA, there have been plenty "union mafiosi" (gangsterism and extorters), but that doesn't make ALL labor unions a mafia. There's plenty of highly principled US unions working within the law to get justice for workers.

While visiting Burmese refugees in Thailand, Lady Bush declared: ""We know that Burma is a very rich country, rich in natural resources. And the junta uses those resources to prop themselves up for their own benefit, not for the benefit of the people of Burma." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/07/AR2008080700900.html

As a European observer, I would say: if that's true, how about the oligarchy of the United States? Somehow American ideologues always get away with pontificating about the plight of other countries, while being very uncritical of their own country. Well, if we are going to sit on moral high horses, the least you might expect of somebody who pretends to objectivity is the ability to be self-critical about his/her own lifeworld.

In reality, with inflation rising, no bourgeois governments are interested very much in increasing "labor rights". But the leftist rhetoric of the bourgeoisie is splendid indeed. It's all about showing your good intentions for other countries, never mind your own. It's a sort of reified internationalism which mystifies the problems back home. Either you love America, or you hate America, and if you don't love America, we hate you. Then you're the enemy, and then there's more dollars for the Pentagon to fight it - in this way, of course, you can fabricate a lot of enemies, necessitating a lot more dollars.

Problem is, that is not really where it's at, for non-Americans, even if Americans don't understand that and are unable to make the necessary distinctions. Example: a workmate of mine has been to the US for quite a few trips, travelling long distances in the US, he loves the countryside. I asked him in all naivity: would you ideally like to live in the US? He says, no. I ask, why? Paraphrasing, "Because their social system is f**ked up, I don't like their idea of social justice".

Recently, I acquired an old tarnished copy of Michael Harrington's "The Other America; Poverty in the United States" (1963), supposedly a source of inspiration of the 1960s "war on poverty" in the US. Harrington has had his critics over the years, but the book still makes interesting reading. How very different from the contemporary discussions about a "war on terror" with the ism dropped off. "Real poverty" is supposed to be somewhere else, outsourced in some other country, while in our own country, people are just making the "wrong life-choices". Yeah. As if terrorism has nothing to do with extremes of wealth and poverty.