a nationalistic, tree hugging me?

just wanted to say that in the heat of the moment of writing the previous post, i left out some ppl in the list of close friends. esp need to mention Tze Xiang, who offered to help so much when my family had financial problems. of course i got some flak from them. but yea if u're my gd friend then u'd pardon my errors right? my apologies.... =)

was in my Chinese politics class yesterday night when something that the professor mentioned occured to me to be extremely ironical. She was discussing the issue of Nationalism, and how the Tianamen Square incident and subsequent incidents stirred feelings of Nationalism in China. Leaders will resort to evoking such sentiments during times of crisis to gain public support, often masking severe domestic problems in the process. As my American classmates giggled at the examples of Taiwan, China, Malaysia and others, it struck me as deeply ironic that they did not realise that their own President resorted to such political tactics during 9-11. The "us-against-them" mentality had never been this prevalent and pervasive in the American society since the American Revolution. Read an article recently about how exactly this mentality has given many a legitimate excuse to stir racial discrimination all over again. Americans are once again cast into different stereotypes: White Americans, Hispanic Americans (who, by offering to work before minimal wage, is stirring anti-Mexican sentiments along the American border), Muslim (or as it's pronounced here, Muss-lim) Americans, and more. The irony comes a full circle finally, with the land of the free suffering racial tensions within while embarking on a mission to democratize the world. And such nationalism arising within America allows many policy deficiencies to

I was, and still am, deeply struck by the presentation given by former Vice-President Al Gore about three weeks ago. His was a plea to the average citizen to conserve the enviroment, and an initiative to educate the public about the undeniable fact that carbon dioxide emissions are the main cause of global warming. A fact taught to those of us in Singapore at the secondary school level, but one that which is deemed to be "unscientific" in Congress. Mr. Gore has stirred a certain "tree hugging syndrome" in me, and I have delved (in whatever spare time i have) into this issue to learn more. And the more i learn, the more guilt i feel about buying a car that has a 2.3 litre capacity, although of course the mitigation factor is that it's a Honda and therefore will take me a longer distance than, say, a certain white Dodge tin-can? If' you're reading this, I urge you too to investigate this issue on your own, and the startling (often shocking) discoveries along the way should kick you into some form of reaction.