CBC has a brief, interesting collection of magazine covers. Having the fortune of having friends all over the world, I have a clear idea of how people in other countries view the U.S., especially now, with the Tiny Dictator installed. Might come as a bit of a shock to more insular peoples. We are not the good guys, and we never have been. We’re the obnoxious, swaggering bully; the interfering, corrupt cop. That’s how it’s been in the past. It’s worse now. America is worse, and even some Americans are figuring that one out now…
Click on over to see the rest at CBC.
I think the cover of Der Spiegel is the most appropriate.
A sidestep: I wonder if Der Spiegel is still that same over 300-page weekly mammoth of text as it was when I was a teenager. I remember buying an issue a few times but never being able to do more than skim some of the articles, the language was a bit too advanced and there was so much material in just one issue.
Ice Swimmer:
It’s certainly the most accurate. There’s a fuss about it, naturally.
The Time Magazine cover makes me think of Mr Slant, zombie lawyer of Ankh-Morpork.
The Der Speigel cover is the most striking, seriously in your face.
However, the one that chokes me up is The New Yorker. So many dreams going up in smoke. Those of existing Americans who want to see themselves and each other as honourable and moral as their national mythology. Then there are the dreams of those non or would-be Americans who admire and desire the best of America -- maybe for themselves, maybe generally for the world at large.
Funny how they never kick up a fuss about images like this or this
Serious brace yerselves for the links…
Giliell:
I expect it’s because most people don’t know about them. Here in uStates, only uStates matters, you betcha! I expect most Americans are only marginally aware of the fact that other countries have their own publications and points of view.
One thing I loved about the Der Spiegel cover was that it was done by an artist who was an immigrant. That’s really slamming the message home, and they are the only ones who had the spine to go for that truly unflinching statement.