Remember when you were in elementary school and you had that bulky old social studies flash disk and you added your name to the data base assigning it as yours for that year? There were several files on ancient civilizations, an interactive program comparing what was going on in Asia as well as Europe up through the centuries before moving across the seas with a virtual tour of early American history.

Remember when you got to the file on World War III?

Remember how you played and re-played the program and then IMed your teacher with aghast emoticons? "How on earth," you sent in naive wonder, "could an entire nation support a guy like that? How could all those people let such awful things happen?"

Your teacher may have cross-posted thoughtful replies about mass hysteria or media spin, but all your final assessment was: Those heads of government were SOOOO mean! And those guys voting were SOOO dumb to just let the mean guys take over. Thank goodness people aren't like that now.

"No, no," you blogged in your innocent ethnocentricity, "We believe in human equality now. We believe in taking down tyrants who invade other countries to amass more resources. We aren't so easily fooled by media spin or tolerant of cronyism. We aren't the mean ones or the stupid ones. In our country 'freedom' means more than 'greed'. 'Equality' means more than 'money'. 'Breathable air' means more than 'corporate sponsorship'."

Thank goodness.