Well I think you are over-estimating the cultural influence of the USA. True, they are definitely a powerhouse in terms of culture but this would mainly apply to the Western World and not the enormity of Russia, China, Middle East and lots of South America which is a very big chunk of Earth. People here seem to be viewing culture on the merits of Capitalist type exports such as McDonalds and Coca Cola and while they are definitely available World Wide, it is an odd way (in my eyes) to look at culture. A lot of the opinions are being viewed through Western eyes and I really don't think a lot of people realise that this influence isn't as heavy as people think - I have travelled a good portion of the World and I can tell you, it's not a prominent as people think.
Well, let's take India as example. A millenar culture with it's own religion known all over the world. They maintain their culture and religion to these days, but you will find McDonalds in the streets and I assume most people will identify the melody of Singing In The Rain. Yet they have their own strong movie industry, the next Hollywood blockbuster will be at every movie theater. USA culture is not dominant in India, but sure it's influential (to keep coherence with the game machanics, it's already enough to win).
As for Russia, it seems they went for an early Ideoly, but were forced to change it before they could pick any 3rd tier tenet, due to ideological pressure. They were working too hard on military and science, but ignored how important culture is (they've killed Maiakovski and prohibited Eisenstein from working - no wonder they've lost).
Middle-East (Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan) is yet another history. We all know from the game that, when going for a CV, other civs have none but two option: you buy my jeans or you eat my bombs. Since the 50's USA have been droping bombs in places where people refuse to buy their jeans, yet it has created some warmonger hate (quite small, I must say, for all the atrocities USA has done).
Bombs were not needed in China (and we are all very thankfull for that). They did not switch ideology since the Cultural Revolution in the 60's, but tongue surgery being made for a better pronunciation of the english language is a strong indicative of how USA culture is strong in that country.
As for South America, culturaly dominating that continent was a very imporant part of the world domination strategy called Operation Condor. Now, asides people living in a places without television and internet - which there quite a few in South America - everyone if influentied but rocknroll or eletronic or hip hop music (all american) - raybans, NBA hats, spiderman movies and stuff like that.
Of course geopolitical is not as simple as it could be uderstood or explained through Civilization analogies, but I guess making fun of it is the point of this discussion. I stand my argument: USA has won and the fact that we are all talking in english here - despite our native language - is yet another evidence.
