anti americanism fashionable

[downquark1]

Originally Posted by Russ D

You've pretty much summed my point up there.

You make some good points there about other countries.

One final question - why is it when the US is planning to bomb the crap out of some country or there appears to be some anti-american feeling in some other land, your President has to go on TV and show 99% of your countrymen where it is?

Our news does that too . It's just a visual aid thing.

[downquark1]

Originally Posted by Jerrek

Doubtful.

I have got a question for you though. On an unlabelled map, can you point out Sierra Leone? Samoa? Uzbekistan?

Can you?

[Jerrek]

I can, but I don't expect everyone to.

[Ramrod]

I can't

[Russ]

I reckon I could give it a go.

I'd never be as dispicable to say the US deserved 9/11, but it sure made me curious when after the attack, so many americans couldn't understand why their country is held in such disregard by so many others.

Originally Posted by Jerrek

I can, but I don't expect everyone to.

well, our empire was a geographical rather than a cultural one, so as we owned most of the world at one time or another you would expect us to have a good stab at it... I think I could roughly get all three. Here goes:

Sierra Leone: West Africa
Uzbekistan: Asia, north and west of Afghanistan
Samoa: Polynesia

Now I'm off to Google and see how I did.

EDIT:
He shoots, he scores!!
Uzbekistan: http://www.atlapedia.com/online/maps...Kazakh_etc.htm
Western Samoa: http://www.atlapedia.com/online/maps...al/Pacific.htm
Sierra Leone: http://www.atlapedia.com/online/maps...h_Africa_W.htm

Two spot on, one almost spot on (Uzbekistan)

[Jerrek]

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...538977,00.html

Comments from http://www.rightwingnews.com

To Hell with Sympathy...

"The fact is that the world hates us for our wealth, our success, our power. They hate us into incoherence. The Europeans, Ajami astutely observes, disdain us for our excessive religiosity (manifest, they imagine, by evolution being expelled from schools while prayer is ushered back in)--while the Arab world despises us as purveyors of secularism. We cannot win for losing. We are widely reviled as enemies of Islam, yet in the 1990s we engaged three times in combat †� in the Persian Gulf and in the Balkans †� to rescue Kuwait, Bosnia and Kosovo, Muslim peoples all. And in the last two cases, there was nothing in it for the U.S.; it was humanitarianism and good international citizenship of the highest order.

The search for logic in anti-Americanism is fruitless. It is in the air the world breathes. Its roots are envy and self-loathing †� by peoples who, yearning for modernity but having failed at it, find their one satisfaction in despising modernity's great exemplar.

On Sept. 11, they gave it a rest for a day. Big deal."

You want to know what anti-Americanism is for most people?

It's a Saudi oilman who lives in a mansion paid for with American money, who sends his sons to college in America, who was spared from becoming an Iraqi subject in the Gulf War because of our country, who hates us so much that he gives money to Al-Qaeda.

It's a Liberian eating food paid for by Americans, whose son is being treated for AIDS w/ drugs paid for by America, who is alive because America helped push Charles Taylor out of power, who tells his wife every day what a lousy country America is.

It's a German schoolteacher who vacations in America, who watches American movies, who was defended from the Soviets by America and then later met an Eastern German cousin she never knew because Reagan won the Cold War, who sneers at America in front of the kids she teaches every day.

These people are no different than the 17 year-old girls who hate the most popular girl in school, an uncle who gets all bent out of shape at what some rich guy does with his money, or even your friend who canââ‚Âà ‚¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚¢t help but rant about how much he hates Britney Spears every time you mention her name.

You want to make them stop hating America? Thatââ‚ ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s easy; all we have to do is fail, crash, burn, and preferably have our noses rubbed in it to boot. Then once America became another Belgium or Brazil, all of these petty people would stop hating us. But as long as America continues to be an economic powerhouse, a military juggernaut, & the worldââ‚ƚ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s only super power, weââ‚ ¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚¢re just going to have to get used to people disliking us because it comes with the territory. So as far as Iâ₠¬ÃƒÆ’¢â€žÂ¢m concerned, let †˜em stew in their own hatred until they get tired of it or die of old age, whichever comes first.

There you go. The columnist nailed it.

[downquark1]

Jerrek, you are being very provocative

You want to make them stop hating America? Thatâ₠¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢s easy; all we have to do is fail, crash, burn, and preferably have our noses rubbed in it to boot.

Well, we are the ones who seem to get our noses rubbed in it by the Americans, and by the article he just wrote in particular. Always, again and again with 'we saved you in WW2 so you owe us'.

I'm not being spiteful but just remember that golden ages come and go. The British empire ruled 3/4 of the world and look at us now. Reduced back to a tiny little island full of people who are drinking and debting themselves to ruin. With tabloids that put more interest in someone's breasts than troops in Iraq, trains that won't run on time. And weather that is changing due to global warming.

That article almost brings a tear to your eye, but those are tears from laughing too much.

From a site called RightWingNews you can hardly expected unbiased reporting, and that article runs the risk of making Fox News look liberal.

[downquark1]

Originally Posted by dr wadd

That article almost brings a tear to your eye, both those are tears from laughing to much.

From a site called RightWingNews you can hardly expected unbiased reporting, and that article runs the risk of making Fox News look liberal.

too true

[Jerrek]

Don't get confused. The article he quoted was from Time Magazine. The comments were his own. He doesn't report. He collects news from the web and writes his opinion. And I usually agree with him.

And you're right. Fox News is too liberal. I'd like something more conservative and right.


Now, some more news on why the United States is so hated. Or rather, envied:

http://www.economist.com/displayStor...ory_id=2172052

From The Economist:

From sea to shining sea

Nov 6th 2003
From The Economist print edition



American exceptionalism is nothing new. But it is getting sharper

†œEVERYTHING about the Americans,ââ ¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ÂÂ� said Alexis de Tocqueville, †œis extraordinary, but what is more extraordinary still is the soil that supports them.ââ‚ƚ¬Ã‚ÂÂÂ� America has natural harbours on two great oceans, access to one of the world's richest fishing areas, an abundance of every possible raw material and a huge range of farmed crops, from cold-weather to tropical. Not only is it the fourth-largest country in the world, but two-thirds of it is habitable, unlike Russia or Canada. Any country occupying America's space on the map would be likely to be unusual. But as de Tocqueville also said, †œPhysical causes contribute less [to America's distinctiveness] than laws and mores.ââ‚Ã⠀šÃ‚¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ÂÂ�

There is nothing more satisfying than being told by a popular and respected foreign journal that you are exceptional and unique. Especially when what they say makes sense and it doesn't rape common sense on the way.

Originally Posted by Jerrek

Doubtful.

I have got a question for you though. On an unlabelled map, can you point out Sierra Leone? Samoa? Uzbekistan?

Good point there man:

Interesting, when I taught history at a large London FE college I had many students who had no idea where to find on a map blanked out: France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany etc etc, they had no idea at all!

People may be critical that of US citizens not knowing their world geography but there are plenty here in the UK who don't know theirs.

[Russ]

No, america isn't hated for it's success. It's for the "we're the best, the rest of you suck" attitude which seems to be so prevailant.

[downquark1]

Originally Posted by Jerrek

Don't get confused. The article he quoted was from Time Magazine. The comments were his own. He doesn't report. He collects news from the web and writes his opinion. And I usually agree with him.

And you're right. Fox News is too liberal. I'd like something more conservative and right.


Now, some more news on why the United States is so hated. Or rather, envied:

http://www.economist.com/displayStor...ory_id=2172052

From The Economist:



There is nothing more satisfying than being told by a popular and respected foreign journal that you are exceptional and unique. Especially when what they say makes sense and it doesn't rape common sense on the way.

And yet you continue to rub it in . That is one persons opinion and the article seems more to do with Americas resources than people, I think you are reading into a small compliement too much.

[Russ]

....and continuing on americans dictating to the world, they are now telling us why they are so disliked...the mind boggles.