To Hell With Sympathy

Hi AU, you need an AOL screenname and password to read. Is it anywhere else?

Thats about what I expect from Krauthammer: F#ck the rest of the world. We're bigger. Neo-con dreck!

I have run out of air sick bags.

"Short Round, give me your hat!"

I do know someone I'd like to use that bull whip on.
However, they're helplessly masochistic and would love it.

LW, my sweetie would get jealous of she read that!

Extremist BS


There are many reasons that the USA Govt.s are hated. The above are not among those.

Hasn't Amerika "avenged it's dead"... yet?

The sad part about the BS of the statements of the writer is that many people actually believe the BS.

I remember an email conversation I had with an American a few days after Sept 11. I said something like "lets hope the goodwill and co-operation that's emerged from this terrible event continues". Bush and co sure put paid to that.

Krauthammer obviously didn't spend any time in Europe in the months after September 11. Ask any American who did, what kind of reactions he got, in general.



This is sheer paranoia. Yes, there's always been anti-Americanism, obviously, just like there's always been, say, anti-semitism. Doesnt make it the defining feature of postwar European culture. Would love to see any evidence, whatsoever, for the thesis that "envy, resentment, hatred" for America surged in the years following 1989. It is simply a weird statement. In all of post-WW2 history, there were only two eras in which anti-Americanism got an upsurge outside of France: in the Reagan years of the early eighties - and in these past one and a half years.

There's always been both admiration and condescendence, loyalty and suspicion, and usually the former of the two in those couples gets the upper hand, and sometimes the latter. After Bush got elected and sought confrontation on ICC, Kyoto, trade, arms treaties, European identification with Clinton's America got a first shock; September 11 restored absolute loyalty among mainstream Europeans - then the run-up to the Iraq war brought distrust and anger up again to an as of yet unprecedented level. I'm sure you can find those fluctuations back in the polls. To say that, ever since 1989, "hatred and resentment" has been the staple, shows an utter ignorance of whats going on here - an ignorance of exactly the kind that will fuel distrust.

Then there's that whole misunderstood definition. I mean, think about it. If Joschka tells the US minister: we are of the generation that needs to be convinced - and mister, on your Iraq case, we are not convinced - if Chirac, Schroeder, Putin and their Belgian and Scandinavian counterparts say, we dont believe Iraq poses an acute threat of the kind that would warrant an immediate war and we dont believe your proposed evidence on the matter is persuasive - if public opinion notes that, in this post-Iraq war era, it considers the US to pose the gravest threat to world peace at the moment - if Bush is opined to show rudely little consideration to both diplomatic conventions and sensitivities and the consensus on international law - then, sure, this all amounts merely to "Envy for America" and "hatred of our success". <blinks>

How blinded by one's uncritical self-love can one be to perceive both topical criticism and public suspicion as 'really' just "hatred of our success"? If we hated your success, wouldnt we have hated it in the Clinton years (when the US was richer than ever), too? Or even in the Bush Sr years? It's the most mindboggling red herring I've ever seen. Let me, as a European, say this just one more time. I dont "hate your success" <rolls eyes> - when it's put to use on issues I care about, I love it (see Kosovo). I don't hate or envy Americans - I have a mix of fascination and prejudice about them. I strongly distrust the motivations of the Bush administration and I strongly disagree with the "solutions" it proposes, yes - and this makes me part of that statistic which considers the US, currently, the biggest threat to world peace. To reduce all the substantive objections and topic-relevant wariness involved in that to some kinf of "envy of our success" just makes the speaker look ridiculous. Its scary to realise that such bull is actually lapped up by a significant American readership.

Now thats just me, of course, but go ahead and ask the other Europeans here for their opinion. We have actual objections to the way Bush's America goes about its foreign policy behaviour. It concerns us directly, so we feel strongly about it. What is so impossibly hard to understand about that? Why cant it "really" be that, and should it "actually" just be mere jealousy and resentment, instead? Such narcissism ...



Ah - note how suddenly the author changes the topic here. In the previous paragraphs, he was talking about how, supposedly, "the world loved us just two years ago", "virtually all the world was with us", but "then this President blew it" and now "No one likes us": ""The president has somehow squandered the international outpouring of sympathy, goodwill and solidarity". The author disagreed vehemently about this: "this pro-American sentiment" in the world, he countered, in actuality "never existed".

Now, to prove his point, he would have to show that, in Clinton's time, America was just as much hated and envied, how there was no real "pro-American sentiment" in "the world" then, either. Unfortunately, he can't. Because it's simply not true. So he abruptly zigzags off that road on to another: Al-Qaeda hated the US just as much back then already.

Well, duh. Only the most irrational extremists have ever argued that it was Bush policies that provoked 9/11, or that made Al-Qaeda hate the US - thats not the argument. The argument was that the Al-Qaeda-type fundamentalists/extremists were much more alone in their hatred of America back then - that the rest of the world pretty much stood with the US against Al-Qaeda. And that that's what changed when Bush squandered the 9/11 goodwill.



Clinton's foreign policy won the US a lot of friends and allies even while he still pushed through when those friends and allies didnt come up with the needed resolve (as with Yugoslavia). That's what good his policies did you. No, no goodwill efforts could have stopped bin Laden from hating the West. But a continuation of his foreign policy (style) would have made it a lot easier to work together with other countries, their militaries and intelligence services, in fighting Al-Qaeda.

Re: Extremist BS


You have it in some dysfunctional relationships / personalities, too, tho i think you encounter it more often in men than in women ...

They're so narcissistic, they just can't believe you might actually simply believe they're wrong - so instead, someone like that would rationalise your objections by telling himself that you must just be "jealous", or "bitter", or ... etc.

Quite serious if an entire political class of a specific country is afflicted with that ...

Good comparison
Amerika is definetely a dysfunctional family.

Most people that post here, at least study a few topics. Most Amerikans do not. There are great devides in perception and most issues are not understood. It's mainly info. via soundbyte. This country seems to be on the verge of some upheavals. Four more years of the present Regime just may cause some major revolt.

There are millions who don't trust and despise the Govt. from the far left to the extreme right. Yeah, politics make strange alliances. Many on the far right end have armed themselves. There are groups such as the Patriots, Aryian Nations, KKK, Black Muslims and others that have been somewhat hunkering down.

The far left probably hopes that the Neo cons get another term so that the Police State and the ruin of the Middle Class will be patently obvious even to the mostly apolitcal, which is most of the populace.

There are other groups that feel that they are getting screwed over.

To be continued.

Re: Good comparison


You'd think that just the existence and growth of such polar groups would be enough to ring alarm bells in most people's mind. I've always found the US fascination with firearms perplexing. But it's not so strange considering the government you've got.

Can I ask those of you that post here regularly just what it is that you hate about America?

I'm not talking about rhetoric and sour grapes about the election, but real hard reasons that you seem to think this country is some sort of 'Great Satan' or some soon to be fascist dictatorship and just why you think it is that we are hated around the world.

I am not asking this out of attempting to flame or start a war, but I have only been on this board for a brief time and I am trying to grasp the nature of your problem so that we may have a legitimate discussion.

Please if you just are of the 'Conservatives are Evil and Liberals are Saviors' please don't post because those are reasons, just catch-phrases.

I am truly interested in hearing some oposing opinions.

Thanks for your courtesey in reading this post.

I don't know that anyone here does.


Hubris, duplicitous foreign policy, sheer un-cosmopolitan-ness of many of our tourists, etc...
As for the reason many of us fear the rise of a fascist government in the US, I refer you to actions and speeches of those in the current administration and those close to it, as well as the overwhelming complicity of the citizens of this nation.


Quite decent of you, really!


Most of us do not go in for such simple minded manichaeism.


Are you really?

OK. The consensus here seems to be that we have squandered the world-wide goodwill we had after 911 through Mr. Bush's military responses.

What do you suppose we should have done instead that would not have squandered this goodwill?

I do not hate America.
I am real disenchanted with the politics of the Dems & Repubs.
I strongly feel that the Govt and both parties do not represent the Middle Class, The Working Poor and the Poor. These institutions are supposssed to work on the people's behalf, not special interest. I feel that the policies of the past 40 years are geared toward the Mulit-Corps who are on the verge of not even claiming that they are American but Globalists.

It seems to me that the bulk of the American people are seen as expendable, especially with the present people in power. The people that are in Govt. are supposed to serve all of the people and the Congress that is suppossed to represent all of the people.

Blatant mispresentation is being foisted upon the populace and wars are made up to expand the Capitalist base. I could write a thesis on this topic but I will stop now. I may write one later.

quote="Fedral"]Can I ask those of you that post here regularly just what it is that you hate about America?

I'm not talking about rhetoric and sour grapes about the election, but real hard reasons that you seem to think this country is some sort of 'Great Satan' or some soon to be fascist dictatorship and just why you think it is that we are hated around the world.

I am not asking this out of attempting to flame or start a war, but I have only been on this board for a brief time and I am trying to grasp the nature of your problem so that we may have a legitimate discussion.

Please if you just are of the 'Conservatives are Evil and Liberals are Saviors' please don't post because those are reasons, just catch-phrases.

I am truly interested in hearing some oposing opinions.

Thanks for your courtesey in reading this post.[/quote]

I don't know, from where you got this impression.

However -although this is au's thread, and he certainly has to consider about that- I think, a new thread with such a question would do better fulfilling your interests.

Federal, your country invaded another and murdered several thousands of it's citizens. It had nothing to do with WMD's. It was about oil. Despite the constant rapturing about freedom and democracy, the actions of the US have always been primarily what is best for the US, and to hell with who gets damaged in the process. But probably worst is the fact that a stuttering moron like George "Dubya" Bush, can attain a position of such immense power.

Your country did not enter the first world war until the allies were already winning. In the second world war the US ignored the actions of probably one of the most evil human beings in history and was content to simply negotiate with the winners, until such time as it's hand was forced by the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbour. If you care to look at the history of the US, both past and current, without the benefit of red, white and blue coloured glasses, you'll see a nation steeped in lies, deceipt and arrogance. A nation that has not once in it's history given a flying **** about anything but it's own narrow interests.

Federal, your country invaded another and murdered several thousands of it's citizens. It had nothing to do with WMD's. It was about oil. Despite the constant rapturing about freedom and democracy, the actions of the US have always been primarily what is best for the US, and to hell with who gets damaged in the process. But probably worst is the fact that a stuttering moron like George "Dubya" Bush, can attain a position of such immense power.

Your country did not enter the first world war until the allies were already winning. In the second world war the US ignored the actions of probably one of the most evil human beings in history and was content to simply negotiate with the winners, until such time as it's hand was forced by the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbour. If you care to look at the history of the US, both past and current, without the benefit of red, white and blue coloured glasses, you'll see a nation steeped in lies, deceipt and arrogance. A nation that has not once in it's history given a flying **** about anything but it's own narrow interests.