When They say "I hate America", what do you think They mean?

Maybe someone on this thread can help me with this:

Why didn't Osama attack Europe (Germany, UK, France,..) or China or Australia or Japan or India or ..?

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Blatham,

Are you suggesting that we are the sole, original, or even the most aggressive, practicioner of such intelligence collection activities? History does not support that view.

george

For gods sake man. Take some fukking responsibility for your nation's ugly behaviors.

You know of some other government that
1) ran a PR campaign designed to place the UN in disrepute while
2) bugging the offices of the the SG and numerous other member nations
3) in order to appease domestic and world opinion while lying to all
4) about already formulated plans to launch a preemptive war?

List such states in your reply, please. I understand this will be a lengthy list, but try to get back to me soon.

You offer up (again) justification at a playground level of ethics, george.

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I repeat an earlier question I posed here. Why are some Canadians so agitated about the many flaws of the United States? Cause and effect seem far out of proportion, and the complaints either insubstantial or vague and far reaching. Have you reached a state of such perfection that all this really matters so much? Are there no windmills in Canada for you to tilt?

And you know the answer to this already. The consequences of US activity in the world are of a dimension which is not comparable to Canadian activity, or to that of anyone else. The more you guys screw up, the more the world gets screwed up. And the less often, or the less honestly, you confront how you fuk up ethically, the more everyone else is going to distrust you, dislike you, or target you.

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Blatham,

Relax. You even missed the delicious irony in my last post.

I'm not willing to accept as true all the overtones and several of the important assumptions and implications in the sequence you described, (it was a tad judgemental) though there may well be a core of truth to it.

Equivalent events have happened innumerable times in history, and I think you know that.

If I am "in a playground level of ethics", then you are in a fantasy land, not inhabited by real humans, even Canadian ones.

What's with you Canadians anyway?

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blatham wrote:

And you know the answer to this already. The consequences of US activity in the world are of a dimension which is not comparable to Canadian activity, or to that of anyone else. The more you guys screw up, the more the world gets screwed up. And the less often, or the less honestly, you confront how you fuk up ethically, the more everyone else is going to distrust you, dislike you, or target you.

Does that mean you are applying a standard to us that you don't apply to yourselves or to other nations? - It seems that way.

And you already know the answer to your own questionable proposition, There have been many other periods in human history in which other powers have equivalently dominated events in major parts of the world. They provide us the only basis we have for evaluating and comparing the actions of great powers. Do you suggest that we are doing badly compared to other real and analogous situations in the history of the world? There certainly is no evidence to support that thesis.

In about 1880 the British occupied the Suez area on the pretext of securing the investment of some Englishmen in the canal stock. They stayed for 70 years, barely tolerating the fiction of Egyptian independence, and fostering some of the hatred and resentment that confronts the world today. More than a little duplicity and spying was involved in this caper enabling the British to out fox both the French and the Egyptians. A similar story - and with similar bad results - could be told about the creation of the French empire in North Africa, The only reason these countries are not doing the same today is that they no longer have the ability to do so. They squandered that potential in an idiotic European war that began in 1914 and didn't end its final chapter until 1945.

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Relative wrote:

Maybe someone on this thread can help me with this:

Why didn't Osama attack Europe (Germany, UK, France,..) or China or Australia or Japan or India or ..?

relative

That's a question which may, possibly, be sincerely raised in certain quarters within the US State Department, or the intelligence community, or the military community, or even the administration...but I bet it is bloody rarely asked.

For certain, it wasn't allowed to be raised shortly after 9-11. As Didion has pointed out, there was a too brief period immediately following the attack when American discourse opened up that widely, here and there. But very quickly, the hammer came down on those who were suggesting that American just might have some small responsibility in all this. University's were targeted, profs fired, writers were targeted, anyone who voiced such a possiblity was slammed as 'traitor'. Traitor here means something like 'counter revolutionary'. Or satanic - held under the sway of evil delusion.

This is such a frustrating god damn argument to make to george, or many others like george. Their assumption is what? The US is never guilty of any act deserving of public chastisement? No one except an American might presume to chastise? (of course, they get slammed too). The US will be damaged if people speak this way...that the US is so at risk from enemies external/internal, or so fragile, that it cannot bear such open commentary?

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george

(this is fun)

I'm a tellin ya...it is precisely this refusal you demonstrate to acknowledge instances where America has gone off the rails (behaved far less honorably than it's rhetoric, promises, and mythololgies suggest it behaves) that your nation gains much of the disdain which people hold, in and out of your country.

It seems that admission of fault (in any other form than the cursory and general tip of the hat you give to 'everybody does it') is too tough for you to achieve. The thing is, in an individual, we all HATE such blindness, and we recognize it is a weakness, not a strength.

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McG before geography test

Quote:

Geography just isn't important anymore.

McG after geography test

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I got all the sample questions correct. I am even more concerned now that I have seen some of the questions. I do have to note two things:

1. Whatever they are doing in Sweden really needs to be studied and exported.
2. More Americans knew where the Pacific Ocean was than did the Swedes.

Sorry McG couldn't resist. You beat me anyway, I though there were more Muslims in the world than Christians. In this I am of course correct and the National Geographic wrong. (by my definition of Christian :wink: )

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Blatham,

It is fun.

I agree with most of your last post - not all, but more than I usually do.

The United States has and continues to make many mistakes in both its international and national policies, Instances of greed and self aggrandisement in the motivatins of our politicians and of various interest groups here are all too common. We are moreover, in our popular attitudes, too often shortsighted and in the grip of a very superficial information stream disseminated so effectively by our media. We are very conscious of the (very real) contributions of our democracy to the world, but far too often patronizing and overbearing about it. We are sometimes insensitive to the perceptions of others.

OK. Does that do it for you?

It is a fault that, in responding to the many criticisms directed at the United States, I and others here fail to explicitly acknowledge the failings of our government and our society.

However, it is also a fault that our innumerable critics also fail to acknowledge either their own imperfections, or a realistic comparative standard for the behavior of great powers. I find this to be hypocritical and intellectually bankrupt. It also involves a good deal of insensitivity to the perceptions of Americans - a fault these practicioners usually level at us.

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You gotta learn how to take it George. We had to when Britannia ruled the waves.

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What kind of "ese" are you?
***********************
An American and a Japanese were sitting on the plane on the
way to LA when the American turned to the Japanese and asked,
"What kind of 'ese' are you?"
The Japanese confused, replied, "Sorry, but I don't understand
what you mean."

The American repeated, "What kind of 'ese' are you?"

Again, the Japanese was confused over the question.

The American, now irritated, loudly repeated, "Jeez, how tough is
this -- what kind of 'ESE' are you? Are you ChinESE or JapanESE
or VietnamESE?

The Japanese gentleman replied, "Oh, I see what you mean. I'm
Japanese."

"Well, OK, now we're getting somewhere," the American said.

A little while later, the Japanese man asked, "Excuse me, but what
kind of 'key' are you?"

"What? What the hell do you mean?" the irritated American
answered.

"You know, a monKEY or a donKEY or just a typical YanKEE?"

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Yeah, I agree, it's all part of the territory.

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good one ci

remind me about your san fransisco a2k meeting.

Interesting discussion on the radio this morning. British MP made tasteless joke about Chinese. Most people thought she went too far, but others said hey its only a joke. Then someone said ok make jokes about dead Chinese when you can take jokes about dead Brits in the London blitz. Silence.

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Steve, The San Francisco A2K Gathering is being held on April 9 to 12 - with some folks coming earlier and some leaving later. We have about one dozen "officially" confirmed yesses - so far.

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Quote:

However, it is also a fault that our innumerable critics also fail to acknowledge either their own imperfections, or a realistic comparative standard for the behavior of great powers. I find this to be hypocritical and intellectually bankrupt. It also involves a good deal of insensitivity to the perceptions of Americans - a fault these practicioners usually level at us.

Goll dang it...progress.

I understand the insensitivity charge, and recognize my probable guilt here. But it is often very difficult to make certain arguments without sounding that way. The fact is, I am very sincere when I say I truly like Americans. For example, I've found folks in the south, much to my dismay, far more friendly and hospitable than they are in my home city of Vancouver. Further, as I've said elsewhere, what America has wrought, in science, the arts, in philosophy, in letters, in engineering, in political theory over the last two hundred years will, if we survive, properly be seen as a Golden Age. The best of America is amongst the best that humans have achieved. That is my sincere opinion.

So, what is one to do when one perceives contemporary Savonarolas gaining power and esteem in your land? Or when one sees the sort of bullying behavior at the UN over Iraq which, so many of us could see, would make enemies for you, when it was unnecessary? Or when one reads that, after all these years, the people of Bophal have received not a penny? It's hair-pulling-out stuff.

The hope for the world - that tradition of rights and liberties, of the sanctity of life and person, of the principles of equality, of the unfettered thought and open inquiry - all those invaluable goods that have been bequeathed, rest in America moreso than anywhere else.

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blatham, We are able to criticize our own president and administration pretty handily. A year ago at GWBush's SOU address, he promised Africa $15 billion to fight HIV/AIDs. His promises mean very little to those of us that have followed this president's rhetoric and what he actually does. At the home front, his "Leave no child behind" is a fedreal mandate which is based on testing, and without the funding. It's also a big lie and failure to our own people, but many repubs think Bush is a good president none-the-less. How do we fight such ignorance and apathy? We are building schools in Iraq, while we close schools here in the US. To have economic and political strength in the US, our schools must be number one for our children. This president is failing that charge.

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Blatham,

Thank you for the acknowledgments. We don't really need to have our backs or other parts patted as a softener for deserved criticism. It is a tough, competitive world, and complaints & criticism do come with the territory.

I do however make a distinction between rhetoric aimed at achieving some specific outcome, and a discussion in which the participants are (presumably) engaged in a mutual pursuit of the truth and right understanding. Rhetorical devices that are permissable in the former become distracting falsehoods in the latter. Unqualified assertions about national obsessions or vices, unbalanced by any notion of what is reasonably achievable in the world, what has been achieved (and not achieved) by those gone before, and those which also exist in the home of the critic, are not positive contributions to the achievment of right understanding. They are distractions that take us farther from the truth.

Steve has rightly suggested that we "gotta learn to take it" as did Britannia when she ruled the waves. I agree, and believe that overall we do that fairly well. There appear to be a greater number of Americans on these threads who accept and sometimes amplify these criticisms, than those like me who object. Still improvements can be made. One would also hope that the historical experience to which Steve has referred would have given him a greater understanding of this point than he has exhibited in these and other threads.

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McGentrix wrote:

... Thus I was making a joke.

You were? Well I guess if it was a good one (like c.i.'s joke) I woulda laughed! Razz

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caprice wrote:

McGentrix wrote:
... Thus I was making a joke.

You were? Well I guess if it was a good one (like c.i.'s joke) I woulda laughed!

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blatham wrote:

So, what is one to do when one perceives contemporary Savonarolas gaining power and esteem in your land? Or when one sees the sort of bullying behavior at the UN over Iraq which, so many of us could see, would make enemies for you, when it was unnecessary? Or when one reads that, after all these years, the people of Bophal have received not a penny? It's hair-pulling-out stuff.

I accept and sympathise with your dilemma here. There are multiple aspects of each of the issues you have raised.

For example a UN that appoints Lybia and Cuba to its council on human rights sets an upper limit on the degree to which it can be taken seriously by serious people dealing with serious problems. The problem of balancing responsibility and popular sentiment is one that has beset thinkers about democracy for many years. The historical lesson appears to be that to sustain responsible government in a democratic form requires a degree of political and social development - levels that certainly have not been attained by a great number of nations in the UN.

While U.S. behavior towards the UN can truthfully be described as bullying, it is also true that the behavior of the French, Russian and German opposition to our actions cannot be truthfully described as friendly and constructive - or (in the cases of Russia and France) free of unstated selfish motives.

The problem of leading effectively while maintaining the affections of those being led is a very perplexing one indeed. I have some fairly substantial experience with it. I have learned this much : if a leader pursues the affections of his tribe as a primary objective, he will certainly fail as a leader, and will likely lose the affections he seeks. If, instead he pursues success and effective leadership as the primary objective, he may also enjoy the general affection of those led, but that is at best a bonus.

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When They say "I hate America", what do you think They mean?

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