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

Haven't read the answers yet. Please forgive me if I duplicate someone's thoughts in answering Ceili's question.

1) David vs. Goliath stories sell newspapers and TV time everywhere. One of the rules in these stories is that people always cheer for David. America is the ultimate Goliath due to its military and economic power, so it gets cheered against. As a German, I can affirm that anti-Americanism is much more common in televised and printed opinion than if you ask Germans face-to-face in the real world.

2) America has been a free country for very long. As a result, it is more diverse than most countries in just about every way imaginable. Therefore, anything that happens will probably happen in America first. And because bad news sell more papers than good news, the bad stuff that happens in America first gets more coverage than the good stuff that happens in America first. As an aside, my parents still make fun of some members of socialist German student societies in the 60 who printed flyers against everything American while drinking Coca-Cola and listening to Jimi Hendrix.

3) Actual knowledge of America, at least here in Europe, is declining. America used to have a fairly dense network of "America Houses" that brought American culture to the Europeans in the form of libraries, frequent lectures by American scholars, frequent readings by American novelists and poets, and so on. They didn't tell us much in terms of facts that we didn't know from the news, but they gave us a feeling for how the American culture worked, and that America has more to offer than lowest common denominator mediocricity á la McDonalds and Disney. But during the 1990s, the Clinton administration and the Gingrich Congress thinned out this network very much in an effort to curb government spending. These days, when an American president causes an outrage abroad, the buffer of knowledgable people that used to be here is now gone, so the outrage goes undampened.

4) America currently has a president who is the worst bully and the worst extremist to hold that office at least since World War II. I suspect you have to go much farther back to actually find a president who handles foreign affairs worse. True, he has a sincere, competent, and grown-up secretary of state who would do a good job if the administration let him, but the administration won't let him. It almost seems that whenever grown-up Republicans like Colin Powell and Jim Baker get anywhere, their initiatives are killed by friendly fire from Wolfowitz, Perle, and other neoconservative chicken hawks. This gives pro-Americans like me a very hard time when I discuss international politics with my friends.

I think points 1-3 explain why there has always been an undercurrent of Anti-Americanism in the world. Point 4 explains why Anti-Americanism is currently at a peak in the political business cycle.

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Quote:

The place is sooooooooo cheap

Well, actually the USA are rather cheap now: since some weeks, I'm buying all my cd's (especially music) direct from the USA. Even with enormous postage added, it's much cheaper than in Europe. (Although funny to see "European import" on the cover :wink: )

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Fedral wrote:

So America should stop handing out free food to drought stricken countries?

America, as in "the American government", already has pretty much stopped that. Its percentage of the national income dedicated to foreign aid is a fraction of what it is in European countries.

Walter and CI: America, with its 5% of the world population, is not just consuming 25% of the world's resources, it also produces 25% of the world's resources -- including 25% of the world's oil. I can't see the shame in that. Could you please elaborate?

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Fedral wrote:

IronLionZion wrote:
Fedral, when you are overwhelmingly the richest and most powerfull nation on Earth, giving out free food (which is rarely done without ulterior motives anyway) does not qualify as heroic or benevolent - it is the minimum acceptable.

Since when does the richest and most powerful nation 'owe' anyone ANYTHING.

If you make more money than me, are you obligated to give me some because you are richer than me?? HELL NO

It's not quite the same thing but, here in Europe, there used to be a concept of "Noblesse oblige" - if you are Lord of the Manor, you make sure that you look after the whole village, to make sure that no one goes without. A feudal system is highly flawed but it wansn't without its own standards of behaviour.

Fedral wrote:

It is that sort of 'expected involuntary wealth redistribution' that gives rise to anger among Americans.

If you don't like America, next time , don't ask for American help. If Americans offer help, don't accept. Happens all the time.

We Americans are a generous people, we give a lot of our time and money to help those less fortunate than ourselves. We do this with very little pressure or encouragement. Yet when people like yourself seem to look upon that help as an 'entitlement' is when you cause Americans to close their checkbooks.

Keep in mind just how difficult it would have been after WW2 for Europe to rebuild itself without America.

How difficult things would have been in Japan without massive influx of American money.

We are now competing economically and politically with those nations and they can now spit at us after they grew strong on the economic backs of the Americans.

We give because we want to ... just remember, we can turn the money tap off if we wanted to, then you would see worldwide suffering the likes of which the world hasn't seen since the Dark Ages. I would like to see Europe feed all of Africa. I would like to see Asia provide disaster support during a crisis.

I would like Africa to do ANYTHING for itself.

Just my rant for today.

Fedral, I feel like using language that would be ****'ed out on this forum. It is EXACTLY attitudes such as those expressed in this post that INFURIATE those outside the USA.

Your "I'm alright, Jack" attitude takes no account of social responsibility. The EU (and its individual constituent states) give HUGE amounts of money to Africa.

Don't even get me started on the Marshall Plan and its influence on Europe. Yes, it allowed recovery but its political motive was clear: come with us (Capitalists) - you'll make money, we'll make money (interest and sales to these nations) and we won't have to use force to stop you becoming Communists. Hardly charity, I'd say!

As for the protectionism being used by Bush (e.g. for the steel industry or banana producers - at the expense of Jamaica, etc.) it's such hypocracy to preach economic freedom and then slap tariffs on goods to prevent your funding from drying up.

MY rant over!

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Or sugar. Or beef.

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Kitchen Pete,

Is it ?'Nobless oblige' that motivates the EU states to give "HUGE amounts of money to Africa"? Or is it a desire to influence events in former colonial territories? Is there any likelihood that any of the European countries will give back nearly as much as they took in previous eras?

Your willingness to ascribe only "social responsibility" and "Nobless oblige"as the motive for European actions in Africa, and then, in the very next paragraph, to belittle the U.S. motives in the Marshal Plan is both hypocritical and laughable.

Of course we were interested in restoring functioning market economies (and in preserving Democracy) in the parts of Europe not occupied by the Soviet monolith. The results 50 years later speak for themselves: The nations that finally escaped Soviet domination wasted little time in aligning themselves with the political and military structures of the West, including the U.S. They are still struggling to overcome the lingering economic effects of Socialism, and the relative differences in GDP tell a stark tale.

If a man joins his neighbor in fighting a fire, do you fault him because his real interest is in preserving his own house?

On the subject of trade management I think that Europe is in no position to scold the U.S. Both sides pursue their self-interests assiduously. The folly of U.S. agricultural subsidies is exceeded only by the worse policies of Europeans. Both hurt other nations.

I believe there is a strong element of ?'piling on' here on this subject. There is a purposeful exclusion of the corresponding faults of our many vociferous critics, and no mention of their relative silence with respect to the far worse faults of our former Soviet rival. Why?

The defects of the leader in any enterprise are generally all too obvious, while those of others are obscured by the crowd. I commend a recent book by a Frenchman, Jean Revel, entitled "Anti Americanism" for an alternate view of this subject. Perhaps you would enjoy it.

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georgeob1,

I wasn't saying Europe is perfect. I was merely responding to Fedral's post, which made my blood boil.

I do think that Europe's interest/funding of Africa has many reasons - ex-colonial guilt, as well as some economic and immigration-preventing self interest...sure.

My point on "noblesse oblige" is not that it is currently the motivation of many Europeans, but that Fedral's point about the rich being under NO obligation to help the poor goes against the sensibilities in this continent. We offer social security for those who cannot fend for themselves, paid for by those who can. It is often the impression (mistaken or not) that America does not share the view that the community/society is worth preserving, at all levels, rather than merely giving freedom from tax and regulation to those who already possess much.

This is a discussion of why certain feelings of dislike attach themselves to the USA. The Soviet Union is entirely irrelevant to the discussion - the economic system, there, could not support the military spending (which they did out of fear) and, in the end, the system did not survive.

It is not surprising to me that "anti-American" is a synonym for anti-Capitalist, any more than the only place where "Communist" is a real insult (rather than a comment of political alignment) is in the USA.

I can list many things I love about America elsewhere, should you wish...this isn't the place for that!

KP

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dyslexia wrote:

An honest and true explanation of why "they" hate america...a few days post 9/11, dys was flying out of JFK to Lisbon and being the times as they were there was a bomb scare at JFK so we were all herded out to a parking lot while some german shephards in the company of uniformed teenagers sniffed about for bombs as well as crotches of old men and young girls. As I lay down my pack and sat upon the pavement along comes this young and quite attractive young lady to sit beside me. "you must like country/western music" she opens the conversation "No, I reply, I like neither country nor western music, but thanks for asking." She continues with "I just want to go home-I hate it here." Um I think to myself she must not be from Queens so I ask her "Where is the home you wish to go to?" "Poland" she answers. Then she proceeds to tell me her tale of woe as to having been an exchange student here in the US (Vermont) for the past year and how homesick she is. "So," I says to her, "how did you like living in America?" "I hate-hate-hate it here!" she says. Wow I think pretty strong feelings from this girl so I ask her "What did you find so bad here in America?" and she answers quick as a pflash "Well, here they take white gooey stuff they call bread and on one slice they put a salt called Peanut Butter and on another slice of this white gooey stuff they put a sugar called Jelly and THEN they smoosh it togther and EAT IT!" "Never, ever could I come back to a country that does this kind of abomination and call it FOOD" so now you know why "they" hate america

This reminds me of my friends telling me of their bicycle tour vacation in France. After riding 75 miles one day they were starving, my friends are vegetarians, and wherever the group stopped to eat the only choice they had was cold french fries with mayonnaise on them. Yuck!

That would make me never want to go back to France, ever.

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fishin

Acknowledged that google pulls up so much re 'anti-canadianism'...rather a shock to me as I really never ever ever have heard or seen the term, and I read a fair bit.

soz

Sorry, didn't mean to seem or be simplistic. I was trying to isolate a difference. It seems to me that those instances where we respond most negatively to power or priviledge, are where they come attended with pridefulness. lack of reflection, the assumption of superiority, and an apparent disregard for the rest of the community. The sorts of characteristics which we ascribe to an aristocracy.

I doubt there is any way in which the US is totally unique from other nations, including in such characteristics as above. But where she is behaving in like manner, she will be begrudged.

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ps

When a reflective question such as 'why do they hate us?' is raised, it probably would be prudent to assume the 'they' have some seriously legitimate beefs. Didion wrote a wonderful essay in the NY Review a while back pointing to how an initial period of such open reflection in the US was very immediately pushed down by the 'they hate us because we are good and we are free' notion.

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Kitchen Pete,

I can understand and sympathize with your motives, but still note the positions you took in defense were themselves hypocritical and indefensible.

You can thank Bismarck for the invention of contemporary Social Security programs. The adoption of such programs in the UK and the U.S. occurred at about the same time. In view of the accounts I have read about the conditions of the poor in pre WWI England, Scotland, and Ireland, I would say that I would have much preferred then to live in the lower East Side of New York. While the European concerns you expressed for the preservation of the community at all levels are certainly laudable, they are neither unique to Europe nor of particularly long standing. It is simply a fact that European immigration to the U.S. was driven by the injustice and poverty inflicted on the ?'lower elements' of the communities there by the Europeans who ran the show.

Certainly social systems and labor markets in Europe today are more extensively structured and supported by government than those in the U.S. The differences are significant, but not overwhelming. It remains to be seen whether Europe will be able to sustain these systems in the face of the harsh realities of aging populations and a growing gap in labor productivity. The U.S. gets more than twice the immigration of Europe (even more if illegals are included) and our system can be viewed as an adaptation to that fact and the need to sustain competition in a world that, for all the rhetoric, remains competitive.

While the former Soviet Union may well be irrelevant to this discussion as you say, I don't believe the relative silence of our critics to that unlamented system is at all irrelevant to an examination of why so much "hatred" is expressed towards the United States, in the era immediately after the collapse of the Soviet System. If you find the term Communism innocuous after all this, then I think you have not been paying much attention to the aspirations of the new candidate members of the EU. That perhaps is the difference to which Secretary Rumsfeld was referring in his brilliant reference to "Old Europe".

I often get the impression that commentators in Europe are animated by the implicit belief that the history of the world began in 1990. All that proceeded it is forgotten, and all that is important is now. This is of course an illusion. Our historical trajectories are shaped by the past and, insofar as we can direct them, should be managed so as to apply those lessons to the future. I believe that an awareness of this point is decidedly absent from this discussion.

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georgeob1 wrote:

While the former Soviet Union may well be irrelevant to this discussion as you say, I don't believe the relative silence of our critics to that unlamented system is at all irrelevant to an examination of why so much "hatred" is expressed towards the United States, in the era immediately after the collapse of the Soviet System.

Oh, I think this is simply because America is a democracy with mass media, so people who have a gripe with the United States can actually make a difference by making their voices heard and expressing said gripe. There was no point in demonstrating against the USSR, because their leaders had no incentive to listen. This logic also explains why most former superpowers were not protested against so much. And it explains why the countries with the worst press in recent decades -- Israel, Pinochet's Chile, and South Africa before 1990 -- were not the worst violators of human rights. They were the just the worst human rights violators whose civil societies were functional enough to be mobilized against the human rights violations.

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Thomas,

Succinctly put. You are likely correct in this. However it does paint a depressing picture of public judgement in free societies. It is one thing to decide not to protest and agitate against an authoritarian superpower because its leaders don't have to listen. It is quite another to c lose your eyes to its faults because of that, and, as a result distort your judgement on other, better systems.

All,

There seem to be lots of Canadians here. What is the source of the apparent particular distemper of our northern neighbors towards us? 1812 was a long time ago and our invasion didn't get very far anyway. Are the descendents of our Tories still angry? Canada enjoys a very favorable balance of trade with the U.S, and derives great economic benefit from its proximity to us. Where's the beef?

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There is a divide in our country between those who want to go around the world to control it to get gain and those that want to go around the world to change it for their own good. Both would cause problems which is why I guess during any presidents time we have some problems with other nations or states or regions. The problem has been made much worse in my own personal opinion by the current president and his administration because of his "with us or against us" policy that he carries out both home and abroad as the political saying goes. He has made us more enemies than we had before. People might not have liked everything about us before and the Muslims and Arabs have long hated us because of our one sided stance with Israel, but other than that I don't think that other nations actively hated us quite as much as they do now.

So what I think needs to happen first and foremost is that we need to get rid of Bush, pronto. Then we need to start looking at things in global way. I mean the world is getting smaller everyday and the oceans, mountains, and deserts are no longer the great dividers that they once were. Not only America needs to do this, but everyone else that are vainly trying to resist globlazation as well. Not that I think nations and states should loose their self governments and cultures, but try to loose this "us and them" mentality.

But, hey, I'm just a housewife in Kentucky mussing around.

Someone said something like because we are rich we should give to those that are not? Yes, that is what humanity and love of your fellow man is all about. Otherwise we all might just as well be animals in the jungles. I guess I'm not mainstream America. (which i think is just a current catch phrase without any real meaning behind it)

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caprice wrote:

Montana wrote:
Don't worry about being nosey because I'm nosey too, lol. Both my parents were born here, so I am a dual citizen.

Well isn't that handy! Do you have family at that end of the country? Just wondering if that is why you chose NB.

Yup, I'm surrounded by relatives. My mother comes from a family of 11 brothers and sister, and my father had 13 in his family. Both my parents grew up in this area, so it's actually hard finding people around here that I'm not related too, LOL! My mother grew up right next door to where we live now and my great grandparents lived in a house that sat in the same spot as our home now. The house my mother grew up in next door is still standing, but is abandoned now. There are pictures of it in my gallery if you'd like to see them.

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georgeob1 wrote:

There seem to be lots of Canadians here. What is the source of the apparent particular distemper of our northern neighbors towards us? 1812 was a long time ago and our invasion didn't get very far anyway. Are the descendents of our Tories still angry? Canada enjoys a very favorable balance of trade with the U.S, and derives great economic benefit from its proximity to us. Where's the beef?

The fact that the US has been pointing fingers at Canada ever since 9/11 might have something to do with it. The ambassador Paul Cellucci actually threatened consequenses for Canada for not backing the US in their war. They also implied that Canada was a safe haven for terrorists, which posed a threat to the US. They banned our potatoes for the longest time for the stupidest thing putting farmers in grave situations. They made threats towards Canada if we proceeded with decriminalizing marijuana. I could go on, but I think you get the idea. I did laugh when you mentioned the war of 1812 though and I assure you that that's not it.

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Gautam
I'm so glad to hear that you had a nice time in NY :-D

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Quote:

Big, rich, powerful - that's three - any country with all those is gonna be hated, c'mon!

I've yet to meet my first person that hates Japan.

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You don't know many Americans.... Lots of ole-timers hate Japan. But your point still stands, Japan is hated for their militarism in the past.

This should be a big clue for those who think it's merely the power.

It's not just the power, it's also the will to use it at the expense of others.

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caprice wrote:

That may be part of it, but not all of it.

Indeed.

When faced with choosing between a short answer about what I think the real differentiating factor is and listing every possible reason for billions of different people to hate America I chose the former. Mr. Green

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

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