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

Clearly modern computing and networks have their recent origins throughout the western (and in some of the eastern) world. The conceptual model for modern computers was developed in the UK (Touring machines - named after their conceptual designer). The mathematics, from Boolean algebra to Fourier transforms and numerical stability theory, from Germany, France, the UK, the United States and Japan. I believe the first major electronic computer development (the Iliac) was done in the United States, but European versions weren't very far behind. Transistors, printed circuits and chips came from the U.S. but efficient, low cost manufacturing was perfected in Japan. We and they have exchanged that lead several times since then.

Others have correctly noted the DARPA (later ARPA) net as a key precursor network. By the late '80s CERN and other European labs were linked to this network and no doubt operated local ones of their own. I suspect from that point on connectivity and collaboration were so high that naming the exact source of a new development would be both difficult and subject to error.

I believe this illustrates a basic point that, In my view, should be central to this thread. Thomas earlier noted that the U.S. has been a free society for a long time and that much of what attracts and infuriates others about us is a result of that. Good and bad new things often happen here first. We live in a fast moving world suffused with a common culture to which we all contribute, but which too often is labelled as American, merely because many of its manifestations either occur or are mass exploited here first. It is a bit like the problem many Americans have with California.

An American cartoon character, Pogo, expressed it well in a paraphrase of an American Naval hero, Oliver Perry, who after an engagement with the British (this is for you Steve and Kitchen Pete) said "We have met the enemy and he is ours".

Pogo's version was "We have met the enemy and he is us."

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I believe the problem lies in the naming. Nations named with the first name "Amerigo" would not be unlike naming a nation "fred." so it seems obvious that solid dignity of a nation's status such as our own would be greatly enhanced should we re-name out nation VespucciLand.

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Don't you mean 'Vespuccia'? Smile

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kitchenpete wrote:

McGentrix wrote:
Well, I am glad we agree on some things at least. I lived in Germany for nine years and I have travelled to every country in Europe except Portugal.

OK - I guessed wrong.

McGentrix wrote:
Quote:
American sports...That's an absolute "no" - baseball, American football, hockey and basketball are never shown outside the night slots...we have our own sporting traditions!

Football and Rugby are both excellent sports as are the myriad of other sports Europeans play, but I would go out on a limb and say that the World Series, Superbowl and Stanley Cup all get the same attention the world cup does. I am not saying they are as popular as soccor, but American sports do have a place on European TV.

Simply not true. World Series gets next to no interest, Superbowl is shown well into the small hours of Monday morning and most people go to bed before the end of the first 1/4. I don't even know what sport is played for the Stanley Cup.

For the (football) World Cup, every nation in Europe will be glued to televisions for 3 weeks. Offices and streets are empty for in any nation which is playing.

McGentrix wrote:
Quote:
American food...you mean processed so far as to disguise its origins in nature e.g. American Cheese? Don't even get me started on the standard of bread! Most food of American origin is found laughable by the Europeans.

There is more to American cuisine than McDonalds (which you can find in every major European city). Cajun, Bar-b-que, pizza (chicago deep dish, NY thin crust, etc...), the list goes on. Go to McDonalds this afternoon and tell me how long you have to wait in line....

BBQ and Cajun are good examples. I've loved Maine Lobster and Clam Chowdah plus New York deli sandwiches but we don't really get those in Europe because we like our own food...home made, where possible.

I'd rather not go to McDonalds. I've only eaten from one, say, about twice in the last five years!

Tell them in Naples that the Pizza is American!

McGentrix wrote:
Quote:
Origin of the internet - created by Tim Berners-Lee...who is...English, now living in America, admittedly:

Born in London in 1955
Studied at Wandsworth's Emanuel School
Read physics at Queen's College, Oxford
Banned from using the university's computer when he and a friend were caught hacking
Built own computer with old TV, a Motorola microprocessor and soldering iron
Created web in late 1980s and early 1990s at Cern
Offered it free on the net
Previously awarded an OBE
In 1994 he founded World Wide Web Consortium at MIT
In 1999 he became first holder of the 3Com Founders chair
Time magazine named him one of the top 20 thinkers of the 20th Century

The actual history of the Internet

OK - I've conceded that one, already.

Now, consider how (despite your time in Europe), you still don't understand us...and how America may be equally misunderstood. This misunderstanding, together with a generous seasoning of jealousy (of wealth) and fear (of military power) are at the root of the "hate" to which this thread relates.

I've chosen to spend about 5 weeks of the last year in the USA and enjoyed myself enormously...my greatest love to date has been an American woman and I have plenty of friends from the USA. Don't think that it's me who hates the USA.

Then again, I still consider myself European, despite the language differences, and closer in overall outlook to other Europeans than to most Americans!

The problem, as I see it, is that Walter disparaged American Culture, I tried to defend American culture by giving some examples and now I am being told I don't understand European culture?

I never claimed to have any special insight into European culture. I was not attacking European culture either. By stating that some things that are american (I dare you to compare a Chicago deep dish pizza with anything you can find in Italy and say they are the same thing) is in no way saying that European culture is somewhat diminished!

Europe is full of culture and history. I've been there and I've seen it, I've enjoyed it. I've had pomme frits (sp?) in Berlin, I've had pizza in Florence, I've had fish in London and I've had bread in Paris. I've seen the landmarks and I've enjoyed living there. I even had friends from Germany, Norway and England!

By defending America, I am not disparaging Europe. BUT...do you have a baseball diamond in your town? I'd bet you do. Do people watch NFL Europe? I bet they do. Do Eupopeans frequent McDonalds? You know it. Are European teens listening to Britney Spears? uh, huh. Do they watch Mtv? Yep. The list goes on and on and as much as you want to not want it to be, American culture has more influence on European culture TODAY than Europe does on American culture. That may not be the way it was, as most Americans can trace their ancestry to Europe, but NOW that's the way it is and it seems to really rub some people the wrong way.

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No, no, no...we are "The Republic of Gilead."

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

And if you mean by "American Culture" burger chains etc, you are nearly 90% correct!

MTV belongs to "etc" as some other of what was mentioned.

I actually mentioned burgers, because I'd read before that a UK-government unit 'urges fat tax' on hamburges.

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I thought we were the "Republic of Bush?"

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McGentrix,

Quote:

American culture has more influence on European culture TODAY than Europe does on American culture. That may not be the way it was, as most Americans can trace their ancestry to Europe, but NOW that's the way it is and it seems to really rub some people the wrong way.

Yes - now we're getting to some real answers to the question.

I'm sorry if I beat you up for responding to Walter's disparaging comments...I just thought some of your examples were flawed and wanted to point that out.

I agree that there's a resentment to the spread of mass-produced food and music...as much as there is a sector of society (young and poor, in the main) who can't get enough!

You are still wrong about the sports - of course there's a baseball diamond somewhere in London but I couldn't tell you where...softball in the park is easier, in summer. NFL Europe has very low viewing figures compared with domestic football. We just don't get the game and NFL Europe is a pale imitation of the US game, with many players who can't make it in the US coming to Europe to continue life as a pro.

I've got to go, now...see you soon.

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Ok then. You and your mates may not enjoy American sports, but can you speak for the majority or even the minority of Europeans?

You may be correct as I have not devoted a lot of time seeking statistics on European devotion to american sports.

BTW, I absolutely love Rugby. I played for 5 years in college and I try to watch it whenever it's on. and Congrats to England on winning the RWC!

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We must also be aware of the contributions that some other countries have made to American entertainment.

My favorite is Australian Rules Football. Although I played sports all through school (Amer. football, hockey, wrestling,etc) and have been a devoted fan of Worldwide sports for decades I can say just this:
After 5 years of watching Australian Rules Football I STILL don't understand the rules. I love to watch it, it is a fast paced, exciting game, but I think ARF is a colossal joke that is being played on the 'Yanks' by all the combined people of 'Oz'.

The nearest I can tell is that they make up words to confuse us and that every few minutes, they change the 'rules' just so we won't EVER 'get' it. I have always been loath to buy a book about the game outlining the rules because I think that would just destroy my enjoyment of watching 2 groups of insane Ausies battle it out. So even though I am sure it is a giant practical joke being played on us, please keep sending it and ... well ... you got us ! Very Happy

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I can say a thing or two about sports in Italy and Spain.

1. Soccer is King, like almost everywhere. (Any comparison between the world popularity of soccer and the popularity of any other sport is preposterous).
2. Basketball is popular, but trails cycling and handball in Spain; cycling and volleyball in Italy.
3. American Football. Perhaps 90-95 per cent of the Italian population does not know the basic rules. But it's played by some enthusiasts. They even have a semi-pro League. Totally non-existant in Spain.
4. Baseball. I lived for 4+ is the most baseballish city in Italy (and Italy is only second to Holland in the like of baseball in Europe). It has a couple of diamonds. I met NO ONE who understood the basic rules of the game. I had to explain to Italians the baseball movies they nevertheless saw. In Spain baseball is unknown. For the Barcelona Olympics they had to build a stadium, and made their home team from Latin America descendants of Spaniards (a similar thing happens with Holland, which has a competitive team, made mostly with Americans of Dutch origin and people from the Netherlands' Antilles, and with Italy, where only 1 or 2 team members were actually born and raised in the Italian peninsula).
5. Ice Hockey. Not popular. Played by a few enthusiasts in both countries (more in Italy). Field Hockey is much more popular in Spain.

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Interestingly, European sports are likely better known and followed here than perhaps are ours in Europe. As a boy I played on an Irish (Gaelic) football club (not too different from ARF) and in grad school in Pasadena on a rugby club. (we weren't so good, but had great parties). Soccer, or association football is getting more and more popular here as is cycling. Hockey, of course, is a mostly Canadian thing, but Americans have embraced it enthusiastically - and we find ourselves resented by Canadians for it. Go figure.

Cricket - well that's another story.

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Just so it's clear, we (Amerigonians) have no need for either Cher or David Hasselhoff. At this point these individuals are strictly maintained for export.

Just so that's out there.

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Fedral wrote:

If you will actually READ some of the non articles I post you will have read that I post most of those articles in direct response to Pistoff's continued posting of some of the most ultra biased, left wing propaganda I have ever seen.
As I have said before, for each one of Pistoffs articles that I see posted, I will find and post an even more right wing wacko article to try and show how absurd the extremists from both sides can be.
The thing I find more absurd than the articles that I post is the responses that Pist's absurd posts get. The fact that I am aware of how absurd most of the articles I post while there is a core of ultra libs that step up to wag their heads in agreement with the absurdities that he posts shows who the actual open minded people are on this board.

If you have a problem with the articles Pistoff - or anybody else - posts, I suggest you construct an argument refuting them. Surely, an intellect of your refinement should be able to easily expose something so "ultra-biased" and "propaganda," right? If you are unable to mount a substantive argument against Pistoffs articles..... you see the implications.

And this is ignoring the fact that your fight-fire-with-fire approach is inherantly retarded. It clogs the boards with inanity and discredits other Conservatives.

Quote:

While not sure exactly what you are trying to say here, I stand by my post that America doesn't owe any other nation anything. What we give, we give freely. We have no obligation to help, we do it because we like to help and because the average American is caring and generous. We know we have the highest standard of living and have the better opportunities for advancing ourselves than any other place on Earth. Because of that, most of us have a wish to help others and we do it.

But please don't presume to tell us that we have some sort of obligation to help others whether we wish to or not.

If you want to come out and play, please do it in the other thread where these issues can be explored more substantially: What America Owes The World

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Soccer has become the most played sport in Canada, especially amoung young women and children. We have our own football game, the CFL and the Grey Cup is out version of the Superbowl.
As for Canadian resentment against americans for stealing our game, of the original six teams in the NHL, only two were from Canada, Montreal and Toronto, the rest were from New York, Boston, Chicago and Detroit. The Stanley Cup is the N.Americans ultimate goal in Hockey. Many Europeans, especially countries with cold weather are big fans of the game. Many of the players in the NHL come from countries such as sweeden, finland and russia (not european but from that side of the pond).

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But would you not agree Ceili, that before hockey turned into its current incarnation it was (and still is) Canada's game? I mean that in the sense of being a national pastime.

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Whatever the complex of factors which have led in the past to 'Yanqui go home' graffitti, or to British rock musicians peeing on the Alamo, we probably ought to acknowledge that the present period evidences a broad, even world-wide, disdain for America's operations in the world which has been engendered by something more disquieting than hockey jealousy. Maybe?

Quote:

The former Mexican ambassador to the UN, Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, told the Observer newspaper this week that American officials intervened last March - days before the war was launched against Saddam Hussein - to halt secret UN negotiations for a compromise resolution to give weapons inspectors more time to complete their work.

Quote:

Ms Gun was arrested when it was reported that America's national security agency, GCHQ's US partner, was conducting a secret surveillance operation, bugging UN delegates' home and office telephones and emails.

The NSA told GCHQ that the particular targets of an eavesdropping "surge" were the delegates from Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Bulgaria, Guinea and Pakistan - the six crucial "swing votes" on the security council. A memo sent by Frank Koza, a senior NSA official, said the information from the eavesdropping would be used against the key UN delegations.

In a statement when she was charged, Ms Gun said: "Any disclosures that may have been made were justified because they exposed serious illegality and wrongdoing on the part of the US government which attempted to subvert our own security services. Secondly, they could have helped prevent widescale death and casualties amongst ordinary Iraqi people and UK forces in the course of an illegal war."

Senior Mexican and Chilean diplomats at the UN have since claimed their missions were spied on.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1152323,00.html

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This is all very interesting, reading from so many different people from different parts of the world. Ten years ago a rural housewife with just a high school education who mostly just stays at home with her family would never even hear of all these different things. That is what I meant by the world is getting smaller. With the invention of the internet ordinary people like myself are exposed to information and people of higher knowledge than ever before thought possible. With the invention of satellite TV with world wide access to any place in the world, the "coal miners daughter" can watch people clear across the ocean that have different ways of life and viewpoints from anything she has ever heard of locally. It is an amazing thing that is relatively new and ten years from now I think that things will be even more different than they are now as far as how countries are run. I think that scares some people and that is why they resist the UN and dismiss countries as "old Europe". Before all this because America is so big most ordinary folks really didn't have a grasp on outside countries. People in the country looked at people from other parts of the world almost like they came from outer space or something. I guess because when people come from other parts of the world they settle in bigger cities closer to the border rather than the middle states.

At least that is my un asked for opinion on all this. I am not a sports fan other than just wanting KY wildcats to win in basketball (I never personally watch it) so I don't have any opinions about world wide sports and which country has the most interesting one or whatever. I like McDonalds, but if I ever got a chance to visit other countries, I would want to try their food and experience their ways of life. Heck, I would think I was really doing something if I got to go to New York and see a broadway play, I could not imagine going to Paris. Just watching Sex and the City the other night really made me have a longing to see it, it seems so pretty and old world compared to anything I have ever seen. To use a too often repeated phrase, "the grass is always greener" I guess.

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Revel,

Do come to Europe - it's only a few hundred dollars to fly there. Enough people speak English (even in Paris, though they do resent it if you make no effort to say "bonjour" or "merci").

It is much older and much prettier than most cities in the USA. What I really enjoy, in reverse, is the space and untouched wilderness in many parts of America - this crowded corner of Europe doesn't have that. Nor do we have the amazing variety of skyscrapers.

KP

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kitchenpete, It may cost only a few hundred dollars to fly 'there,' but it's the per diem that can bust the bank. LOL

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

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