"It's not Americans I find annoying; it's Americanism. Its symptoms are a loss of work ethic, a shrinking of inner resources, and a constant need for external stimulation, followed by spiritual decay and moral narcosis. You can recognize the victim by his constant efforts to get in touch with himself, to believe his spiritual feebleness is an interesting psychological warp, to construe his fleeing from responsibility as evidence that he and his life are uniquely open to new experience. In the latter stages, the sufferer is reduced to seeking that most trivial of human activities: fun. As for your food, no one denies that the Americans excel in one narrow rubric: the snack. And I suspect there's something symbolic in that." --Trevanian
Faheem
I think most of people who hate America, do not hate it because of its Imperialism, Racism or Capitalism. They hate America simply because they need to hate something and America, being the most powerful country today is an easy target.
And why do they need to hate? Because they live in misery, most of their lives have no purpose or even dignity, because most of them are ignorant and the only book they know is a very old religious book they are told to be the ultimate and unquestionable truth.
They hate and they have good reasons to hate.
But, as I said, I see no reasons to choose America as primal target. And what about their leaders, that become millionaire, while people is starving? What about religious leaders that only instigate more ignorance and fanaticism?
Is Bush worst than Talibans or Castro, or all the other dictators over the world?
I think you may be right, but in another level. Not the problem of hate.
Capitalism - not only American - exploits 3rd world countries, profits of cheap salaries, sometimes not very far from true slavery.
The solution is not in the hate, or in dancing and laughing at the spectacle of the New York towers in flames.
The only solution to those countries is in education. An educated people doesn't subject to misery, do dictatorship, to fanaticism. An educated people will not tolerate political or religious leaders that think for them. And an educated people will not tolerate that America, Germany, Japan, or any other capitalist nation exploits their own countries, their labour, without adequate compensations. An educated people wants to live with dignity and respect.
But, in order to achieve that goal, it is not enough to fight capitalist nations. Because they are not the only ones that want keep people in ignorance and misery. Political and religious leaders of those 3rd world countries, also want that. It grants them power.
So, we can fight capitalism and imperialism. Not with bombs, that is futile. Education, until a somali doesn't hate America for being the great Satan, but because it is keeping him and millions of others in misery for the profit of some big multinationals with the complicity of the country's political and religious leaders.
About racism, I think it is better I say nothing more. I understand it is a very sensible question, that leads to very emotional reactions, as we have seen in this topic.
val wrote:
..............About racism, I think it is better I say nothing more. I understand it is a very sensible question, that leads to very emotional reactions, as we have seen in this topic.
What has in fact been seen here is a severe lack of reading comprehension. Online dictionaries might provide some assistance in distinguishing, e.g. "sensible" from "sensitive". "Demonstrable fact" is also distinct from whatever those "emotional reactions" might mean.
Faheem - as Joe brought to your attention earlier on this thread, you postulate what you purport to demonstrate. Parsing your convoluted argument - breaking it into small logical steps - will show that: try it.
val wrote:Faheem
I think most of people who hate America, do not hate it because of its Imperialism, Racism or Capitalism. They hate America simply because they need to hate something and America, being the most powerful country today is an easy target.
And why do they need to hate? Because they live in misery, most of their lives have no purpose or even dignity, because most of them are ignorant and the only book they know is a very old religious book they are told to be the ultimate and unquestionable truth.
They hate and they have good reasons to hate.
But, as I said, I see no reasons to choose America as primal target. And what about their leaders, that become millionaire, while people is starving? What about religious leaders that only instigate more ignorance and fanaticism?
Is Bush worst than Talibans or Castro, or all the other dictators over the world?
I think you may be right, but in another level. Not the problem of hate.
Capitalism - not only American - exploits 3rd world countries, profits of cheap salaries, sometimes not very far from true slavery.
The solution is not in the hate, or in dancing and laughing at the spectacle of the New York towers in flames.
The only solution to those countries is in education. An educated people doesn't subject to misery, do dictatorship, to fanaticism. An educated people will not tolerate political or religious leaders that think for them. And an educated people will not tolerate that America, Germany, Japan, or any other capitalist nation exploits their own countries, their labour, without adequate compensations. An educated people wants to live with dignity and respect.
But, in order to achieve that goal, it is not enough to fight capitalist nations. Because they are not the only ones that want keep people in ignorance and misery. Political and religious leaders of those 3rd world countries, also want that. It grants them power.
So, we can fight capitalism and imperialism. Not with bombs, that is futile. Education, until a somali doesn't hate America for being the great Satan, but because it is keeping him and millions of others in misery for the profit of some big multinationals with the complicity of the country's political and religious leaders.
About racism, I think it is better I say nothing more. I understand it is a very sensible question, that leads to very emotional reactions, as we have seen in this topic.
This is the poorest excuse for why America is hated that I have ever read.
The fastest growing metropolitan area in this nation is Las Vegas, Nevada. Las Vegas is affectionately known as "Sin City". Sin City is also one of, if not the most, desired vacation destinations in the Country. What this reveals is that our society covets and promote sin. We live in a hedonistic society and culture. It is no accident that most people in the world with the most passion of hate for America are those people and nations which are seen as being religious fundamentalist.
The truth is that most religious people see the spread of American culture as the spreading of Sin. They see our media and how our women are paraded around half naked, if not naked, and they see that as a threat to their religious beliefs and values. They interpret American" freedom" to be the freedom to be unrighteous, just as Americans see theocracies as "repressive" to freedom. America could not live under the dictates of the religions it claims because it would be seen as repressive and restrictive to freedom.
If one places God, as Americans say the do, above all else, then there would be no separation of church from state. Society would be governed by the dictates of the dominate religion, as majority would rule. American do not want to be forced into righteousness by religious law. They covet the freedom to be unrighteous and un Godly. This is the type of freedom that religious fundamentalist and theocracies see as essentially SIN or the freedom to unrighteous.
Ngudu
First, I am not american, I never went in America and I don't even have a great empathy with the so called american values. Except for freedom, since I have it in my own country and I think it is a priceless value.
Women naked, pornography. Yes, it is regrettable. The creation of an artificial set of desires, that dehumanize men and women.
But I don't think that this is what bothers the fundamentalists. In the case you pointed, the problem is in the fact that women are independent in their jobs in clinics, offices, courts, women that are socially and economically persons, not "infra-mensch" forced to catch not only their faces but also their own personality.
I can see now, this character HofT is a joke and trolls around looking for grammatical errors or the use of words he think are improper even if the point being conveyed is understood. I hope nothing in what I wrote was written using bad grammar.
Ndugu makes excellent points but I am sure just as my observations are being dismissed so will his.
Val, the powerful have never been hated simply because they are powerful! This holds true as it relates to Powerful men and women or Powerful entities. Those in positions of power have only been met with the hate of others when they abused their power or used that power to crush and adversely affect the lives of those who are not as Powerful. This can be witnessed in American Imperialism or in the organizational practice of the all powerful Corporate Elites like Microsoft, Wal-Mart and Clear Channel. The arrogance demonstrated in your belief that those who hate America are uneducated is unfathomable especially being that you do not live in America which means you probably can not speak to who is educated and who is not around the world in comparison to the masses of men and women in America. An educated people will be subjected to whatever the wishes of those in power are and if it is a so called representative republic, the educated men and women will be subjected to the wishes of the majority and that does not make them any less educated as witnessed in the masses of educated men and women in America being subjected to four more years of Bush, thus saying the proof of education lies in how a people allow themselves to be treat is a bogus argument and lack merits.
And yet, most of those that disagree with what I am saying still can not bring themselves to admit that America is not hated because it is free and because of its freedoms,. It is the exercise of those Freedoms that brings about that hatred as noted in what Ndugu wrote and as noted in what I wrote in regards to American Imperialism, American Racism and America's exploitive Capitalist system.
val wrote:Ngudu
First, I am not american, I never went in America and I don't even have a great empathy with the so called american values. Except for freedom, since I have it in my own country and I think it is a priceless value.
Women naked, pornography. Yes, it is regrettable. The creation of an artificial set of desires, that dehumanize men and women.
But I don't think that this is what bothers the fundamentalists. In the case you pointed, the problem is in the fact that women are independent in their jobs in clinics, offices, courts, women that are socially and economically persons, not "infra-mensch" forced to catch not only their faces but also their own personality.
Freedom can be a curse for a society of people without self control. In the Lords prayer it says "lead us not into temptation...deliver us from all evil". Secular Freedom can be argued as opening the door to temptation and opening the door to evil and unnatural behavior...such as homosexuality.
What people really covet is sin and the freedom from persecution when one commits sins as defined by religion. No one wants to be forced into fidelity. People want the freedom to fornicate. People want the freedom to persue lust and pleasure.
If sin were not pleasurable and beneficial to the flesh....sin would not be tempting. You would not have to worry about people sining....because the rewards and benefits would not compel it. People want freedom from religous constraint and laws that restrict pleasure.
In regards to your theory about not wanting women in certain roles....does not each religion prescribe a role for the genders? If held to religious doctrine....women should not be in certain roles that they covet even based upon Christianity. The primary reason being is that for women to be competitive in this roles....they must sacrafice their fertility as has happened to white Western women. As a consquence, the population of whites in the world is in decline....masked only by the fact that they are living longer. They are being fruitful at the expense of multiplying. The men are to be fruitful while the women ensure the multiplying. The abdication of these roles threaten propagation of the species....which is bad by natures standards.
