Your American Masters
 

I've been reading some online newspapers today--UK's the Guardian and the London Times, a couple of papers from Israel and Lebanon and I've come to this disheartening conclusion: Everybody sees the US as the Evil Master--even Israel, even England. You should read some of the comments on these papers blogs to get a good sense of no matter what the US does, it is wrong, evil, manipulative, trying to keep them down, etc, etc. NO MATTER WHAT WE DO! If we send humanitarian aid, we are being braggarts, if we don't-we're selfish bastards. To me, it looks like the only way to win a war is the way it was done in WWII. These PC wars do nothing but grow the extremist population. Israel thinks we've been defeated in Iraq and want them to finish the job we couldn't by "getting" them to fight Hezbollah! Lordy, lordy...

That's only policies initiated by conservative republican fundamentalist Christians.:eek: There's a theory that we take the hit for everything because we're the only remaining superpower. Who knows?

This is a good reason to be isolationist. We should become self-sufficient and remove ourselves from the world scene. Perhaps then we'll be more appreciated.

Not all the newspapers in the UK are so leftist...just a lot of them. Read Google News for a while and you begin to find out who's who.

I say it all the time, we are "evil" when we "police the world" and then we are "evil" when we "refuse to police the world". They don't know what they want other than someone who is not afraid to make a decision to blame.
It's called envy, see the following.
Again, as always, don't use our jack, don't take our aid, don't use our technology (in any field), don't ask us to bail your ass out of any situation, don't come here for heart, brain surgery, vacation or retirement or send your kids to school here, don't come here to work so you can buy a home in your broke-ass country instead of staying there an fixing it yourself.... don't, don't, don't do shit with the US... THEN you won't have shit to complain about.
It's easy.

Its lonely at the top. But eventually, it'll be someone else's turn and the world will long for the good old days of being America's beyotch.

We can't do that unless we're fighting a country, an army, with uniforms, and little civilian involvement. That doesn't happen anymore. :headshake

If it did, we'd have Gulf War I again. Even wackos know better than to tug on Superman's cape.

Or spit into the wind.
Or pull the mask off the ol' Lone Ranger.

As Beestie put it, sooner or later someone else will be the super power and then everyone will forget the US just like they did the British and French and the Greeks and the Romans and...and...and...so don't stress out too much.

I'm just glad little old Australia wont ever have to worry about being in that position. :)

Of course we're still picking up after the British...

And the French...

Who's your pick, Aliantha? Iran? China?

And no faith in your home team? For shame.

So long as your interested in history, let's not forget that after the Huns and Visigoths and all those other lovely people conqured Rome and the surrounding civilizations that the European world was plunged into 1,000 years of darkness. And life was nasty, brutish and short. Yay!

Brianna...I'd lay odds on China. Seems to me they're biding their time the last couple of decades.

They'll come into power as a developing nation and leave it as a decaying one...just as most of the powers in the past have.

But what would I know?

I live in a country where there's less than 25 million residents. Very small in comparison to most others...cept New Zealand, and we all know they don't count. ;) The population would have to explode for us to even have the man power to rule the world, let alone the guts and mustard required to do so. Don't get me wrong though, I think my country is the best in the world and I pity you all for not living here. You just don't know what you're missing. :)

I know what we're not missing....water. :smack:

Well, when you live in a country that's over 70% desert, water is always going to be in short supply. ;)

I fully support the U.S.A. and always have. :-) I support the fight against oppressors and dictators and tyrants and murderers and fanatics. Trying to imagine how anyone can support the "bad guys" and it just blows me away. I suppose it's due to poverty and no education and brain washing. But you would think they would want in their hearts for themselves and their familes...the standard of living the west has. And if they would stop fighting and hating and become peaceful and democratic it's doable. WTF? How do you reach them and get them to see the good possibilities that exists for friendship and trade and tourism and cultural exchange, etc etc????????

The need to wake up. Drop leaflets on them every day in their own language reaching out to their intellectual and logical side, and not the emotional freaking out side.

They also need a sense of humour!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I must say, this sentiment is not at all usual from our foreign friends. Thanks! For the record, despite what I say about Frogs (my mother is one) I like Canada.

I think a lot of the hatred is because they see the Western world as evil, godless (or, Mohammed-less) demons who can't keep women in their place.
Middle Eastern men think Western women are all whores and Western men are castrated ninnies and they can't figure out how a bunch of whores and ninnies are winning the game.

yeah, but do you see how they treat their dogs?


Oh, come on. Great Britian is small and they ruled the world, baby! They've never gotten over that, apparently.

Yes, it's the same on the west coast of the US. Beautiful along the coast, but as you go inland water starts to get scarce.

From what I've seen of Australia, in pictures/TV/internet, parts of the country are incredibly beautiful.
The people are nice too. I guess being on the bottom of the world, you spend so much time trying to keep from falling off, you're too busy to give anybody any grief. :lol:

Just kidding....I guess this is the top of the world because people up here wrote the description.

New Zealand looks beautiful, too, but I think I'd get damn sick of climbing hills.

They're wrong? :bolt:

This is exactly right, I think.

It's not just that Israel is full of Jooos. It's that it's massively successful.

This is totally unacceptable to the average *intelligent* Arab Muslim because Allah is supposed to kick their ass nine different ways. It isn't supposed to turn out like this, where the Muslims are undeveloped and backwards and, where there isn't oil, desperately poor. But these cultures have several points wrong on Ralph Peters' seven signs of uncompetitive states:

• Restrictions on the free flow of information.
• The subjugation of women.
• Inability to accept responsibility for individual or collective failure.
• The extended family or clan as the basic unit of social organization.
• Domination by a restrictive religion.
• A low valuation of education.
• Low prestige assigned to work

We are heretical to them.

where i first read that

Yes, I was reminded of Denbeste when I read this this morning.

Long about now some "progressive" should chime in with a guilt-ridden whine about how this is our fault...

I wholeheartedly agree that Australia is a beautiful place. Spectacular even. On the other hand, most countries in the world have beauty for the viewing if you're willing to look for it.

What I like the most is the casual lifestyle and the attitude of the people. It's different to any you'd find anywhere else in the world. Maybe that's why so many people want to come here and visit. I don't know. I'm pretty selfish about Australia though. Sometimes I wish there were less tourists. They really can be a pain in the arse. :)

Brianna...I don't think we have enough catholics in this country. At the moment, the government is trying to encourage people to breed, but they're not having that much success. Their slogan is, "One for Mum, One for Dad and one for the country". I don't ever think we'll have the population to take over the world. :(

Aliantha, change that frown to a smile. and be thankful you can't take over the world. You don't want it.....it sucks. ;)

The world already longs for the good old days when being at the top meant America had so many friends. Of course that meant Americans first learned the perspectives of the world rather than preach to the world what was right and wrong. Become so anti-American as to even believe we can impose democracy on all others.

Remember the good old days when America believed in containment? When we learned before declaring 'right and wrong', then a world was 70% pro-American. It is now less than 15% so.

Most readers here did not exist during Vietnam - when again, respect for America was so low. Of course it was. Americans were also back then so ignorant as to demand what is right and wrong rather than first learn facts. Americans would even lie to themselves rather than admit the Vietnam reality.

A little test for each lurker. Was America the good guy or the bad guy in Vietnam? If you still say Americans were the good guys, then you have no grasp of reality and history. Tragedy of Vietnam is how good people can do so much evil. Only a classic anti-American ignores why American were the bad guys.

Vietnam War is a classic example of how Americans were so righteous as to murder those who had even been America's closest allies. If you did not yet learn basic history - such as a Ho Chi Minh that desperately wanted to become a protectorate of the US - then you never learned how anti-American we became back then. We blindly believed lies. Many today are so anti-American as to still believe those Vietnam era lies - such as the Domino Theory. Vietnam is a benchmark. If you learned about Vietnam, then you learned why America became so anti-American. A true patriot learns from history. Only anti-Americans deny it.

'Terrorists are lurking everywhere' is only preached in a righteous America. Mostly among George Jr supporters. ‘Terrorism everywhere’ is more fodder for Armageddon. Only 'evil people' want Armageddon. No wonder the world has become so worried. So many who want Armageddon also proclaim they are ‘god’s chosen’ people.

Among good people are not issues in black and white. Good people see the world in perspective. Perspective was always difficult for anti-American types who are so righteous. When Americans were instead honest, then Americans were 70% popular. Being at the top meant friends everywhere. Neither the world nor god likes a country lead by liars. Welcome to an America that only wants enemies – ‘terrorist are lurking everywhere’. It is only lonely at the top when we are anti-American - and even hype lies to invent enemies. No wonder the world is no longer so friendly. Everytime it gets lonely at the top, America was the problem. Again, learn from history.

So...even though you're old enough to remeber Vietnam, you still haven't learned this lesson. :-)

What lesson is that then?

Ipse dixit.

I like Australians and I like Australia. Very much. It is, however, socially British-colonially stuffy. You can taste that in the air even over in WA, Perth and Fremantle -- I got over there by submarine once, about 1983. While Australia and America are much alike in that they have a fundamentally English/British culture laid upon a larger, drier, hotter place than the UK is, America has a freewheeling quality that Australia lacks -- a quality I found that I missed in the otherwise delightful Australian experience.

I imagine Australians coming up here, and being ritually shown the Big Dipper and the Pole Star on the first clear night just as Americans tend to ask to see the Southern Cross, wouldn't find it too difficult to adapt, though.

UG...I can only guess from your post that you spent time with the wrong people over here. There's very few Australians who I would describe as stuffy or british-colonial.

Maybe you missed the heart of Australia and only scratched the surface.

You should come again some time and try out the real australia (east coast) instead of those stuffy WAers (who're mostly from South Africa and other off continent sites). Did you at least make it to Freo when you were in WA?

I've only been to Caaaaaayanes (Cairns) and Port Douglas, but that's enough for me... I'm in love. I honestly want to move to Austrailia when I grow up, though mah girl wants to go to New Zealand...

Both are very nice. I'd rather vacation in New Zealand and work in Australia.

Well... there was the Leading WREN that invited a couple of us over for spaghetti one evening... and the elderly lady who asked me to show her what a US penny looked like, saying, "I'm sure you must think this terribly ignorant of me..." (the sort of behavior inveighed against as "the Australian cultural cringe" in books of the time), and the schoolboys who asked us what we thought of Australian beer (it's darn good). It was my first exposure to Australian table wines -- the Monty Python sketch was later for me.

The social stuffiness seems less a thing of individual Australians than of something in the atmosphere. Singapore has the identical feel -- and it too was a British colony. I didn't pick this up in Kenya, perhaps because the social effect of the strongman rulership of Daniel Arap Moi overlaid it too much.

The WA'ers told us the people from The Big Smoke were the stuffy ones. At this point an American might lift an eyebrow and wonder aloud about "a failure to communicate (broad Cool Hand Luke reference)."

Fremantle (was that "Freo?") struck me as a small navy town, most notable for its port facilities and underused submarine base, which is handy for US nuke boats making a port call during operations in the IO, as our submariners abbreviate the Indian Ocean. Come to think of it, I spent most of my at-sea time in the Navy somewhere in the Indian Ocean.

I know what we don't want. We don't want a bent copper.

When a collectivist starts using first person plural, be very, very careful...:-)

:borg:

I've known a few bent coppers in my time.

UG...I just don't know what sort of blinders you must have had on when you came here, but I guess it doesn't matter.

Sorry you missed the best part of the country here.

Maybe the people he met there didn't like him? :whip:

Sounds like the old birds did. :)

Yes.:thumb2:
Probably because he's a throwback to the Teddy Roosevelt era.

They liked me fine. What you two are doing is known to psychology as "projection," which has a way of seldom being valid.

Don't indulge in it myself.

What's up your klacker today UG?

I object to people being idiots, on principle -- particularly if they are not quite idiots to begin with. Do you mind, Aliantha?

That's funny, we feel the same way. :eyebrow:

Object away UG. I'm not going to change me for you mate, so get over it or move on.

Perhaps if you remove the broomstick from your arse you may not feel quite so objectionable all the time.

I don't think there's much chance of UG changing, Aliantha....not even the broomstick. :lol:

:) That's a shame for him, and bad luck for the rest of us.

So you're telling me that out of ego, you'd prefer to remain an idiot, or simulate one rather too precisely, just for fun?

I have different hobbies that I think are more worthwhile.

Why don't you go do them then? :)

'Cos I'd rather guilt-trip you, of course! :p

Hmmm...what are you making me feel guilty about?

Why Bruce, anyone would think you have a jaundiced view of this. But which is likely to be better: throwing back to a two-term President who was the only Medal of Honor winner among forty-three, or throwing back to a vitiated Democrat like Jimmy Carter? I know who I'd pick, because I suppose an assertive foreign policy keeps the troublemakers, the non-democracies and their proxies and lackeys, thoroughly frightened of what an aroused Republic could do. Keep the anti-freedom types emasculated as well as eviscerated. They shouldn't be breeding anyway, not if you want a decent world. Those who would let them grow instead are being neither wise nor sophisticated. More nearly, these have the minds of slaves.

So, Aliantha, somehow you didn't read post #51? Don't encourage me to sneer at you for a blockhead. It is unrewarding to simulate idiocy unless you are a professional comedian -- then it can be lucrative.

lol...well if your sneer is as good as Elvis' then I wouldn't mind too much...or even JD's come to think of it.

Maybe I should consider a career in comedy. Obviously I'm not entertaining you with my intellect. :)

You mean like Saudi Arabia or Pakistan?
Or were you referring to Iran? That must be it, since they're rolling over like submissive dogs to our overwhelming foreign "policy".

And now Ladies & Gentlemen...LIVE...from the Reichstag........
:rolleyes:

Well, not that way, you're not. <shrug>

Neither you nor Bruce. I'm disappointed, rather, with Bruce. He's usually in better form, and usually able to acknowledge that I can't be confused with a Fascist.

Now Headsplice, why would you think I'd cite any of those as examples of what we might conveniently call E & E? Citing some failures to E & E hardly invalidates actually implementing such a policy, now does it?

Oh goodness, I didn't mean to imply you were a fascist....heavens, no.

I was just pointing out you have the same zeal and determination, to impose your views on the whole World, with as much force as necessary to grind any objections into the dirt with your jackboot, but not a fascist.

Lets see now, the difference is........hmm....:smack: