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Tue Jan 13, 2015, 06:15 AMxchrom (108,273 posts)Is the U.S. Crazy?http://www.alternet.org/world/us-crazyAmericans who live abroad -- more than six million of us worldwide (not counting those who work for the U.S. government) -- often face hard questions about our country from people we live among. Europeans, Asians, and Africans ask us to explain everything that baffles them about the increasingly odd and troubling conduct of the United States. Polite people, normally reluctant to risk offending a guest, complain that America’s trigger-happiness, cutthroat free-marketeering, and “exceptionality†have gone on for too long to be considered just an adolescent phase. Which means that we Americans abroad are regularly asked to account for the behavior of our rebranded “homeland,†now conspicuously in decline and increasingly out of step with the rest of the world.In my long nomadic life, I’ve had the good fortune to live, work, or travel in all but a handful of countries on this planet. I’ve been to both poles and a great many places in between, and nosy as I am, I’ve talked with people all along the way. I still remember a time when to be an American was to be envied. The country where I grew up after World War II seemed to be respected and admired around the world for way too many reasons to go into here.That’s changed, of course. Even after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, I still met people -- in the Middle East, no less -- willing to withhold judgment on the U.S. Many thought that the Supreme Court’s installation of George W. Bush as president was a blunder American voters would correct in the election of 2004. His return to office truly spelled the end of America as the world had known it. Bush had started a war, opposed by the entire world, because he wanted to and he could. A majority of Americans supported him. And that was when all the uncomfortable questions really began.In the early fall of 2014, I traveled from my home in Oslo, Norway, through much of Eastern and Central Europe. Everywhere I went in those two months, moments after locals realized I was an American the questions started and, polite as they usually were, most of them had a single underlying theme: Have Americans gone over the edge? Are you crazy? Please explain.
Response to xchrom (Original post)Tue Jan 13, 2015, 06:28 AMStar Member hobbit709 (33,437 posts)1. I wouldn't bet against it.
Response to xchrom (Original post)Tue Jan 13, 2015, 06:42 AMnewfie11 (6,394 posts)2. I've been saying that for some timeAnd I think the insanity is getting worse
Response to xchrom (Original post)Tue Jan 13, 2015, 07:01 AMJonLP24 (16,168 posts)3. I have spoken to people from countries in Africa, India, Nepalwho have never been to America (TCNs employed through a subcontractor of a subcontractor of Halliburton -- if they only knew) have a view of a America that is much, much brighter than reality. They want to come here, they ask me what it is like -- they view it as this wonderful place and where they're coming from it is but it really is but they view America through rose colored glasses. That probably isn't the view everyone has like any generalization, just sharing my experience and there were more of them than US troops at military bases and convoys.
Response to xchrom (Original post)Tue Jan 13, 2015, 07:10 AMStar Member barbtries (16,085 posts)4. i believe we are a sick nation.and i blame it on republicans and the kochs the NRA etc. the gw administration and endless war. greed.
Response to xchrom (Original post)Tue Jan 13, 2015, 07:23 AMVattel (5,378 posts)5. Our militarism is part of our national culture. We are wedded to it.It is sick. Most Americans still celebrate the population bombing the USA did during WWII. Yes killing babies is very popular among even Democrats. Most Europeans recognize that the fire bombing and nuclear bombing we did in Japan was a moral obscenity. Not Americans. We still trot out the stupid argument that but for all that murder, we would have had to kill even more people by invading the Japanese main islands. If it is that easy to convince an American to kill hundreds of thousands of civilians in war, then, yes, we are crazy.
Response to xchrom (Original post)Tue Jan 13, 2015, 07:33 AMBlue_Adept (946 posts)9. Crazy. And sick.And it's just getting worse. I can feel myself retreating from a lot of it as a self preservation aspect.
Response to xchrom (Original post)Tue Jan 13, 2015, 07:50 AMStar Member RoccoR5955 (7,752 posts)13. When I was in Europe this past fallI simply told them that they were correct. Most Americans are crazy. I am not one of them. I am also looking to leave the US to a place where Socialism is not a dirty word, it is okay to be an atheist, and they don't spend most of their budget on military.I can retire in a couple of years, and hope to hell that I can do this, because if I cannot, I shall remain a stranger in a strange land. This is not the US that I was brought up in.
Response to xchrom (Original post)Tue Jan 13, 2015, 08:00 AMSen. Walter Sobchak (6,431 posts)15. "Don't ask me, I'm from California" shuts down these discussions pretty quicklyI just say North America is an accident of history that created three large, dysfunctional and generally ungovernable countries where backwards regional minorities run roughshod over more populous and urbane regions
Bush had started a war, opposed by the entire world
Coalition MembersWho are the current coalition members?President Bush is assembling a Coalition that has already begun military operations to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction, and enforce 17 UNSC resolutions.The Coalition will also liberate the Iraqi people from one of the worst tyrants and most brutal regimes on earth.Contributions from Coalition member nations range from: direct military participation, logistical and intelligence support, specialized chemical/biological response teams, over-flight rights, humanitarian and reconstruction aid, to political support.Forty-nine countries are publicly committed to the Coalition, including:AfghanistanAlbaniaAngolaAustraliaAzerbaijanBulgariaColombiaCosta RicaCzech RepublicDenmarkDominican RepublicEl SalvadorEritreaEstoniaEthiopiaGeorgiaHondurasHungaryIcelandItalyJapanKuwaitLatviaLithuaniaMacedoniaMarshall IslandsMicronesiaMongoliaNetherlandsNicaraguaPalauPanamaPhilippinesPolandPortugalRomaniaRwandaSingaporeSlovakiaSolomon IslandsSouth KoreaSpainTongaTurkeyUgandaUkraineUnited KingdomUnited StatesUzbekistan
Tue Jan 13, 2015, 06:15 AMxchrom (108,273 posts)Is the U.S. Crazy?
We still trot out the stupid argument that but for all that murder, we would have had to kill even more people by invading the Japanese main islands.
During World War II, nearly 500,000 Purple Heart medals were manufactured in anticipation of the estimated casualties resulting from the planned Allied invasion of Japan. To the present date, total combined American military casualties of the sixty-five years following the end of World War II—including the Korean and Vietnam Wars—have not exceeded that number. In 2003, there remained 120,000 Purple Heart medals in stock. The existing surplus allowed combat units in Iraq and Afghanistan to keep Purple Hearts on-hand for immediate award to soldiers wounded in the field.
In the early fall of 2014, I traveled from my home in Oslo, Norway, through much of Eastern and Central Europe. Everywhere I went in those two months, moments after locals realized I was an American the questions started and, polite as they usually were, most of them had a single underlying theme: Have Americans gone over the edge? Are you crazy? Please explain.
I personally think the OP is making that whole story up.
Tue Jan 13, 2015, 06:15 AMxchrom (108,273 posts)Is the U.S. Crazy?http://www.alternet.org/world/us-crazyDead giveaway to ridiculous nonsense.Americans who live abroad -- more than six million of us worldwide (not counting those who work for the U.S. government) -- often face hard questions about our country from people we live among. Europeans, Asians, and Africans ask us to explain everything that baffles them about the increasingly odd and troubling conduct of the United States. Polite people, normally reluctant to risk offending a guest, complain that America’s trigger-happiness, cutthroat free-marketeering, and “exceptionality†have gone on for too long to be considered just an adolescent phase. Which means that we Americans abroad are regularly asked to account for the behavior of our rebranded “homeland,†now conspicuously in decline and increasingly out of step with the rest of the world.In my long nomadic life, I’ve had the good fortune to live, work, or travel in all but a handful of countries on this planet. I’ve been to both poles and a great many places in between, and nosy as I am, I’ve talked with people all along the way. I still remember a time when to be an American was to be envied. The country where I grew up after World War II seemed to be respected and admired around the world for way too many reasons to go into here.That’s changed, of course. Even after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, I still met people -- in the Middle East, no less -- willing to withhold judgment on the U.S. Many thought that the Supreme Court’s installation of George W. Bush as president was a blunder American voters would correct in the election of 2004. His return to office truly spelled the end of America as the world had known it. Bush had started a war, opposed by the entire world, because he wanted to and he could. A majority of Americans supported him. And that was when all the uncomfortable questions really began.In the early fall of 2014, I traveled from my home in Oslo, Norway, through much of Eastern and Central Europe. Everywhere I went in those two months, moments after locals realized I was an American the questions started and, polite as they usually were, most of them had a single underlying theme: Have Americans gone over the edge? Are you crazy? Please explain.Who's been HMFIC for the last six plus years, dickhead?
"3. I have spoken to people from countries in Africa, India, Nepal
"have a view of a America that is much, much brighter than reality. They want to come here, they ask me what it is like -- they view it as this wonderful place and where they're coming from it is but it really is but they view America through rose colored glasses"
India:Nepal:Africa:You first, asshole.
In India, it seems like nothing decent has been built, or painted, or even cleaned since the British left.The overwhelming impressions that stay with you are trash, filth, noise, and foul odors. Otherwise it's nice.
