The world hates US - Page 2 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

roachboy · 01-04-2005, 12:02 PM

i dont think reactions to the states are simple functions of media exposure:

for example, policies either floated or supported by the states often have real, material, lasting negative impact on people's lives (think, for example, structural adjustment policies implemented by the imf across the southern hemisphere) that no amount of media coverage, pro or contra, can frame away.

another assumption seems to be that a mass media apparatus exists in the same way everywhere, and that thie apparatus is consumed in the same ways as it is in industrialized countries. this seems patently false--even within the latter, the types of media most looked to for information varies place to place (france is still more print dominated for example than is the states)....but when you move from northern to southern hemispheres, the situation changes quite radically.

in the states at least, it seems pretty clear that there is a direct correlation between television viewing (as primary information source) and support for the administration--for a study that backs this claim, look here:

http://www.comm.cornell.edu/msrg/msrg.html

see on the right, the report entitled "Perceptions of Muslims, War on Terror..."

nor do i think that relations to the us are a simple function of its economic and military dominance--it follows more from the ways in which these forms of domination are implemented practically. the americans are not the innocent victims of their own position.

Techno · 01-04-2005, 12:44 PM

Quote:

But yet, everyone still hates us, except the British and Israelis. Who both realize what we do.

As a Brit, I'm going to call bullshit on this one. You're way off the mark there dude. Apart from Mrs. Tony Bush*, we hate you guys. We only came to war with you guys to add some discipline.

Quote:

I guess how you can really see it is the US is the Celebrity of the world. Were our everyday actions in life is not newworthy at all, a simple event like Britney Spears having smoking is blown out of proportion. The US is the worlds celebrity right now, and it seems some people on the outside may be a little bit envious

I liked the celebrity comparison. As I think most celebrities are worthless pieces of shit, you raised a chuckle.

However it may be to do with the fact that your government is generally belligerant in its dealings, hypocritical and composed of zealots. I mean, we've seen this before somewhere, right?

* I offer a brand new conspiracy to you. Since the early 20th century America has been using secret mindcontrol rays to develop an infatuation in our PM towards your president. Usually it is held in moderation by prejudice towards homosexuality, but in this modern day and age...

Konichiwaneko · 01-04-2005, 01:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Techno

I liked the celebrity comparison. As I think most celebrities are worthless pieces of shit, you raised a chuckle.

Given your location also, you seem to not think highly of yourself either. Silly brit ^^

commenting on your post though, saying all british hates america is like saying all french hates america. I'm anti-french government but even I know that isn't true. The people of the government is more reasonable then the government but less reasonable then the individiual.

oktjabr · 01-04-2005, 01:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Konichiwaneko

commenting on your post though, saying all british hates america is like saying all french hates america. I'm anti-french government but even I know that isn't true. The people of the government is more reasonable then the government but less reasonable then the individiual.

Do you hate french people who agree with the french government?

Konichiwaneko · 01-04-2005, 01:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by oktjabr

Do you hate french people who agree with the french government?

Actually I don't. They have their own decision and I respect it. Now if the try to enforce their viewpoints on me, and label me in all forms of derrogatives because I don't agree with them, then you have another thing coming.

I'm comfortable enough with how I feel to support what I believe in, and supply ample evidence to my case. I'm also comfortable enough to recognize that I am not perfect and in that case able to adopt a point of view change if someone is able to prove a case better then me.

Thus is why i'm a Libertarian-Conservative right now. I've had years of political discussion with whom I respect and over time it changed me from a emotional illogical liberal who wanted to help the plenty at the cost of the few, to simply someone who realized "Hey how can I help people if I can barely help myself.".

Long answer to your short question.

Quick answer would be.

No I don't.

roachboy · 01-04-2005, 02:39 PM

Konichiwaneko:

its funny you talk about the french government in a way that implies you see it as somehow on the left when chirac is politically not that different from a moderate (sane) republican. of course there is the fact that chirac's government did not swallow to load of shit handed to the un security council by the bush administration....this did not make chirac suddenly a leftist--it just made his government appear as though they were taking their position on the unsc seriously and actually weighing evidence--which the americans did not provide.

then of course, there was sustained smear campaign that followed, courtesy of the whole range of rightwing media outlets and thinktanks, that shaped the domestic american view of what actually happened--a campaign that hinged on the assumption that most americans neither know nor care about anything in particular to do with french politics. so it follows, your position.

you would, i suspect, get along quite famously with lots of folk on the right in france. particularly with folk from the front national, if you actively support the bush variety of rightwing american politics.

as for the last post, i confess it makes little sense to me, but tant pis, i am not being addressed in it so it does not have to.

Konichiwaneko · 01-04-2005, 05:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

Konichiwaneko:

its funny you talk about the french government in a way that implies you see it as somehow on the left when chirac is politically not that different from a moderate (sane) republican. of course there is the fact that chirac's government did not swallow to load of shit handed to the un security council by the bush administration....this did not make chirac suddenly a leftist--it just made his government appear as though they were taking their position on the unsc seriously and actually weighing evidence--which the americans did not provide.

then of course, there was sustained smear campaign that followed, courtesy of the whole range of rightwing media outlets and thinktanks, that shaped the domestic american view of what actually happened--a campaign that hinged on the assumption that most americans neither know nor care about anything in particular to do with french politics. so it follows, your position.

you would, i suspect, get along quite famously with lots of folk on the right in france. particularly with folk from the front national, if you actively support the bush variety of rightwing american politics.

as for the last post, i confess it makes little sense to me, but tant pis, i am not being addressed in it so it does not have to.

I've dislike the french government since before Bush, before Clinton. Actually I've dislike the French government for quite a while.

As I said in my post before that Roach, I don't dislike the french people. Just the government. It's like someone on the outside saying everyone in America supports Bush, you and I both know that's false. Can you reasonably think then that I would say everyone in France supports their government? I also don't support a group because they are on the right, I support what I believe in. To some people, even a tidbit of right beliefs in their black and white views is enough to make me a far rightest. It's the same on the right side.

In your conclusion I think it's only because our writing styles are different.

Willravel · 01-04-2005, 06:15 PM

I love Americans, and I love the Constitution, and I love freedom. I hate the idea that a land of such things is involved in occupying a country for political and economic reasons. I hate the idea that the government of such a land would resort to fear and propoganda to serve selfish interests. I hate the idea that working unilaterally doesn't make our administration question itself. All of our great allies and a great deal of our own citizens said, "Wait, you're going to do WHAT?!" But no one seemed to be listening. When France and Germany and Russia said no, we should have rethought our plan. Afterall, we don't want another Vietnam. And therein lies the problem.

Why did Vietnam fail the way it did? Lack of empathy! We did not understand that what was going on in Vietnam was a civil war, NOT the takeover of communism. Even Robert McNamara admitted to this. They thought we wanted to collonize them, we thought they wanted to spread communism. We were both wrong. In WWI and WWII, we knew - to at least some degree - what our enemy wanted and why they wanted it. In Vietnam, however, there was no such understanding.

Now I see this happening again. Iraq was arguabally on the brink of civil war. Towns like Fallujah were standing against Hussain. When would the civil war have broken out? No one can say. Why can no one say? Because America interviened. We thought Hussain needed to be thrown out. Of course he did, but we weren't the ones to do it. Espically not like this. Now we are in a foreign country with a foreign culture to us. We are wondering why these people hate us so much and why they are fighting us, sometimes with stickes and stones! We keep asking ourselves why they would do this. Why not ask one of them? Why not ask a father who saw his daughter killed by American bombs?

Which brings me to my point. The world seems to hate us (and I am with them) because we don't learn from our mistakes and we can't empathise with other cultures. That is as best an answer as I can give you.

sob · 01-04-2005, 07:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

Konichiwaneko:

its funny you talk about the french government in a way that implies you see it as somehow on the left when chirac is politically not that different from a moderate (sane) republican. of course there is the fact that chirac's government did not swallow to load of shit handed to the un security council by the bush administration....this did not make chirac suddenly a leftist--it just made his government appear as though they were taking their position on the unsc seriously and actually weighing evidence--which the americans did not provide.

then of course, there was sustained smear campaign that followed, courtesy of the whole range of rightwing media outlets and thinktanks, that shaped the domestic american view of what actually happened--a campaign that hinged on the assumption that most americans neither know nor care about anything in particular to do with french politics. so it follows, your position.

Interesting statements, but here's some more verifiable information on how "chirac's government did not swallow to load of shit handed to the un security council by the bush administration":

(It's from a Canadian newspaper, by the way)

Quote:

And they talk of peace
Andrew Coyne
National Post
Wednesday, February 12, 2003

Having liberated France from the Germans, and having sheltered the Germans
for 40-odd years from the Russians, and having poured billions of dollars
into rescuing the Russians from themselves, the United States now finds, as
it races to protect its own citizens from madmen with doomsday weapons, its
most implacable foes are ... France, Germany and Russia. You know, the peace
lobby.

I will leave it to others to speculate on the motives of these three nations,
or to discuss their qualifications to lecture others on the evils of
interventionism. (A poll shows 57% of Germans agree with the statement that
Americans are "a nation of warmongers." Two, three, four ...) What is
unarguable is that their hostility to any effort to rein in Saddam Hussein
was in evidence long before this crisis; it has nothing to do with questions
of peace or war.

When the issue was sanctions, they were against sanctions. When the issue was
inspections, they were against inspections. And while they now profess to
favour disarmament, they have not only consistently opposed any practical
measure to effect it over the years, they have themselves been Saddam's chief
suppliers of weapons of mass destruction -- and may be even to this day. It
is difficult to escape the conclusion that they are not so much interested in
opposing war as in supporting Saddam.

The French, needless to say, are the most deeply implicated. France has been
romancing Iraq since at least 1972, when Saddam, already the number two man
in the Ba'athist regime, nationalized the Iraqi oil industry, more or less at
the point of a gun. Had the West held firm in its opposition, the putsch
might not have succeeded, and Saddam would never have acquired the revenues
to pursue his ambitions. But France broke ranks -- in exchange for a cut of
the action.

The pattern was to be repeated three years later, when Saddam began shopping
for a fast-breeder nuclear reactor, with a view to acquiring nuclear weapons
within 10 years. No one was willing to provide him with the advanced
technology he was seeking -- not even the Russians, who had sold him a
small research reactor some years earlier. It was not until he met with the
French prime minister, one Jacques Chirac, that Saddam found what he was
looking for. The French agreed, knowing full well what Saddam was up to, in
exchange for $3-billion in cash, some oil concessions and a huge contract to
purchase France's Mirage F-1 fighter planes. Oh, and one other thing: The
Franco-Iraqi Nuclear Co-operation Treaty stipulated that "all persons of
Jewish race" be excluded from participating.

More deals followed: armoured vehicles, surface-to-air missiles, antiship
missiles. By 1982, Iraq accounted for 40% of all French arms exports. Other
countries -- the Russians, the Italians, the British, less so the Americans
-- also sold arms to Iraq, especially during the Iran-Iraq war, when
revolutionary Iran seemed the greater threat to the region. The Germans,
egregiously, provided Saddam with much of his chemical weapons capacity,
from mustard gas to nerve gases like Tabun and Sarin, as well as the ballistic
missile technology with which to deliver them to places like Tel Aviv and
Jerusalem. But none did so with anything like the audacity of the French.

Even after the invasion of Kuwait in 1990, French support for Iraq did not
waver. François Mitterrand went so far as to make a speech to the UN in
September of that year in which he lent legitimacy to Iraq's territorial
claims. The French were early and ardent enthusiasts for lifting the
sanctions imposed after the war, and did everything in their power to
undermine the disarmament regime. In 1997, following a series of
confrontations with UN inspectors, the Security Council passed Resolution
1134, which threatened to impose travel restrictions on Iraqi officials
(quelle horreur!) if the harassment continued. France abstained (along with
Russia and China). Emboldened, Saddam stepped up his defiance. The
inspections regime soon collapsed.

In 1999, Resolution 1284 greatly expanded the existing "oil-for-food"
exemption to the sanctions (around the Clinton administration, according to
Kenneth Pollack, a senior advisor on Iraq, it became known as
"oil-for-stuff"), and promised to lift all remaining economic sanctions. The
only condition: Saddam had to let the inspectors back in, and show progress
towards disarmament. Again the French abstained, this time after promising to
vote in favour. The reason: The Russians had abstained, and the French were
worried they would lose their share of the booming "oil-for-food" trade, by
then worth about US$17-billion a year, if they did not do the same.

And so it continues to this day, even at the cost of wrecking the United
Nations (and NATO in the bargain). And yet, in the face of this sordid
Franco-Russian record of trading Security Council votes for Iraqi oil
revenues, it is the Americans who are accused, on no evident grounds
whatever, of being motivated by oil-lust.

You would think the Germans would have some issues about being involved,
however indirectly, in gassing Jews. You would think the French would feel a
certain déja vu about collaborating with dictators. You would think the
Russians ...

But you would be wrong.

It's also worthy of note that before the war France was owed $3 billion by Saddam; Germany $2.4 billion. Russia was owed $3.4 billion and claimed $52 billion in pending contract obligations with Baghdad.

If you pull aside the veils a little more, of the list of individuals, political entities and companies that profited from doing illicit business with Saddam, accepting his oil contracts and paying him secret kick-backs, 11 were French and 46 were Russian.

That explains why both the French and Russian ambassadors to the United Nations initially opposed an independent investigation of the oil-for-food scandal. It also offers yet another reason why France and Russia were so reluctant to join the "coalition of the willing," put together by Bush, that ended Saddam's tyranny.

Credit: Joseph Perkins, The San Diego Union - Tribune

01-04-2005, 07:37 PM

So are you saying the reason the US went to war was because they failed to get in on the same lucrative deals the French, German and Russian governments were profiting from?

sob · 01-04-2005, 08:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zen_tom

So are you saying the reason the US went to war was because they failed to get in on the same lucrative deals the French, German and Russian governments were profiting from?

Of course not. That would resemble all of those who were shouting that we were after Iraq's oil.

I'm refuting Roachboy's quote in which he said "it just made [Chirac's] government appear as though they were taking their position on the unsc seriously and actually weighing evidence."

I honestly have no idea how you came to the interpretation you posted.

01-04-2005, 08:27 PM

So you're happy to state that Germany, France and Russia were pretending to be virtuously calling for peace, while having an alterior, economic motive - and yet at the same time you are unable to accept that the US led campaign, with all the virtuous rhetoric that went with it has no economic subcontext?

What is it about the US government that makes it so virtuous I wonder?

roachboy · 01-04-2005, 08:28 PM

"it just made [Chirac's] government appear as though they were taking their position on the unsc seriously and actually weighing evidence."

please note the words in bold.

sob · 01-05-2005, 06:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zen_tom

So you're happy to state that Germany, France and Russia were pretending to be virtuously calling for peace, while having an alterior, economic motive - and yet at the same time you are unable to accept that the US led campaign, with all the virtuous rhetoric that went with it has no economic subcontext?

What is it about the US government that makes it so virtuous I wonder?

Perhaps you could let us in on the "economic subcontext" of the US.

Last time I looked, we were losing a great deal of money by waging this war.

sob · 01-05-2005, 06:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

"it just made [Chirac's] government appear as though they were taking their position on the unsc seriously and actually weighing evidence."

please note the words in bold.

How about this statement?

"There is the fact that Bush's government did not swallow to load of shit handed to the un security council by the Chirac administration."

Can you refute it?

01-05-2005, 07:54 AM

Quote:

Last time I looked, we were losing a great deal of money by waging this war.

The tax payer yes, but there are a fair number of people making personal fortunes out of it.

Yakk · 01-05-2005, 11:38 AM

Quote:

(It's from a Canadian newspaper, by the way)

A Canadian, right-wing, daily newspaper, to be precice. Just making sure you aren't using "Canadian" to mean "oh my gosh, it must be left wing". =)

01-04-2005, 12:02 PM	#41 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	i dont think reactions to the states are simple functions of media exposure: for example, policies either floated or supported by the states often have real, material, lasting negative impact on people's lives (think, for example, structural adjustment policies implemented by the imf across the southern hemisphere) that no amount of media coverage, pro or contra, can frame away. another assumption seems to be that a mass media apparatus exists in the same way everywhere, and that thie apparatus is consumed in the same ways as it is in industrialized countries. this seems patently false--even within the latter, the types of media most looked to for information varies place to place (france is still more print dominated for example than is the states)....but when you move from northern to southern hemispheres, the situation changes quite radically. in the states at least, it seems pretty clear that there is a direct correlation between television viewing (as primary information source) and support for the administration--for a study that backs this claim, look here: http://www.comm.cornell.edu/msrg/msrg.html see on the right, the report entitled "Perceptions of Muslims, War on Terror..." nor do i think that relations to the us are a simple function of its economic and military dominance--it follows more from the ways in which these forms of domination are implemented practically. the americans are not the innocent victims of their own position. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

01-04-2005, 02:39 PM	#46 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	Konichiwaneko: its funny you talk about the french government in a way that implies you see it as somehow on the left when chirac is politically not that different from a moderate (sane) republican. of course there is the fact that chirac's government did not swallow to load of shit handed to the un security council by the bush administration....this did not make chirac suddenly a leftist--it just made his government appear as though they were taking their position on the unsc seriously and actually weighing evidence--which the americans did not provide. then of course, there was sustained smear campaign that followed, courtesy of the whole range of rightwing media outlets and thinktanks, that shaped the domestic american view of what actually happened--a campaign that hinged on the assumption that most americans neither know nor care about anything in particular to do with french politics. so it follows, your position. you would, i suspect, get along quite famously with lots of folk on the right in france. particularly with folk from the front national, if you actively support the bush variety of rightwing american politics. as for the last post, i confess it makes little sense to me, but tant pis, i am not being addressed in it so it does not have to. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

01-04-2005, 08:28 PM	#53 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	"it just made [Chirac's] government appear as though they were taking their position on the unsc seriously and actually weighing evidence." please note the words in bold. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

01-04-2005, 06:15 PM	#48 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	I love Americans, and I love the Constitution, and I love freedom. I hate the idea that a land of such things is involved in occupying a country for political and economic reasons. I hate the idea that the government of such a land would resort to fear and propoganda to serve selfish interests. I hate the idea that working unilaterally doesn't make our administration question itself. All of our great allies and a great deal of our own citizens said, "Wait, you're going to do WHAT?!" But no one seemed to be listening. When France and Germany and Russia said no, we should have rethought our plan. Afterall, we don't want another Vietnam. And therein lies the problem. Why did Vietnam fail the way it did? Lack of empathy! We did not understand that what was going on in Vietnam was a civil war, NOT the takeover of communism. Even Robert McNamara admitted to this. They thought we wanted to collonize them, we thought they wanted to spread communism. We were both wrong. In WWI and WWII, we knew - to at least some degree - what our enemy wanted and why they wanted it. In Vietnam, however, there was no such understanding. Now I see this happening again. Iraq was arguabally on the brink of civil war. Towns like Fallujah were standing against Hussain. When would the civil war have broken out? No one can say. Why can no one say? Because America interviened. We thought Hussain needed to be thrown out. Of course he did, but we weren't the ones to do it. Espically not like this. Now we are in a foreign country with a foreign culture to us. We are wondering why these people hate us so much and why they are fighting us, sometimes with stickes and stones! We keep asking ourselves why they would do this. Why not ask one of them? Why not ask a father who saw his daughter killed by American bombs? Which brings me to my point. The world seems to hate us (and I am with them) because we don't learn from our mistakes and we can't empathise with other cultures. That is as best an answer as I can give you.

01-04-2005, 07:37 PM	#50 (permalink)
zen_tom Guest	So are you saying the reason the US went to war was because they failed to get in on the same lucrative deals the French, German and Russian governments were profiting from?

01-04-2005, 08:27 PM	#52 (permalink)
zen_tom Guest	So you're happy to state that Germany, France and Russia were pretending to be virtuously calling for peace, while having an alterior, economic motive - and yet at the same time you are unable to accept that the US led campaign, with all the virtuous rhetoric that went with it has no economic subcontext? What is it about the US government that makes it so virtuous I wonder?