Ugh. This really gets under my skin. I propose we rename the German Shepherd to the Freedom Shepherd. They shall also be required to bear the stars and stripes around their neck to fully represent their loyalty and commitment to their country.
You don't know what you're missing. First of all I think most people in other countries will hopefully be able to distinguish between American Citizens and the current govt. I don't think they will automatically hate visiting Americans. They may if the Americans go over there carrying a grudge, bashing the French, and provoking unfavorable responses. They be curious and ask you questions about why America would do some of the things they've done. Or they may ask if you were in favor of those decisions. If you answer politely, and with reason backing whichever positions you hold to, they may disagree with you but I doubt they will loathe you. Surprisingly on two trips to France I've had very pleasent experiences with the people there, even the Parisians. Of course this was back in the '90's and prior to this latest mess. Examples of Parisian kindness: While in Paris with my family we began talking to another family, who invited us to there house for dinner, so we could eat a home cooked meal, and get a little glimpse of real life, and not tourist locations. They were extremely kind and showed great hospitality. They curious about differences in the cultures, and eager to learn about how Americans live. I can't really imagine too many families inviting a strange family for dinner then driving them around for a day. On another trip I was looking at the map in the subway trying to figure out how to get somewhere. A stranger came up and asked where I wanted to go. I told him.(I had been sick after some bad food in Morocco and was still recovering, so I didn't want anything exotic. I was looking for Burger King.) He suggested that he knew some good French places that were just as cheap and served French food. He suggested I try that instead. I said I would later but right then I wanted Burger King. He told me I didn't need to take the subway, and actually walked me to Burger King, pointing out other good restaurants along the way. This guy went out of his way to help a stranger, and American out. I did meet one rude waitress, and one rude cab driver. By and large everyone was friendly despite the reputation for rudeness they have. My advice is to see for yourself and not pay too much attention to the stereo types. We can hope this because we certainly don't want them to believe the ugly stereo types about Americans.
In my experience there are many facets to the feelings towards America abroad, some of them legitimate, some of them knee jerk reactionism. But I would have to say that the most consistent and probably accurate perception about Americans in a general sense has to do with what most of the rest of the world sees as an extreme lack of awareness of, or indeed desire for awareness of anything non American coupled with a general assumption on Americans part that American = better. This sense is exaserbated when it comes to American involvment in foreign affairs because, partly due to geography, and partly the above mindset, most American have a much more geo-centric base for their information...ie, most other nations are almost forced, by virtue of geography, limitations, and interaction, to become aware of several differnet political and geo-political perspectives on any given issue...ie, if you live in, say, Britain, you are very aware of the American view of things by virtue of CNN, etc., but you also have readily availablue and accessed perspectives from your surrounding nations...and as such tend to deveop a less linear relationship between what your government/media says and what you accept as truth. Americans are by far the most geo-centric industrialized 'free' nation in the world, and this is largely by choice. So when America deals with foreign nations, it tends to do so from the perspective of assumption of being right, irrespective of what others say, because Americans by and large only listen to what other Americans say...the debate for right and wrong in the international spehere is limited to the debate between American political parties, and generally when it gets beyond that point ranks are closed...The difference this time is that A) American leadership usually didn't make these feelings as apparent, and B) Reaction to A has tended to make Americans listen even less to other perspectives, but to dismiss them with the globally recognized and hated responses of " They're just jealous." or " They just hate us" ..and to be followed up with " But of course we're right>" and largely only examining foreign opposition from the point of view of trying to determine the reason they could be so wrong... Take the French thing...the dominant reaction in America was to dismiss the French stance as being reflective of either an on-going hatred of America or a pathetic need to make themselves a n international player...Does the arrogant sub-text to these assumptions not ring clear? It says that WE make our decisions based on weel though, moral/pratical evaluations of the situation at hand, whereas THEY just are a bunch of idiots reacting to us or looking to make a splash...ie we are the only ones with a LEGITIMATE reason for our stance...why? Because we're Americans... One simple thing to know about the rest of the world and us...whenever you are talking about the exchange of perspectives between American and almost any other industrialized nation in the wolrd, the fact that our influence is so large ensures one thing...They know more about us than we do about them. In other words, the average French citizen has a much higher degree of awareness of what our lives are like, what our political activity is, why and how we think the way we do than we do about them...this is caused naturally by our standing in the world, and exaggerated by our tendancy to rarely look beyond our borders, even if the subjest in question lies outside them.
There's a lot of propoganda around the world regarding us... For the most part, the world does hate what we stand for and what they view as bulling the world... As in every place, there are a few bad apples that go to the extreme, however, screw em'... It's all envy as we live in the best place in the world...
I'm pretty sure if we rebuild Iraq and reconcile our differences with our allies that it would go a long way towards rebuilding American sentiment. But the trust between the American superpower and the rest of the world has been broken to some extent. There's always going to be a constituent that will hate us because of our sheer and unopposable power. Before, mass imported Americanism seemed like the next step towards a revitalized and modern economy. Now, it is looked upon as economic imperialism. If China became a superpower tommorow, the rest of the world would fall back in line with us since we would be the lesser of the two evils. So pretty much the foreigners are going to carry some trepidation and possibly hate because they're unsure what we're going to do with our millitary without a countering power to check us and that whole "dying the next day because the US made it happen" thing will be on the back of their minds and there will be many activists holding up the Bush Doctrine to remind them in case they forget.
I do not dislike Americans at all, but I dislike the attitude displayed in coma's post very much, even though it was apparently meant as a joke. Regarding the sentiment in Germany, I do not see hatred towards either Americans in general or even the current government. The vast majority of Germans is very critical of Bush and his administration, but I still do not think there is widespread anti-Americanism in terms of having something against American people. I think it is fair to disagree on what the right course of action is right now. I also think it is fair for citizens of one country to have an opinion about the leaders of another country, right or wrong. I do not think it is fair to take a current disagreement and use crimes that were committed by the government of one country 60-70 years ago to discredit the prevailing current opinion in this country about a current disagreement. In fact, I think your comment was a rather ignorant one.
I spent 6 months back-packing in Europe in '71, when Europeans were really upset about Viet Nam, and I ran across a couple of Americans who actually had Canadian flags on their backpacks. If your hitchhiking, which was perfectly safe there (unlike here), you wanted to get a ride! I happened to have a Texas flag on mine and it worked like a charm. Someone would stop to pick me up and, after I got in the car, would ask me where I was from... they didn't know the flag. I said "Texas!". They said "What??". And I explained that it WAS part of the US, but that we were practically a country unto ourselves... that we HAD been a country for 10 years, and so on. It was a great ice-breaker. It turned out that they loved a good, friendly political discussion and so did I. Met some great people that way. To tell the truth, I had the most fun during that trip that could possibly be crammed into 6 months. Europeans don't hate Americans. They may dislike our government extremely at times (depending on who you meet), but they are more interested in your politics. They LOVE to talk politics and actually vote during elections. Imagine that!
ATLANTA -- A handful of fans at Philips Arena jeered O Canada prior to the start of Friday's Senators-Thrashers game. This was a response to the booing of The Star Spangled Banner at the Bell Centre in Montreal on Thursday by Habs fans who were protesting the United States' lead role in the war on Iraq. With the arena less than half full at the beginning of the game due to very tight security, only a very small portion of the crowd took part in the vocal protest during the Canadian national anthem. Seemingly embarrassed by the protests of this faction of fans, the remainder of the crowd cheered following the completion of O Canada. The Star Spangled Banner was then greeted with hearty cheers by the sparse crowd. "The entire Atlanta Thrashers organization regrets the actions of a small number of fans that behaved disrespectfully during the Canadian Anthem tonight prior to the Thrashers' game against the Ottawa Senators," the Thrashers said in a statement released after the second period. "The Thrashers' organization firmly believes this type of behavior has no place in professional sports. We hope that this was an isolated incident and apologize to anyone who was offended, including the Canadian-born members of both teams." Fans attending the Raptors-Heat game in Miami offered no negative reaction to the Canadian anthem. NHL vice president of public relations and media services Gary Meagher reacted to Thursday's booing in Montreal by saying the fans' behavior was disappointing but did not reflect widespread resentment. Meagher said the national anthem began being played at hockey games in 1946 to show respect for players returning from World War II. At that time, usually only the home anthem was played. It wasn't until the 1960s that both anthems were played. It was 1987 before the NHL introduced a rule saying both anthems had to be performed before games involving American and Canadian teams.
There as always been anti Americanism. Every super power of the world (the USA the main one) is envied by people around the world. I live grew up in Saudi Arabia as an Expat, and saw this. well. It's nothing new. AntiAmericanism is nothing new. Every Major Power in history has at hate towards it.
I believe it was NBC who gathered about 20 Parisians to talk about anti-Americansism. Big surprise - none of them hated Americans. Most didn't like the way Bush was handling foreign policy, but they were not anti-American in the least. The funny thing is that right now there is probably more anti-French sentiment in the US than there is anti-American sentiment in France. And certainly Americans are always better at broader labels and hating everything French - people, food, cheese, etc. In any event, they also wanted to distinguish the French people from the French government. Since, after all, the problem is: Chirac = idiot Bush = idiot Problems arise, what a surprise! SJC, Don't pretend like you and your commie country don't hate us - we know more about your feelings than you do. I still stand by my position that genuine fear is driving much of Europe's foreign policy. As treeman said - empire.
Ah ha! Thank you for confirming what I have long suspected: cheese does not actually fall under the category of "food."
Does this in your mind somehow eliminate our responsibility for anything which has rightly caused others to resnt us? Do you not think that it is the vert nature of the kind of things some nations do in the pursuit of becoming a superpower that justifies other nations' loathing?
That was funny...yet still somehow true. Cheese is kind of separated in France. Anyway, I actually meant to include wine. Pretty funny, here in the ATL there were some restaurant owners doing a protest by pouring out their French wine and champagne (even the DP). The end statement by the reporter was somthing like "the owners say they don't mind losing thousands of dollars by pouring out the wine, they feel their statement is huge...and it certainly is." Yeah, you already bought the stuff so were "supporting" France, and now you are losing the ability to make any money off of it...so you are the only one losing....but five people were there to watch you and you got about 1 minute on the local news. Huge statment.
