musings of wrath

Something posted on a newsgroup, author unknown, but it’s obvious they’re not an American:

“10 reasons why the US are is hated.

1. The US has started (and “encouraged”) more wars and murdered more
humans in a 50 year period than anyone else before in recorded
history.

2.The world constantly watches images of starving children whilst in
the US people are dying of over eating.

3. The US boasts that it has spent billions on being able to bomb
anyone, anywhere on the planet. Meanwhile starvation, and premature
death continue to affect millions of people worldwide whose only crime
was being born where they were.

4 The US makes virtuous speeches about fairness, liberty and justice
then continues to enact policies designed to keep a third of the world
in a state of constant starvation. For example, The US purposely
stopped the supply of cheap non-brand Aids drugs to Africa just to
placate the drugs industry. As a result millions will die who could
have been saved.

5. The continual support by the US of regimes that oppress their
people so that other US parties can gain an economic foothold.

6 The American belief that profit is all. People don’t count.

7. American hypocrisy. ( I feel most of us in this NG could write a
book on this one but I’ll keep it short)
Virtue, honesty, truth. None of these mean anything when US economic
advantage is at stake. We have watched the US invade and murder
thousands all in the name of “regime change” or “protecting US
economic interests” in various countries. If they haven’t been there
pulling the triggers you can be sure they paid for one sides (or both)
weapons.

There isn’t a continent on this planet that the US aren’t killing
people directly or indirectly. Even their own yet the US tells the
rest of the world that they cannot have weapons that kill
indiscriminately. ( the US has once again refused to stop using
cluster bombs and uranium tipped shells) and is the only country to
have used nuclear weapons and poison gases to kill thousands of
people.

8. The continual military support of Israel and it’s attempted
genocide of the Palestinian people. Once again, humans die to protect
US economic advantage.

9 The insane belief that most Americans in this NG espouse that we
(the rest of the world) are jealous. That somehow we are not affected
by the murder and slaughter committed by US troops all over the globe.
That somehow, other humans , i.e us, should not criticise the US govt
for the same reasons Americans don’t. WRONG. We are not blinded by
your flag If anything the US has taught us a lot about the dangers of
blind loyalty backed only by a flag. Your govt kills innocents then
hides behind the flag and you idiots buy it all.

10. The worst criminals in all this are the US electorate because they
are the only ones who can stop this slaughter but they refuse to
acknowledge their govt has done any wrong. Even with 90% of the world
screaming for the US to stop killing , the electorate do nothing. You
just sit there, hiding behind the flag or using any excuse your govt
has given you to justify the continual slaughter of innocents.

So don’t ask me why America is so hated. I find it more interesting
to know how the world will respond eventually to a country that is
nothing but evil. And respond we will.”

yup

yup?

I love America, and so does my wife, but I can’t stand watching its heart be destroyed like our current government is doing.

Some of these things are irrelevant, we’ve made mistakes, and people were punished for them. However, not all of it should just be discounted as trivial - especially the part about the electorate. Individually, America has a lot of great people. As a grouping, we’re a bunch of idiots who would burn our own house rather than share it with someone.

yeah, what he said. can translate me-ese. heh.

this isn’t what the founders fought for…the american ideas have been twisted and perverted beyond all recognition to the point of that post is pretty accurate…

If you believe even half the things in that list apply only to America you have been brainwashed to the opposite of nationalism. That list is yet another overly simplistic, dare I say moronic, viewpoint of how complex the social, financial and cultural issues work in our world.

Your words above could be applied to practically any country. Sure America has faults (personally I depise her which is why I live in California, but it isn’t for those reasons above). Were their a couple valid points in there? Sure, but you give me any country, ANY COUNTRY, and I can make her look bad given a simple bullet list.

>

Actually daily in most rural appalachian commuities children and eldery suffer from malnutrition in the US. Save private funding programs nost children do not receive the most basic dental, medical care or a decent meal.

Something to think about.

That’s what I meant by “kinda” in the title, and my quote of “Some of these things are irrelevant, we’ve made mistakes, and people were punished for them.”

But I agree, we’re not the only country guilty of these things.

We just seem to spout off about injustices in the world, and many Americans take offense when ours are pointed out.

hey! long time no see!

I know quite about about that, having developed the backend code for http://www.wrfoundation.org/ who happens to do a lot of work for the Ozarks region.

but again, I didn’t say I completely agree with this, I just think it’s an interesting list.

The good news is that our generation is waking up to reality.

Porovaara is correct, we not the only guilty country out there. But that’s no excuse.

If we’re gonna promote democracy, then it should be democracy for EVERONE, not just this country here, or this country there.

If we truly believe in freedom, then we shouldn’t be torturing people.

Oil is headed for decline. Eventually it will have to be replaced with renewable sources, regardless of what Exxon and Shell want.

Things may seem bleak now, but the tide will turn. The Bushes and the Cheneys and the Rumsfields are the last of their generation. Their day in the sun is reaching an end. When the oil’s gone, what will the oil barons do?

Most people our age, who will be the backbone of this nation in a decade, understand the current problems, and for the most part fully sympathize. Most people don’t like the idea of us going around and pissing everyone else off. Hell, just look at the war in Iraq, NOBODY’S signing up to fight it. The Army and Marines continue to have shortages. Not even the young Republicans want to waste their lives in a pointless war.

OK I’m gonna stop there because I’m getting long-winded. Just wanted to say that I’m trying to remain optimistic about it all.

I think I’m kinda pissed…

I’ll happily say I agree with this whole list.

The US government is a bunch of bloody criminals. I mean, for fuck’s sake . . . they’re all liars, opportunists, and hypocrits. Who the hell are they representing, again?

And we keep believing their horseshit, and we keep electing them. We are so stupid and so easily mislead. No, I take that back. Mislead would mean we don’t know what we’re doing. But we’re as arrogant and self-centered

We’re just a vomitorium away from a decline and fall.

And yes, I do “go and do something about it.” I contribute my time, I vote, I donate to worthy causes. All the things that should make a functioning democracy based on honor and integrity work, I do them. However, I can’t compete with CNN, Fox News, Salon.com, MSNBC, The Slate, The New York Times, etc. And no matter how often I jump up and down and scream the god’s honest truth, nobody listens to me. They listen to the talking head in the box. Why? Because the talking head is in the box, and that makes him special. It means he knows more than you, somehow. And he does, usually . . . it’s called a talking points bulliten. The Daily Show once demonstrated in very telling detail how talking points work: the pundits are all given a list of things from the White House that they should say on every talk show everywhere. The footage from one day was put side by side; all of the pundits and guests and even some of the anchors were quoting verbatim from a prepared sheet. It was funny at first, then it was fucking scary.

The government is broken and will eventually implode, probably as we get closer to the loss of cheap energy. The country, on the other hand, will always be here. Perhaps when our population is starving and besieged in their own by crime, corruption, pollution, violence and poverty, they’ll finally have a revelation. For those of you only versed in American, that’s “revelation” spelled with a “d’oh!”

The first thing you can do is seperate the idea of country = government. Were that true, every oppressed people would equal their oppressors. We are not our government, and as such, we are not obligated to support it in every circumstance. But tell that to Mr. “My Country, Right Or Wrong.” I wonder if that means he’s willing to go to Iraq and personally apologize and make reparations for torture, because hey . . . we were so fucking wrong.

Leads me to another point. We can stare in the face of horrors like the torture abroad, both in Iraq and Camp X-Ray, and one of two things happens (or both): we either seem to think whoever has been tortured somehow did something to “deserve” it, which makes it okay, or that the commanding officers had no idea what was going on and the soldiers were running about with no one giving them orders . . . in essence, we’re unwilling to believe we could be malevolent. We’re much more comfortable believing we’re insanely imcompetant while being heavily armed. Thank you, Gomer Pyle.

We’re a broken people. We believe what we’re told because it’s comfortable. We believe what they say because we can’t deal with difficult solutions . . . ones that actually require us to make an effort. We have a system that’s broken, and it’s the only one we have to work with.

I love my country. I love the people, the culture, the sense of identity, the land itself. But my government is not my country.

Just because you can apply it to other countries doesn’t negate the fact that it can be applied to this country.

We’re supposed to be better. We’re supposed to be an ideal.

If even just one of the things on that list is true, we’re failing.

Sorry, but I refuse to sit on the bandwagon that our country is vile. At best that article is half-baked. 1,4,6-10 are all crap. The other points may have some truth to them. Do we have problems, sure we do, but there isn’t a country with more freedom in the whole world. Besides no matter what our country does, we will be vilified for it. I’m pretty sure we didn’t kill 13 million Jews in WWII or 30 million Russians during the same era or millions of Kurds like Saddam or millions of Rwandans like their own people did.

Do Americans overeat. Yep. Should we care more about the world? The empathic part of me says we should. The part of that feels the hatred says–why should we care if they hate us? The empathic part usually wins.

So if you don’t like the bad things then do something about it. I’m not kidding–be an activist and get people to think.

Ahh the dogma of an overly religious country, you must be perfect or you are FAILING!

Now you’re dodging.

Perfect? Who said perfect? I said better. I said an ideal.

We’re failing at the concept this government was founded on.

And I’m failing to see where dogma or religion comes into this. Stay on topic. Let’s not decend into cliche`, hrm?

“So if you don’t like the bad things then do something about it. I’m not kidding–be an activist and get people to think.”

We do. Often. And we’re drowned out by media spin. Really, that arguement is dragged out so often it’s very very tired by now. It’s as though someone complains about a damn bursting, and your response is to hand them a thimble and tell them to get to work.

And if we’re a wonderfully free country while supporting governments that repress freedom (Saudi Arabia comes to mind, and that’s just off the top of my head), then we’re monsters. We’re enjoying freedom at the expense of others.

What’s more, I don’t see jackboots and forced detentions in Canada. Bit of a specious arguement that because we’re free, we’re better.

Good try, however please learn the language you speak.

Ideal - 1) A conception of something in its absolute perfection.

“So if you don’t like the bad things then do something about it. I’m not kidding–be an activist and get people to think.”

That was kinda the point of the post. Like I’ve said, I don’t agree with all of it, but I can see the sentiment, and where it comes from - and I can see that it’s mostly deserved.

Another point is - activism, under our current laws, can get you in serious trouble, if not ruin your life. Including, harassment under the PATRIOT Act, loss of job due to missed work BECAUSE of said harrassment, etc.

And don’t get me started on “Real-ID”. The Department of Homeland Security can at ANY TIME, on ANY WHIM change the requirements of the national ID card system. “You have to wear a tracking device and a listening device at all times.” Hooray for police states!

This IS NOT the country our Founding Fathers started with. This isn’t fuckin g NEAR it. The government has violated the constitution on a GROWING basis since I was a small child (if not before), and now it’s gotten to the point that no one really BELIEVES that, because they’re USED to the way things are.

Mayhaps that’s why we’re at war, hmm? Perhaps the government needs to get rid of a few voters of the right age group?

I’m against the Patriot Act myself. I’ve written my Congressman and such about it when I heard that there might be an extension to it.

As I said, we have our problems, but we aren’t evil. I have my fears about a police state as well. I think anyone who has read their history and seen what regimes like Hitler’s Germany fear any sort of controls that the government tries to place on its people.

What I’m tired of though is people equating our country to evil regimes. Right now our biggest problem is we as a majority are allowing the far right fundamentalists to sway a major political party’s thinking too much. The other big problem we have as that we allowed legislation to get passed becaue of fear (We need protection from terrorists so let’s let the various Alphabet agencies have more ways to violate our privacy for protection).

I couldn’t do much against that other than vote my conscience (In this case libertarian) and write various congress/senators/president when legislation I opposed showed up.

I wouldn’t use the we there. Corporations and government lobbies support regimes like Saudia Arabia and before that Latina American juntas. Every Western nation holds guilt on oppressing other people including Canada (look at the Inuits and other Native peoples). Capitolism at its extremes is just as good at exploiting people as communism at its extremes is good at taking away individuality and free thought.

I didn’t say because we’re free, we’re better those are your words not mine. I said we aren’t vile. I said we have more freedom than anywhere else. We do.

I won’t say we don’t have to fight to keep it that way either. We do have portions of our government who thinking that emulating Big Brother is a good idea, but I refuse to be called an evil American who doesn’t care about other people or countries because I damn well do!

Our country? Not an evil country.

Our government? I’m leaning towards evil on that one. Why?

1. On countless occasions, the government has sided with corporations over people when it comes to taxation and regulation.

2. On countless occasions, the government has lied to us as a people. If I need to show when and where, give me a couple days, and I’ll point you to some information. Note: On this, I think that, sometimes, the government SHOULD keep some information from us - but not lie to us about why we’re going to war, etc.

3. Our own president has lied to us.

4. Our Secretary of Defense, when on the FDA board, pushed for the approval of a chemical KNOWN to produce cancer in laboratories, simply because it would improve his stock portfolio. (Research Aspartame sometime)

5. Our Secretary of State (current) has repeatedly changed her statements, and claimed to have “never said it that way.”

6. Our Senate ignored - IGNORED - the hundreds of thousands of people who requested they vote NO on Real-ID, but it passed, 100-0.

7. When dozens of Representatives came forward to call for a motion to re-evaluate the 2004 election, not a single Senator would sponsor their motion.

I would like to ask… do you truely believe that just because there are others in this world that are guilty of the same thing, it somehow is okay for us to be in the wrong?

I personally think that we should endevor to do better. That part of what makes this country a great one is that we have the ability to give power to the people, we can critisize our government. We can do a whole bunch of things that people in other countries can NOT do.

The problem comes in, IMO, not with the government (who, admittedly, are a bunch of evil assholes) but with the people (the citizens) who allow these things to happen. Who passivly take it, and who re-elect corrupt leaders.

Now, then. This is a structured argument. One that you have lacked in your ability to compose. I’d suggest that before you respond, you check the bullshit rhetoric at the door, as I am even less likely to accept it than Nash.

What’s annoying is that with all the things that ARE wrong with the US and it’s government, over half of what is on that list is inaccurate at best. All out BS in a lot of places.

we are the generation of degeneration.
the children of revolutions.
the children of hedonism
the children of choice

Yesterday I looked at the highway being built next to my home. The sun hit in such a way that the beams standing with out roads looked like aquifiers fallen after a millenia.

We are all apathetic anarchists, for the people in charge believe bits of metal and paper will save them, and we do not prove them wrong, for society has become such a complex animal it cannot survive with out the organ known as money.

We are the generation of regeneration as well however.
Our founding fathers were not perfect, but they did teach us that a mad man in power should not be allowed to wield it.
Our parents are an aging generation of true thinkers. When they think back at the things they did they fear for our saftey and allow the govt. to squeeze tighter, as they feel fear as they never have before because death is so much closer than it used to be. At the same time, due to thier thinking, we are allowed to do so in more comfort than most have ever known.
Our own minds make the choice for us, no one else. Other nations may hate us, but as long as we seethe that hate and react against it, it will always be there. We also have the choice to do more if we can, or as in most people’s cases, do just what we can, when we can.

i dunno if i make any sense….
Liz

I agree, but I don’t understand. Aren’t we over in Iraq and places like that fighting for the freedom for another country besides our own? I think so, but when something like Sept. 11th happens to us, what do other countries do? Turn their backs on us, but the when the tsunami hit, once again we were expected to be there in full force. So they like our help, but still bash us? WTF?

I don’t think a government can be called good or evil; I’d say corrupt would be a better term. Number 3 is nothing new, I can think of only one president in recent times who probably didn’t lie to the American people (Jimmy Carter).

I think we are expected to be perfect and invincible or something, but we aren’t. And actually we did have help from Canada during 9/11, their air traffic controllers intercepted much of our air traffic and landed plannes.

If you think about we funded quite a bit of the fight against the Axis during World War II, and we forgave a ton of the war debt to our allies. We helped rebuild Japan and Germany. On the bad side, we did essentially divide up Europe between the U.S., France, and Great Britain on one side and Soviet Union on the other causing the Cold War which lasted almost 50 years. Much of our bad pr comes from that time frame and that decision.

But to be honest, superpowers are criticised and for right now we are the only one (Give China some more time and we could have a detente like we did the Soviets).

Maybe it is just that people see the word democracy and actually assume that we can directly effect the actions of those we’ve elected or something. I don’t know. I guess they look at only the bad and the power and don’t look at the good. That and President Bush has pissed off much of the world.

Heh.. we’re the only country who used poison gasses to kill thousands, huh?

Alright, sniping aside..

I can agree with some of it. I’ll leave it there.

1 is an outright lie, especially given the fluid definition of what constitutes a war, and when you start lumping several wars into one. Britain and France started or got into far more during the Victorian era.

2 is an idiotic charge. Food does not mysteriously transport around the world for free, nor does it grow itself for free. Worse, food disbursement programs have proven, over the long run, to be inefficient and often corrupt. Many times, food is sent, but not given out, or it’s hoarded by those that are administering it…pretty soon people don’t donate anymore if they feel it will be wasted.

3 is similarly idiotic. The sad fact is, that most of the American arsenal was built during a time when it was actually needed.

4 is stupid. Does he think people eat Aids drugs? Food and drugs are not the same thing. Also: R&D doesn’t happen without money. The drug R&D pipeline would grind to a halt if corporations bankrupted themselves in such a manner.

5 is a political tool used by damn near every nation - and often, there isn’t a side to pick that’s virtuous. China is an excellent example: the Nationalists and Communists were equally bad.

6 is obviously true. That’s why some of our richest people have given everything they own to philanthropy. Uh-huh.

7 could just as easily be rewritten to say that there isn’t a continent on this planet where the economic output of Mexico, Venezuela, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Iraq, Russia, Britain, the United States, etc, etc, etc, isn’t destroying the environment. The last statement is also incorrect: poison gas has been used by multiple countries, and Russia sent its own divisions into a nuclear blast zone to see the effect of radiation. And given half a chance, lots of other countries would happily have nuked their neighbors at one time or another. The US’s use of the atomic bomb saved lives. Period.

8 is simplistic. If we switched sides, we’d just be supporting the genocide and economic dismemberment of Israel. A mistake was made, and the US has tried many times to find a resolution. The problem continues because Israel and Palestine have never concurrently wanted a peaceful solution.

9 is again written as if this has never occurred anywhere else. Here’s a novel concept: Invariably, a country will be put in a position where they have to use arms to achieve a purpose - directly or indirectly.

I won’t even bother with #10.

Yes he raises valid points. His points are damaged by his own hatred, ideology, and idealism. Reality is a harsh place.

1. Why would that be? Because corps have money and spend it to get their way. That is politics.

2. Find me a gov’t that hasn’t. In many ways it is the purpose of gov’t to lie to the people. THis is why direct democracies don’t work, and representative ones do…because the gov’t can’t tell the people what is really going on and we have to trust our reps to do the right thing when they DO know what is going on. Now the real problem is when the gov’t lies to itself.

3. If you could name me one President in the past say 100 years that never lied to the people I would applaud you. THen again I think you are dead wrong in your assesment of the situation, but that is your opinion.

4. Aspartame compared to say Sacharrine is much safer and healthier. Just as Suralose is even healthier. THen again I guess we could just do away with calorie free sweeteners…but then we would be much fatter.

5. AS opposed to every prior SecState? THis is getting tedious.

6. Perhaps they were listening instead to the millions of people who have DEMANDED that the gov’t do something about illegal immigration and national security. How many of the Sept 11th hijackers had US driver’s licenses?

7. I think they definately should take a look at Washington state where they keep finding more and more evidence that the Democrats rigged the election and broke just about every state election statue in the governor’s election. I wonder why we haven’t heard more about the rampant abuses of fradulent voter records that were paid for by the Dems. And where was the outrage at the assaults and vandalism on GoP party HQs? Heck, there was an international body that observed the election in ‘04…what did they find afterwards? That it was run very well indeed and was a model for the rest of the world.

I was going to say something, but you beat to most of it.

I would point out that Hitler, Tojo, and Mussolini started WWII that claimed about 50 million dead in just that one war.

Also, while it is true that the US is the only country to use Nukes on another country it is also true that we were the first to every do it and no one really knew what the consequences of such an act would be. Truman saw a chance to end a war and save 1 million US casualties and he took it. I would as well (and so would most of us).

I would point out on #8 that had Britian not created Israel (and then the UN supported it psot WWII) then this would not have happened at all. Had the neighboring countries taken in the Palestinians and helped them as opposed to treating them as pariahs then the situation would not ever have gotten as bad as it has. WE come into the story late in the game and get all the blame. Yeah that makes perfect sense.

I really hate to rain on your day but the Romans killed more people then anything else in the history on the world. The U.S. looks like innocent babies compared to the mass carnage that the Rome inflicted upon the “known world”. Plagues, famine, pestilence, nuclear weapons were all out done but a simple little swords called the ”Gladius”.

guys, please, I do NOT want to see my friends fight on my LJ.

My issue isn’t so much with A government doing this, but MY government doing this. I voted. I can complain. I know thousands of others who I will join you in saying “shut up and vote” to, because they didn’t vote but choose to complain.

As to #7 - Great, I’d like to see it, too. I’m an equal opportunity lying politician hater. I may be a member of the Democrat party, but I’m not proud of a LARGE number of people in office from my party.

But to be honest, I’m watching the Republicans go about doing what they say they’re against - adding more government control.

The federal government is ONLY supposed to be their to MANAGE interstate commerce and laws that affect the nation. Not to lord over the states and their governments. This is SO not the United States - it’s the United-or-else States.

I’m all for a national ID card - but I’m NOT for Real-ID. It took sneaking it on a war spending bill to get it passed, and past the American people. Millions asked for more security, but they didn’t ask for taking away our rights to privacy. Nor did they ask to give the power to change requirements on identification WITHOUT congressional approval to ONE PERSON.

All the Secretary has to say is “Everyone must be carrying papers or be arrested and deported,” essentially, and *Americans* can get deported because they didn’t have their new driver’s license. Or worse. I know a number of people who will refuse the new Real-ID because of religious reasons. I, myself, am a little wary of carrying around my information on a radio-frequency chip that someone can, and will, pull my name and address off of with a simple, and easily-obtained device. “ooh, he has a nice car, let’s get his address and break into his house. we can use our sniffer to tell if anyone’s home..”

it’s not my day you’re raining on - read the title of my post, and the comments I’ve made throughout
how you doin?