200 Years of Interventions

[007]

http://adbusters.org/media/flash/hope_and_memory/timeline.swf

[slam]

nice find, 007. ya know, looking through that site, one wonders why the rest of the world may not take so kindly to us.

[withoutcanseco]

ya know, i've been to a few countries now, and people don't really seem to hate individual americans. they just hate our government.

except for the Turks. the fucking turks hate everybody.

[larryhead]

Yeah, we've pretty much pissed off everyone at some point or another. I remember when I was traveling around Europe there were lots of US travelers that had sewn a Canadian flag patch on the back of their backpacks to avoid any conflicts (I mean, is anyone really pissed at Canada?). It definately opened my eyes to how well we're liked abroad.

[Diamond Vision]

You really want to piss off the Turks?

say Cypress belongs to you!
that really gets their towelled heads in a tizzy..

[JVO]

I agree with WC that people hate the American Gov't, not individual Americans. There was a show on the Discovery Times Channel called, "Why they hate us". In this show a journalist went to different parts of the world, and they all claimed to love Americans and the idea of America they just hate our current government. That show really opened my eyes, since I have never been outside of the country.

A big reason why the world hates us is because we are the Yankees of the world. We are rich, we have a crazy leader, we have some of the most influencial people in the world, we don't give a damn about anybody else, we upset competitive balance, and we almost always win.

[slam]

i certainly think they hate our government more than our general population, but they're not usually big into us, either.

and what kills us are our idiot tourist 'ambassadors'. i've been to a number of other countries, and american tourists are always the easiest to spot. they're always loud, obnoxious, and generally oblivious to local customs. they have a bad habit of speaking more loudly and more slowly to people who obviously don't understand english. foreigners tend to put up with it due to the large amounts of tourism money we put out there, but i don't think they really love us.

that, and we do stupid things like re-elect bush. fool me once, shame on — shame on you. fool me — you can't get fooled again.

however, they're addicted to the same crap pop culture as us, so we're not that different.

[withoutcanseco]

you know, the pop culture comment really hits a nerve with me, and honestly, pisses me the fuck off. many countries say they hate us, then they spend all their waking hours emulating us...our music, our movies, our affectations. it's very hypocritical.

discuss.

[JVO]

I agree with all of that. Something that pisses me off is the fact that the United States gives more money to individual European countries then the entire rest of the world combined. The reason why Western European countries can support socialized health care, maternity leave, etc. is because the US pays for 90% of their self defense needs. If we were to jerk that money away, the countries would have to radically alter their governments or completely forego having a military. Then of course when they got the shit kicked out of them we would have to go bail them out as always. They take our money and then they bitch about how much they hate us.

[Diamond Vision]

The distiction is who you're talking about...
"many countries say they hate us"

The political climate towards the USA is different than public opinion.
(Firstly, I'm using Iraq as an example because it is the most extreme and prominant example in current popnews)

I feel pretty comfortable saying that the House of Bush hates Iraq. The Bushes were involved in supplying political and arms support for their invasion of Iran in the late 80's and less than 4 years later, those weapons are turned against us as we defend Kuwait when Iraq tries to stretch in the other direction. Then, from Desert Storm to the present day War on Terror (which technically should be the "War Against Terror," right?), the US has conducted daily assults on Iraq. ..and we all know the rest of the story... political climate.

however, I can't imagine that the Average Joe on the steet holds any emnity against the Average Jahalihabad 4000 miles away. we have opinions about their country's governmental choices, as do they, but i can't believe we hates them... not the same way we used to be taught to hates black people. ...and that is the only way we could hate them. Through popular perceptions, misconceptions and stereotypes engrained by our authority figures filtered through our popmedia. ... public opinion.

... which i guess was already said...

about global consumership tho, if anyone is a hyopcrite, we are as much as anyone else. Take, for example, China. We don't agree with them politically... their government performs as many or more "crimes against humanity" than Saddam ever did, but we sure have a bunch of their crap in our homes. Picture Frames- Made in China. Book Ends- Made in China. Fireworks- Made in China. Texas Instruments- Made in China. DVDs- Made in China. These are just a handful of things lying around my apartment made in China. does that make me a hypocrite?

you tell me.

[withoutcanseco]

yes. yes it does. :wave: hello, fellow hypocrite.

[JVO]

Yeah, Free trade and the opening of borders are things I don't think I am smart enough to understand. Of the millions of issues out there, Free Trade seems to be one of the few things that both parties agree about. Dems and Reps are generally both in favor of NAFTA and both parties seem to believe that by trading with China, it gives us some leverage to slowly change their attitude toward human rights. Now if this is acutally true, or if the politicians only say it is true so that we can get cheap goods, I don't know. What I don't understand is we have opened up trade to virtually every country in the world, yet Cuba sits there 80 miles off the coast falling farther and farther behind the rest of the world. I think Cuba is an issue that everyone born after 1965, and are not Cuban, really have no concept of. I know I certainly don't.

[Diamond Vision]

http://www.historyofcuba.com/main/hstintro.htm

this is an interesting and informative site.

Scanning the timeline of the past 40 years, it seems like most of the government is for lifting sanctions on Cuba, but Bush isn't. Things will probably open up after the next presidential election (assuming the Republicans don't cheat again...).

It seems that the bulk of the embargos and restrictions are because of a legitimate soviet military threat in the past. more recently because of human rights violations. It is interesting that health care, infant mortality and education scores are better there than in the US, though.

I agree with JVO about the complexities of Free Trade. It seems like what's good for the goose should be good for the gander. If we can negotiate free trade with one communist nation, we should be able to do it with all communist nations, right?

[withoutcanseco]

it's because bush doesn't like brown people.

[bangg trimm]

there are also a lot of sound-bite political and economic ideas right now. ideas which are defended for their theoretical or intended merit rather than their empirically observable consequences

"Free Trade" has never existed, and is likely never to exist--in the sense of goods freely exchanged without impediment or subsidy. the words invoke an idea (see above) which sounds nice and unassailable, but the real policies created under the mantle of that idea do not match that same idea.

the same is true of basic capitalism, especially as referred to by adam smith in the wealth of nations. many people praise capitalism or view capitalism as the best of possible evils, and in doing so refer to adam smith. but as a cursory glance at just a summary of the ideas in that book will reveal, basic capitalism as described by adam smith has never existed. there has never been a socio-political/economic structure which has met the conditions smith described. fine. it was theory after all. however, in practice the defense of capitalism sometimes rests on theory while operating in a different reality altogether.

[hotfoot]

yeah, thing is mu'fuckers aren't imitating americans 'cause of cultural reasons. when a country can economically dominate like the u.s. has, that country's gonna import some culture.

i'd like to see that list when it includes unofficial cia shit like us taking out allende in chile or whatever. nice find, though, dude.