How does the World view America these days?

Hagel was wasted, and never stood a chance of accomplishing anything in Defense. Shame, cause he's actually not bad for a policy maker.

In other words, pretty much agree with Joshua.

  On 1/1/2015 at 2:53 AM, joshuatx said:

 

  On 1/1/2015 at 1:30 AM, doublename said:

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel: We cant predict anything in the world and in life, but we do know that the unpredictable is the predictable. It is the one thing that we know is coming.

 

This is so Rumsfeld-esque.

 

Not exactly to apologize or defend that ridiculous Rumsfeld-esque quote, but Hagel isn't exactly a Rumsfeld clone otherwise. He was an actual combat vet (unlike many other recent Sec. of Defense heads), more level-headed, and fairly liberal. It was a wasted term really, he couldn't really do much but try to deal with budget cuts, Obama's lack of decision-making (I say this as a liberal, not a right-winger) and the clusterfuck of a foreign policy we have.

 

wasn't the plot of House of Cards season 1 with the guy making those comments about Israel being an 'occupier' sort of based on Chuck Hagel's controversial statements about Israel before his confirmation hearing? I vaguely remember this but barely

I heard a ... rumor that RT TV is going to be part of the plot in season 3. Part of me doesn't believe it but part of me does

I think we need to start a misconceptions about America thread.

Many times I've found myself questioning my own identity as an American. I've lived in Alaska half of my life now, which is large enough to be its own nation. I guess I associate myself more with Alaska than the US mainland, even though it's not my state of birth.

I absolutely do not buy into the sentiment that the US is superior to all other nations. I prefer to treat fellow human beings on our planet equally, regardless of borders. And I also believe we have no business in interfering with the sovereignty of other nations, much less allowing some of our corporations to ravage and polllute our planet's ecosystems. I don't think we're alone with the whole pollution thing though.

im lazy to read all this thread but as a french,

america is completely nuts, it tends to look like to the fall of humanity, schizophrenic morals, schizophrenic religions,

lobies, guns, bad, really bad food quality, inequality in justice, medical care,

on another hands i love them, i can't help it, i have so many friends pure american citizens, it's always a long debate with them, they know about everything i just said, but they have always good arguments, an american is also so beautiful, the countryside is fucking amazing

i think USA is a really bad country with really bad people and politics where a bunch good people are trapped in there and do what they can

so basically, you are quite vomitting at some americans

  On 1/3/2015 at 10:28 AM, usagi said:

so basically, you are quite vomitting at some americans

yeah vomitting isn't the world i'd have chosen tho

and the "SOME" american is important, obviously

Quite vomit.

Brit hipsters, hi...

Leave these shores from Hull on a boat called Titanic III. Only the glasses float.

It's the lenses.

I am constantly disappointed by the people around this country in my travels. I don't consider myself to be very intelligent, I can get by, but I'm not ace-ing any calculus exams any time soon... but good lord - some of the people in this country are just intensely unintelligent to the point of disbelief. I traveled from Florida to El Paso, Texas in 2009 and I was completely blown away by how people thought I was some scholar with unnatural genius for having been to college or knowing simple every day facts in most areas I went through.

I will say, being a white male and all, I have never encountered too many unfriendly people when you get down to it especially in the deep south - the women were plentiful and corn-fed, with great boobs. Everyone treats you like you're their long lost cousin back for a reunion, it's startling at first, being from a part of the USA where eye contact is considered overbearing and creepy - but I kindof like it. Maybe what they lack in outright intelligence in some parts of the country, they make up for in general kindness. Unless of course you're black, then you're fucked.

So yeah, America has got some growing up to do, but it's not all that bad. Unless you're black, gay, native american or openly non-christian.

For the record - I'm all for California on up to BC just becoming its own nation. It'd be snobby and filled with microbreweries, espresso shacks and seafood... but dammit, it'd be glorious.

  On 1/4/2015 at 1:35 AM, Audioblysk said:

 

For the record - I'm all for California on up to BC just becoming its own nation. It'd be snobby and filled with microbreweries, espresso shacks and seafood... but dammit, it'd be glorious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_%28independence_movement%29

maybe it'll show the rest of the USA how to control your borders, as they have to contend not just with the constant background noise of hoards of latinos fence jumping from the south but pivot to their left and find people from the east mountain hopping as well. Heh, perhaps eventually all these once home brew but now mega cascadia corporations will defy the spirit of the founding of their nation and outsource to cheaper USA locations and the demise of cascadia will begin. This will beckon the rise of the Mormon nation of New Deseret, which will fill up the middle of the US to be a local power of unrivalled cleanliness and devotion to belt whoopen unruly young'uns

Boston is great. That is all.

Except for the fact you can't buy alcohol past 11pm and on Sundays. Fuck that shit.

Lol Puritans

How do laws that are blatantly religiously motivated laws get passed like that? ffs

  On 1/5/2015 at 2:36 AM, melancholera said:

How do laws that are blatantly religiously motivated laws get passed like that? ffs

Because America

lol

Several Florida counties have discontinued courthouse weddings so they can deny gay citizens their civil rights.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/01/02/same-sex-marriage-florida/21205261/

Man close to my old house & my brother just decapitated his mom for nagging him to move some boxes.

http://www.wfla.com/story/27743083/sheriff-woman-decapitated-in-oldsmar-man-arrested

A: I think it has a few citizens in every state who are so americanized and self centred it's as almost as if no other country existed on the planet. They think everyone has ESPN friday night football and travels in fucking Uber cabs.

What has really changed in America since Charlie Chaplin's re-entry permit was revoked in 1952 by his own government? What has really changed in America since they jailed Wilhelm Reich to let him die in a prison cell in 1957? Not much has changed. In America, if you're too genuinely lucid, you deserve to be kicked out of the country or die, and if you're a dumb fuck repeating cliché after cliché every day of your life, lie after lie, wrong assessment after wrong assessment, you deserve to become president. This is America. Look at how they're treating Kim Dotcom and Edward Snowden, two exceptionnally bright computer geeks. It's sickening.

Carlin might have been right. This is America:

  On 1/5/2015 at 2:21 AM, Braintree said:

Except for the fact you can't buy alcohol past 11pm and on Sundays. Fuck that shit.

I do buy alcohol on Sundays though.

This thread sounds like a bunch of people complaining about places they've never been to.

  On 1/6/2015 at 12:40 PM, Candiru said:

 

  On 1/5/2015 at 2:21 AM, Braintree said:

Except for the fact you can't buy alcohol past 11pm and on Sundays. Fuck that shit.

I do buy alcohol on Sundays though.

 

Where? When I lived in Boston every damn liquor store was closed on Sundays.

i worry about how people are becoming less and less able to see the big picture as the big picture is getting more and more complex.