How does the World view America these days?

  On 12/17/2014 at 9:53 PM, beerwolf said:

I've never understood the ridiculous over-enthusiasm Americans have for their politicians. When the campaign trail is on and you see these hordes of young and old going insane, manically waving the flags for their Democrat or Republican and punching the air in jubilation. That's something which makes me wonder about the American psyche.

 

Over here politicians are met with a sneering derision. And massive dollop of well deserved cynicism shoved on top. All the yee-hahh for American politicians looks frankly gullible and stupid imo.

 

I just don't think any other country has achieved the same ellision of marketing, advertising and politics that we have. Also, only people on the lunatic fringe show up for political events and campaign speeches. The rest of us can hardly even be bothered to vote.

Edited December 17, 2014 by doublename

I like to point out the negative facts about U.S. sometime,

~like torture stories,

~general foreign and international law behaviors,

~the way each president they elect has absolutely no power,

~the always bigger number of homeless people is has..

~the sub-prime episode showing how cruel can american society can be when it's about money..

~the way each Obama discourse sounds like fake democracy, real cult of personality designed to hide the real side of america's institutions: corruption and impeachment, lobbies etc.

 

...

 

You could write books with those point of views.

 

BUT, Still, U.S. is cool sometimes. I'd love to see great spaces and landscapes it has. I'd love to experiment the nearly automated way they are organising professional life etc...

Edited December 17, 2014 by msalami

America:

 

^ +1

 

Land of the Free*

 

 

 

*Conditions Apply

who cares

 

its all, "every single person in the country is fat blah blah blah all u do is eat spaghetti n chicken nugget!!"

 

white girls etc

 

how bout you come take a walk down my stret n see the proper pear trees and peach tree gorwing in my neighbord yard?

spaghetti, chicken nuggets, & white girls are some of my favorite things to eat

To be honest, I've never thought "Fucking Americans and their spaghetti"

 

maybe I will now.

  On 12/17/2014 at 9:53 PM, beerwolf said:

I've never understood the ridiculous over-enthusiasm Americans have for their politicians. When the campaign trail is on and you see these hordes of young and old going insane, manically waving the flags for their Democrat or Republican and punching the air in jubilation. That's something which makes me wonder about the American psyche.

 

Over here politicians are met with a sneering derision. And massive dollop of well deserved cynicism shoved on top. All the yee-hahh for American politicians looks frankly gullible and stupid imo.

That kind of feeds into the stereotype that Brits love to complain, and from my numerous trips to EU and UK, that is well deserved sometimes. But Europe is an old continent, thousands of years older than America, so maybe they've had more time to become annoyed lol. At least the furor of the Catholic Church in Europe has finally begun to wane in recent years, whereas we have NO shortage of Christian nuts waiting to tell you "you're going to Hell", shit even my step grandfather has told me that.

The thing is America is by and far the most diverse nation on the planet today. We quite literally have it all. You really can't generalize the people here. Please understand that there are many, many beautiful people here just like there are in any other nation.

 

That said, the stereotypes often repeated are very, very real. Despite all the goodness to be found, there's some types we definitely do not have short supply of.
You want obese? We got more than plenty. You want gun-toting patriot nutjobs? We have more than enough of those too. You want entitled and materialistic shopping-frenzied assholes? You'll find a handful in mere minutes at your nearest Walmart. You want homophobic racists? More than enough of those around too.

  On 12/17/2014 at 11:49 PM, autopilot said:

spaghetti, chicken nuggets, & white girls are some of my favorite things to eat

you took the bait and showed me you are a true american and i respect you for it

  On 12/17/2014 at 7:14 PM, John Ehrlichman said:

not sure if you meant this in the same way that I understood but generally speaking a lot of the justified disdain I've seen comes from the fact that Americans are the babies of the planet, and empire babies at that. It is pretty insane to even think of how many americans believe in exceptionalism given how short of a time this country has been around. For a country with a 'culture' only spanning back 300 years its quite shocking the way americans have such superiority over other countries, especially ones that we view as morally inferior who have rich cultural histories spanning back millenia.

one of the biggest wakeup moments about how fucked up our view is of ourselves is when i went to the Hiroshima museum for the first time. The bomb of course in and of itself was a horrible massacre, but in some ways the way intelligent americans still justify it to this day is even more disturbing to me. Its almost as crazy as if Nazi germany was never conquered and most modern germans were going around still defending the holocaust. We have an extreme lack of self-awareness here in this country and it doesn't seem to be getting any better.

 

 

This. Many Americans are nationalists without realizing. Actually it's worst than that - most are too clueless and ignorant to even have nationalist ethos. It can be said of both the left and right. I find right-winger American exceptionalists more frustrating, but I often find myself irked by those who are casually left-wing as well (i.e. flippant Obama supporters, corporate oriented Dems). They just point the finger and then act complacent to the same actions of our leaders they complain about. It's not just that we have a grossly unfair capitalist system - we literally have the most inefficient and expensive welfare system in the world. We literally institutionalize a economically poor, uneducated lower class.

 

I have a complicated relationship with my country (America) and my state (Texas). I love so much about their respective cultural and social history but there's so much to be ashamed of. I'd be hard-pressed to say I'm proud of my country point blank. Actually as of now in 2014, I really can't. It's a conflicting feeling - I say this as someone who is still content with living here and, even more conflicting, as a former military dependent and with close relatives in the US military now.

I want to be proud of this country. It's not enough to rally around our success in the past, that's meaningless now if it's not emulated and drawn upon in our actions and ethos now. We should find things like a militarized police force, behemoth global military presence, and a iron-fisted oligarchy as egregious and wrong because they are against the principles and intents of our Constitution. And I'll add - people of nationalities who criticize the U.S. should be just as mindful of their own nation's history and faults. Many do, but many don't. Nothing is more absurd than one nationalist criticizing another.

 

When I have kids I'm not going to bombard them with a long list of all our country's shameful past actions nor sugarcoat it's history. It's a lot more complicated than that. And more importantly, world history is a lot more complicated and important than the history of the USA. And, well, there's a good chance some of their teachers won't be able to explain this either.

 

I'll leave on this note: even my quite conservative dad also stressed when we were living on bases overseas (UK and Japan specifically) that we were there as guests and a privilege and that their citizens had a right to oppose our presence there. Nothing was more embarrassing to see fellow Americans act loud, brash, and obnoxious overseas. There's actually something kind of neat about US military bases overseas - at 5 pm everyone had to stop driving or walking around or whatever to hear the national anthem over loudspeakers. But before the "Stars and Stripes" played we listened to and respected the playing of the national anthem of the host country. It was a really simple little routine of the day. It seemed a lot more apt and meaningful than hearing the "Stars and Stripes" belted out before ball games before some oft ridiculous military fly-by. That's the identity crisis of America in a nutshell: enthusiasm for games only we play and for flybys of death machines we can hardly afford.

Edited December 18, 2014 by joshuatx

For the record, this is like the one Patriotic speech that actually hits on why I'm "proud" to be an American. We're such an odd country.

 

 

  Quote

 

We're all very different people. We're not Watusi. We're not Spartans. We're Americans, with a capital 'A', huh? Do you know what that means? Do ya? That means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world. We are the wretched refuse. We're the underdog. We're mutts! Here's proof: his nose is cold! But there's no animal that's more faithful, that's more loyal, more loveable than the mutt.

  On 12/18/2014 at 1:15 AM, fiznuthian said:

You want obese? We got more than plenty. You want gun-toting patriot nutjobs? We have more than enough of those too. You want entitled and materialistic shopping-frenzied assholes? You'll find a handful in mere minutes at your nearest Walmart. You want homophobic racists? More than enough of those around too.

i feel spoiled for choice!!

  On 12/18/2014 at 1:24 AM, PhylumZunami said:

 

  On 12/17/2014 at 11:49 PM, autopilot said:

spaghetti, chicken nuggets, & white girls are some of my favorite things to eat

you took the bait and showed me you are a true american and i respect you for it

 

 

high five!

 

Pros: Some delicious craft beer, a love for bacon, some awesome music, some great science, and loads of nice people. Plenty more good things, but I'm not listing them all.

 

Cons: you guys are doing a great job at nailing the cons...

  On 12/17/2014 at 9:45 PM, Schlitze said:

The solar system views America as a safe haven where truth and justice will prevail. But they find their law enforcement dumb and heavy handed. We can't generalize America because every state has a different law, sometimes contradicting each other and looking dumb. Lot's of douches in suits coming up with ideas to improve and progress and falling on their face. But i guess that's the same for every government.

One thing i think America could do (and thought they would have done by now) is wipe out the cartels in Mexico. It's just across the border and with the intelligence they have on these punks and the resources, they could serve their ass to them on a plate. Border control can only do so much, it's time to eradicate all known (trafficking) threats

 

There's no money in helping poor Mexicans.

don't worry! the widespread environmental disdain will take care of america soon enuff

If there's one thing I must say is that it's actually really hard to stereotype Americans and regions of the country. That's actually one of the upsides to our very individualistic oriented society. For example, the most accurate portrayal I've seen of Texas is, of all things, the oddball characters and setting of King of The Hill.

 

Also, I really hope that our space exploration efforts can one day match the space race era in funding and public support. I actually get chills from watching old Apollo and Mercury footage when I see the little American flag and 'USA" initials. Right Stuff is one of my favorite films of all time (tied with Empire of the Sun for #1). America's aviation and space exploration in the 20th century (after the initial Soviet successes) seem to channel our expansionist and "wild west" ethos in a positive way. Not to mention offset our Cold War spending and paranoia a bit. It's always been one of the few definitive achievements of this relatively young country.

Edited December 18, 2014 by joshuatx

I think people are a bit confused in this thread. American politics and media suck but hey if you can make it here you can make it anywhere so let's hear it for Americans: Better Than You

 

I kid I kid

jesus some replies here... us' achievements is culture in science are simply unmatched by all of the rest of the world combined. yeah there's some fat people and no proper healthcare because of republicans, but it can't possibly overshadow the achievements. i mean it has its "low points" but the "high points" are way higher than any other country.

well of course a sense of nationalist superiority is always silly, but at least in us' case it has more merit than any other place.

Edited December 18, 2014 by eugene

  On 12/18/2014 at 4:31 AM, eugene said:

jesus some replies here... us' achievements is culture in science are simply unmatched by all of the rest of the world combined. yeah there's some fat people and no proper healthcare because of republicans, but it can't possibly overshadow the achievements. i mean it has its "low points" but the "high points" are way higher than any other country.

 

lol "some fat people".

 

US achievements in culture unmatched?

Even in science, while the US has certainly done impressive things, it's not like other nations haven't done them as well. Part of their scientific success of course, is due to their fairly liberal immigration program.

 

I do generally agree though I think if the US had a more Canadian mindset, with the resources at their disposal, the world would probably be better off.

I would like to think I'm beyond the point of narrowing a whole country down to a set of clever judgments, sometimes I think America represents everything that is wrong with the world, but those things go for humanity as a whole and you guys can be pretty entertaining. It's far too easy to point out the bad eggs, many Americans have a certain joi de vivre that is incredibly infectious and admirable.

 

The world rarely faces states of this magnitude, and it always seems to involve a massive amount of hubris, people using the system against itself, aggressive foreign policies, etc. I can't help but think it's a necessary phase.

Kim Kardashian