I love my Country

[oggbashan]

There is light on the horizon

No one so far has asked why the UN is not the policeman/sheriff of the world instead of the US and its allies.

In some respects they are. UK troops wear blue berets and keep people from killing each other. Many other countries do as well.

IF the US and UK had waited to persuade the UN that action was needed in Iraq...

In Sudan there are two things that should be noticed. The refugees who have crossed the border into Chad are protected by Chad's forces and French forces. Many people don't know how much France does to keep the peace in Africa.

There is a proposal that Darfur should be protected by an African force. If that happens then the soldiers can understand the locals and work with them - much better than sending US or UK forces.

In Iraq the evacuation of the Najaf shrine on the orders of the Grand Ayatollah means that Iraqis are beginning to sort out their own mess. The Grand Ayatollah is not necessarily a friend of the US but he has the support of a large part of the Iraqi people. If he can cooperate with the other factions in Iraq then the country may have its own legitimate government.

Mention has been made of particular US figures having contact with Saddam Hussein etc. The UK's foreign policy is based on dealing with whoever is in effective control of a country no matter what they are. We have entertained heads of state at Buckingham Palace that any normal person wouldn't allow within a mile of their house - mass murderers, rapists, torturers - but they represented their country. The Queen even gives dinner to US Presidents (That was a joke).

If the US were to work through the UN, flawed though it is, instead of ignoring it, then the US might avoid some of the hatred it gets from flexing its muscles. However the UN members need to be persuaded of the need for military action and would tell the US representatives some unpleasant truths about the US's foreign policy. Persuading counties is more difficult than manipulating your internal media to present a case for war. That is a truism that applies to all countries, not just the US.

US citizens should not be ashamed of their Olympic successes. They should be proud of them, as we are proud of ours. Many of our athletes are trained in the US because we don't have the facilities or expertise to make the best of their talents.

The Greek protest about the 100 metres was about their hurt pride, not about the US. They think their athletes were no more guilty than other athletes. The use of body enhancing substances is a war between the Sports authorities and chemists and even the original Olympics were known for cheating and bad sportsmanship.

As for the US's consumption - the consumption of energy is worrying and unsustainable in the long run. Most developed countries except the US tax fuel and other power sources to encourage economy and development of alternatives. If the US did the same then sustainable alternatives would have to be developed and buying a large SUV would be finacncial madness.

If you continue to squander (waste might be a better word) energy as you do, then the US's debt will grow to an unmanageable level. There is no need for it. The US's farmers could produce crops that can be turned into fuel and make you, if not self-sufficient in energy, at least less dependant on countries with dubious governments. Yet while your government lets you have cheap energy there is no financial incentive for anyone to develop and market alternatives. (Og has just been told that his electricity and home heating bills will jump 15% because of the oil price rise) A wind farm is being built in the sea nearby - the energy will not be cheap but we don't pay another country for it.

The US is the world's largest debtor - owing money to Japan, to China and others. Your consumption is based on borrowing from others and eventually the bill will be presented - of course, not until after your election.

I am still worried, not that US citizens are proud of their country, which they should be, but that they do not know what their country does to other peoples in your name.

Og

 

[Teenage Venus]

Well! This thread sure is showing a few things: The attitude of some only tend to 'prove' to non-US peoples that their concept of the US as being a land dominated by greed and the 'big stick', and totally ignorant of the rest of the world, and derisive of it is correct.

Other replies indicate (as I've mentioned) that the average American family is no different in their desire for peace and harmony than their counterparts across the world. Mostly, all suffer from being insular, and ignorant of the feelings and aspirations of those beyond our shores, and generally complacent.

All seem to agree that the 'people' are not the problem - except for their complacency - but that successive governments' policies - controlled by 'big business' - is the root cause of misunderstanding and ill-feeling, and sometimes blind hate of 'Americans'.

To take a couple of points - Colly first, as my conversation has mostly been with you:

And if the solution is for us to have less or use less, then I think you are facing the hardest hard sell of all time

I do not see it as us having less, or paying more. If 'fair' free trade were allowed, then 'third world' countries could provide us with much stuff cheaper than we pay for it now. This would hit the big commercial conglomerates in the pocket - and they very largely decide government policy - hence the onesided trade agreements litterally forced on those other weaker countries.

We will turn into a country which will be respected and helpful to the rest of the world when we get our government to do what we elect them to do, represent us the people. It can be done, and will, without trashing the country or its people. You have not done that which I appreciate.

Unlike some others on here, I too am optimistic that this can be achieved. It is up to us to ensure our government DOES represent 'Joe American's wishes - not just a few billionaires. (Something along the lines of "Government BY the people, FOR the people...!")

LISA:

Every country has trade agreements which benifit the most deserving of countries, their own. If you want to call it bullying or survival it doesn't matter which term you put to it, those same countries we are "bullying" will cut our financial throats if given the chance.

This is true of the more powerful countries - although the US even tried to bully the UK etc. in the case of STEEL, for instance. When the UK government found steel production was becoming unprofitable they 'downsized' it. America couldn't do that, they had to use our taxes to support big business, and attempted to 'bully' Europe to maintain profits, to ensure they remained in power with the backing of those dollar-hungry paymasters.

Sure, each country strikes the best trade bargains they can, and 'cut-throat' competition is normal. But ask the Africans if they get a fair trade deal. (And ask the rest of the world if Africa do!) Check out what we are doing regarding African countries - Using absolutely unfair bully-boy tactics, to protect those same few billionaires.

Amicus:

...and the Teen aged Venus passionate but really inane liberalism...

Had to have your little dig, didn't you darling - having been taken to the cleaners on every other thread I forgive you though

There has never been a time in human history where one nation so dominated the world. In the space of a day, the United States of America, with a Nuclear first strike could dominate the world.

Without putting too finer point on it - bollocks. We could mess up a fair portion of it - including our own country in the aftermath. And let's face it - a few 'freedom fighters' can knock the shit out of us. We never learned from Viet Nam, and look what a few Arabs are doing in Iraq, and the fear in our own country of terrorist strikes! Grow up - the 'big stick' is out of date - unless we as a nation want to commit suicide.

I will cite RUSSIA: During the 'cold war' they too - on the face of it - had capacity to do so. However, expence finally proved their downfall. Sure, they had large stocks of nuclear weapons. They had so for years - but time took its toll - and corrosive erosion set in. As far as I have been able to glean, if they had been compelled - or desired to use them - at least a quarter would have malfunctioned and devastated their own country.

From reports subsequently made by US military officials at the time, the US suffered the same problems in their own vast network of underground desert silos. There is no reason to believe that the situation has much improved.

In the case of nuclear submarines: one near relative commanding one considered that - in the event of having to use his arsenal he would seal the fate of his crew and many others - simply because of 'accepted risk malfunctions'. Again, there is no reason to assume things have radically changed.

As a country (richest in the world!), we simply can not afford to keep stocks fully serviced, and supply replacements as necessary. Like Russia, if push came to shove, the money is not there. The government realised the danger they faced when the Russian 'empire' fell apart, and took immediate action to try ensure the USA would not fall apart, and assorted States go for independance as those controlled by a central Russian government had done. How did they do this?

At the time, the distribution of world strike power was Number one USA (including all States.) Two - Russia. Number 3 was a single US State containing the third largest strike capacity of conventional and nuclear armaments in the world.

With immediate effect, our government sought to negate the power of that - and other States - by re-distributing planes, weapons, personnel, etc., across the USA. Some air bases closed in some States, others in other States were enlarged, or new ones opened, to give a balance. Other appropriate measures were also taken to discourage any thoughts of independance.

It is a myth that the US is the richest country in the world. If we paid all our debts we would be nigh broke. Take New York State - it's near bankruptcy. How about our 'richest' State, CA? - it's on it's ass.

The only thing keeping the US in its current position is one of world economics - and the effects on markets that its collapsing in the short term will produce. However, the EU for starters has now near double the population and trading power of the US. We will shortly be feeling the full weight of this as new entrants to the EU can start reaching their full potential.

The Indian continent is progressing rapidly, taking over much of our work - especially in the IT sector. China is coming on leaps and bounds. The days of the British Empire style of government, when those under domination were considered ignorant WOGS, and NIGGERS, is gone. Britain came out of it reasonably well by relinquishing its empire, and replacing it with what history - and a number of wars - has proved is a very loyal Comonwealth populace.

We need to accept our reign of total supremacy - due to a bigger army, and better weapons - is rapidly drawing to a close. We need to garner a bit of worldly goodwill, so that - as our influence subsides - we do not become a pariah, isolated from the rest by the atlantic and pacific oceans, but take our place like Russia, Germany, Uk. Though 'fallen stars', they still command respect - even from us.

Looking to the future: I see us as becoming second-rate to China and India. Over time, power fluctuates across the planet. Before we reach the stage of migrating from it en mass, no doubt America will again be in the ascendancy - for now, other stars are coming in from the wings.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Okay, I might be asking to get slapped here, but I have to say it.

You do realize that Bush and the current right are violently homophobic right?

Again, I accept fully your right to slap me, but it just seemed a little odd.

I didn't say I was voting for him.

A lot of americans are homophobic. A lot of americans believe in the right to own guns. A lot believe in being strong on crime. A lot believe in the military. A lot have a beef against a party that never met a tax hike they didn't like. Etc. etc. ad infinitum.

Folks will vote Republican for a lot of reasons that have not a darned thing to do with who we are bombing or pissing off outside our borders. That's all I was saying, I certainly wasn't endorsing his candidacy.

-Colly

 

[Lisa Denton]

TV SAID:

LISA:

Sure, each country strikes the best trade bargains they can, and 'cut-throat' competition is normal. But ask the Africans if they get a fair trade deal. (And ask the rest of the world if Africa do!) Check out what we are doing regarding African countries - Using absolutely unfair bully-boy tactics, to protect those same few billionaires.

Uh, I'm not sure I follow. Are you referring to our recent attempts to get them to stop slaughtering each other before we will give them free aid as a trade agreement?

Last I heard the many trade agreements, possibly unfair, were all on hold due to the massive civil-rights abuses by those goverments, abuses often committed in an attempt to stop the massive civil-rights abuses by the many factions opposing the governments.

We write into every trade agreement, on hold of course, that they will get this and that if they spend a few dollars on stopping the spread of HIV, or feeding the starving masses, or stopping the slaughter of innocent civilians. All of which they refuse to talk about.

So we offer them the same deals if they will protect the WHO or UN personnel if they go in and do it for free. They cannot protect them and any aid, if not hi-jacked by many insurgent groups, is hi-jacked by the government forces supposedly protecting them.

Colly made a reference earlier about "damned if we do and damned if we don't." This is it. No peacekeeping force other than the UN can go in there and protect themselves and the aid goods they want to deliver. No UN forces without US as the majority of the troops are large enough and well-armed enough to go in and do it and protect themselves. Once they take fire and return fire in self-defense they are no longer peacekeeping aid personnel. Or UN aid personnel, but arrogant invading american pigs.

Another Somalia? Hell no. Having someone shoot at you as you attempt to give them food and medical supplies is stupid.

Yea, we might penalize them in a trade agreement when 500 civilians turn up in mass graves and the government says "Uh, we didn't see who-dun-it." Or give them medical supplies which turn up in other countries. Or give them money to go out and educate the people about HIV, and those people are educated with bullets to the head.

International trade agreements are never what you see. The thousands of stipulations, on both sides, are never about what is in the trade agreement originally. Its you get this for that if we get these 1000 things here we want. I have tried to look at some and I don't have the hours, days, weeks, to wade through even one to see if its fair. Hell, I can't even understand what the agreement is about half-way through it.

I mentioned Japan earlier. In one trade agreement with them about an import tax increase on a particular make of car. There might be several thousand ammendments added to it before it is passed. One of them might be that we agree to buy several thousand "toaster parts" from them. If the "toaster parts" they make are substandard, and add on the shipping costs of course, and these parts cost us twice what we could pay for better parts from a US manufacturer, we get the dollar shaft, throw out the toaster parts and lose on the entire agreement. If you attempt to find out who or why ammendment 2758 was put in somebody will say "forget that, lookie here at ammendment 2759 where in return for this price on these toaster parts we agree to give them several thousand hi-tech radar parts at half-price." I don't think there are many trade agreements that anybody could actually say benifit anyone except the people who are paid to put in these stupid ammendments, on both sides.

I'm all confused and need a couple aspirins.

And "I love my country!!" Then after that I say "we gotta lots of work to do to make it better."

 

[Teenage Venus]

I'm all confused and need a couple aspirins.And "I love my country!!" Then after that I say "we gotta lots of work to do to make it better."

I know what you mean about the gobbledigook of most agreements. I also take your other points as reasonably valid. (Although we (USA) are equally guilty of most of those things - and we are the LAST to talk about civil rights

I know out press/tv/radio is generally kind and 'selective' in what it publishes for US consumption, one needs to read/watch other views from both biased and non-biased outside US sourses to get a better picture.

The basic bitch I've been pushing is the straightforward banning of imports for no other reason than to protect 'paymaster profits'. They can dress it up how they like - but won't alter the fact. The only way it affects us as consumers is it keeps us paying the price for certain commodities that the bosses want.

One other point is that a large amount of the slaughtering of each other is because of mostly covert backing of 'rebels' or governments by the US (CIA mostly) to put in power/keep in power the elements seen as most profitable to have in power by US governments. (For that read: 'big Business.)

I'm all too aware of the wheeling and dealing that goes on in any trade agreement, and every country is out for its self. Unfortunately, we have a history of interfering overtly and covertly, and very selectively in many regimes' affairs to suit our government paymasters. I'm sure you are intelligent and informed enough to know how true this is without me listing specifics stretching across the world from central and south America to middle/far east and asian regimes. You probably know also how selective we are when it comes to human rights, and that much of the 'free aid' is in return for promises of favourable votes in the UN. (Sure, most politicians everywhere are corrupt, and can be bought. Even when it comes to the OLYMPICS - where they are held, and dodgy judging decisions.

Humanity in general that is educated has one big failing - the need for more. Only among the untold millions of starving masses is this not quite true: All they want is sufficient to keep themselves and their children alive.

They have no concept of what it is like to own much more than what they stand up in. Just trying to stay alive is the overwhelming concern for them. Having been among them, few can even imagine what a skyscraper is, or can comprehend something like Brooklyn bridge, or understand that the odd films we showed them were of real things. To them they were 6'X4' 'funny moving things' which they watched as they may watch an anthill activity, and equated them thus.

We have a lot to learn - as they do. Governments should NOT exploit them as our forfathers did. One day they will be in the driving seat. History shows the consequences of that.

We have a golden oportunity thrust on us - willingly or not - we should make the most of it for their and our own futer children's sake.

 

[Guest]

Colly -

Do you remember this column - came out right after 9/11? (edited for space)

By Leonard Pitts Jr.
Syndicated columnist

. . . What lesson did you hope to teach us by your coward's attack on our World Trade Center, our Pentagon, us? What was it you hoped we would learn? Whatever it was, please know that you failed. . .

. . . Let me tell you about my people. We are a vast and quarrelsome family, a family rent by racial, cultural, political and class division, but a family nonetheless. We're frivolous, yes, capable of expending tremendous emotional energy on pop cultural minutiae, a singer's revealing dress, a ball team's misfortune, a cartoon mouse.

We're wealthy, too, spoiled by the ready availability of trinkets and material goods, and maybe because of that, we walk through life with a certain sense of blithe entitlement. We are fundamentally decent, though - peace-loving and compassionate. We struggle to know the right thing and to do it. And we are, the overwhelming majority of us, people of faith, believers in a just and loving God.


It is pretty disappointing to read all of the US bashing around here. Especially as most of the bashers have never even visited here, garnering most of their information from the TV, apparently. (John Wayne passed away a long time ago, by the way.)

Isn't it difficult to completely dismiss a group of people in that fashion?

Comparing countries is an impossible task, with differing cultures, languages, systems of government and education, sizes of population. How on earth can a country with less than 1/5 of our residents possibly compare their unique situation to ours?

Unfortunately, whatever happens here becomes instant international news. Why is that - our youth? stardom? stupidity?

Of course we're not perfect. God, no. (As a matter of fact, I've been fairly depressed the past four years.) We have serious problems in need of serious fixing.

The coming presidential election has polarized this country. Democrat or Republican, it's nice to see people fired up and working hard for a positive direction for this country.



P.S. Sorry for the snide John Wayne comment - just wanted to show my true feelings on the matter.

 

[Teenage Venus]

(John Wayne passed away a long time ago, by the way.)

Unfortunately, the guys that actually fought and won - and watched their comrades die in battles - so many many of which 'John Wayne and Errol Flynn et al won single-handedly according to our film industry (though never having been in the forces or fired a gun in anger), live on in our new film stars. We get things like how they won at Alemein, or escaped from Colditz, or captured ENIGMA, when in fact there wasn't a Yank in sight at so many of these events. (I think the first Yank in Colditz was a reporter two years after it had been taken!)

And the Brits captured the first ENIGMA in 1941. Against his better judgement, Winston C, gave the code to us. Within months his worste fears were realised when through the US embassy in Cairo, it was leaked to the Germans that the Allies had it. This resulted in false information being supplied to Allied forces, and the loss of many more lives. It also meant the Brits had to capture a new model. The one WE captured years later was of token use as a moral-booster for our troops. By then the war was nearly over, and the Germans mostly communicated in open code. (You can check the facts.)

That type of falsifying of facts cut deeply those who were REALLY there. Their children remember, and grew up with a grudge. Now THEIR children are being fed the same Hollywood crap, and they are angry too.

If the films were for national consumption only, they would fit in fine with other propoganda fed us. As they are circulated around the world to pull in the dollars, so they perpetuate ill feeling in some, and generate it in others.

When they see the attrocities committed by our soldiers in Iraq (held back from us seeing them until exposure on the web forced the truth to out), more anger generates. Many see us as the biggest hypocrites in existance - proclaiming peace, care for the planet, a leading light in the human rights movement - then refusing to sign up to the K agreement, flaunting the Geneva convention in Iraq and elsewhere, making our own rules for 'justice' in G Bay, etc..

We then see a whole town turn out to welcome home as a hero, one of the main villains in Iraqi torture incidents. We saw those pictures - the rest of the world did too. And they have seen much we are not allowed to see on TV or in our newspapers.

We have to accept we have a shit image in the eyes of others, and it has ZILCH to do with envy or jealousy. It is all to do with, "You do as I say. We will do as we like, because we have the big stick."

No country is spotlessly clean, and the US is only worse because it can be so. However, that should not let us be blind to the truth, or not try to make things better.

I wonder just how many of us cheer the medals our colored guys win us, then treat their colored friends and relations like shit on our own streets!

We DESERVE to have a bad name. Not because we as individuals, or our neighbors necessarily have done wrong, but because our complacency allows those we put in power to do wrong.

You ask what lessons it was hoped 9/11 would teach us. The answer to that is NOTHING - any more than Viet Nam did. HOWEVER, it taught those we anger that they can scare seven shades of shit out of us any time they like with rumours of a pending repeat. And they can attack us virtually at will in any part of the world.

From what I read on here there is little US bashing that is not deserved, and generally it is not the US per se being bashed, but a few individuals that cause or allow these transgressions.

It seems to me Americans on here are mostly proud to be Americans, and mostly admit our leaders have/are making bad errors of judgement.

It also seems non-Americans feel the same way. They have no quarrel with US citizens - other than we could do more to influence our leaders. Their grudge is against 'America', and what it supposedly stands for, but so often does not.

 

[Lisa Denton]

Re: Colly -

Do you remember this column - came out right after 9/11? (edited for space)

By Leonard Pitts Jr.
Syndicated columnist

. . . What lesson did you hope to teach us by your coward's attack on our World Trade Center, our Pentagon, us? What was it you hoped we would learn? Whatever it was, please know that you failed. . .

. . . Let me tell you about my people. We are a vast and quarrelsome family, a family rent by racial, cultural, political and class division, but a family nonetheless. We're frivolous, yes, capable of expending tremendous emotional energy on pop cultural minutiae, a singer's revealing dress, a ball team's misfortune, a cartoon mouse.

We're wealthy, too, spoiled by the ready availability of trinkets and material goods, and maybe because of that, we walk through life with a certain sense of blithe entitlement. We are fundamentally decent, though - peace-loving and compassionate. We struggle to know the right thing and to do it. And we are, the overwhelming majority of us, people of faith, believers in a just and loving God.


It is pretty disappointing to read all of the US bashing around here. Especially as most of the bashers have never even visited here, garnering most of their information from the TV, apparently. (John Wayne passed away a long time ago, by the way.)

Isn't it difficult to completely dismiss a group of people in that fashion?

Comparing countries is an impossible task, with differing cultures, languages, systems of government and education, sizes of population. How on earth can a country with less than 1/5 of our residents possibly compare their unique situation to ours?

Unfortunately, whatever happens here becomes instant international news. Why is that - our youth? stardom? stupidity?

Of course we're not perfect. God, no. (As a matter of fact, I've been fairly depressed the past four years.) We have serious problems in need of serious fixing.

The coming presidential election has polarized this country. Democrat or Republican, it's nice to see people fired up and working hard for a positive direction for this country.



P.S. Sorry for the snide John Wayne comment - just wanted to show my true feelings on the matter.

Is John Wayne really dead? (Lisa falls to the floor cryin)


In all seriousness sweetsubsarahh, thank you for that first part about the attack on the WTC. I was afraid to bring it up and read "don't start talking about that" from some people . It seems a lot more types of people have responded here than Colly ever could have imagined.

I too, was a little confused by a post stating why the US is disliked by someone who said in the same post he had never been to the US.

I guess we americans can be told not to trust our media, as if any intelligent american does, by someone who only learns about the US from their media.

I also love how people are getting involved, some with a cynical attitude, naturally, about the chance to change for the better this country.

So since you brought it up. Love for my country? What does that mean? As one post asked Colly. Patriotic? What does it mean? She stated many things but for those who don't live here or those who live here and don't understand here is one thing she didn't bring up.

The day the twin towers fell I cried. As I watched americans crying and wrapping their arms around strangers, who were fellow americans, I cried. As I watched the brave and the lost, I cried.

Thoughout it all I felt a sense of love for my country that I have never known. We took a sucker punch and it knocked us down, it also knocked us together, as AMERICANS.

There was no Bush, no politics, no world events. Everything stood still. On that day more than any other, OMG " I fucking love my country!!"

 

[Guest]

Re: Re: Colly -

Is John Wayne really dead? (Lisa falls to the floor cryin)

Lisa, lovey, not to make light of the rest of your post, but that is the best opening line ever. Makes me want to write a play or novel just to use it.

Mum

 

[Lisa Denton]

Re: Re: Re: Colly -

Lisa, lovey, not to make light of the rest of your post, but that is the best opening line ever. Makes me want to write a play or novel just to use it.

Mum

You like it? Sweetsubsarahh was my inspiration so you gotta give her credit too.

 

[Guest]

Unfortunately, the guys that actually fought and won - and watched their comrades die in battles - so many many of which 'John Wayne and Errol Flynn et al won single-handedly according to our film industry (though never having been in the forces or fired a gun in anger), live on in our new film stars. . .

TV -

You may have missed my point. I used John Wayne as an example of the "bigger than life hero movie star strap-on-my-six-guns save the day" (even though I could watch True Grit several times every day) myth.

Yes, a myth, akin to the shirtless men covering every bodice ripping romance novel. We recognized it as such in the U.S. a long time ago.

It's nostalgia. Everlasting hope - a dream. And I think that remains part of the United States.

Despite the asshole politicians, the love of money, the pandering for power, underneath it all we hope.

And that's pretty damn corny, especially coming from cheerfully sarcastic little me.

 

[amicus]

Lisa Denton...you gave me moist eyes....again...nicely done...


Teenaged Venus...sighs....When I read through you posts, I feel like I am listening to one of those really mouthy female talk show hosts who say the same thing over and over and over, seemingly without pausing to even take a breath.

I suppose one can forgive your youth and the one-sided education you seem to have received. And it sounds like you really believe what you say and worse that you think you speak truth...truth so obvious you are amazed that anyone would even consider disagreement.

Asians came across the Siberian land bridge some 13 to 15000 years ago it is said, Colonists came to North America a scant 400 years ago.

The British, French, Spanish and Russians and the Native Americans all claimed different parts of the continent, it took a while for things to settle down.

Taking the best of European political and philosophical ideas, a new nation was forged. A nation unlike any other before it.

"Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness..." Every school child has heard those words, very few ever seem to understand just how important they are.




"My Country, how I love thee, for thy Past."

"First to stand guard over the concept that each is free of oppression and tyranny.

First with the documents that kept the lives of men from the hands of others.

First to set man free from the bonds of Kings and Gods, Caste and Color.

Liberty paid for with the blood and lives of the courageous, the brave of mind and body."



Those were my words from 40 years ago, now printed in a book, "A Call to Convention, A Call to Arms"


The book was and is very critical of the Government of the United States of America. It calls for a revolution. It calls for a return to the concepts of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

A Democracy...or to be more precise, a representational Republic, such as we are, is a government of opposing ideas limited by law in the actions it can take.

The function of that government, by law, is to protect the life, liberties and property of its citizens.

Most of our laws, from the Supreme Court on down, are laws that restrict what government can legally do.

The people, for the most part, were left free to live life as they chose. Government was to protect, not 'grant' the rights of men as those rights are innate, not given by government.

Your long list of complaints about the United States comes from your belief that our Government should take a more active role in how people live.

My long list of complaints about the United States comes from my 'knowledge' that Government is far too active in managing the lives of the people. I say 'knowledge' for I know the Constitution and I have read the intent of the Framers of that Constitution.

It does not take a 'rocket scientist' to read the history of the United States and comprehend with amazement what a 'free' people could accomplish in barely over a century.

From 1800 to 1900 a new nation burst forth from tallow lamps and horsedrawn buggies, to a modern industrial society, the greatest the world had ever seen.

Slavery was outlawed, women were given the vote soon after, the country prospered and the rest of the world lined up at Ellis Island for the chance to live free.

Perhaps someone will take the time to go through your anti american rant, issue by issue and point out your errors, your lies, your false claims. Perhaps someone will call you out and insist you offer a positive vision for the future.

You sound like you have a quick mind, if you wish to seek answers as to why the United States of America stands unique among all nations as the most free, the most generous; the single nation that sets the standard in all fields of endeavor for the rest of the world....if you really want to learn and know these things, then you will...all by yourself.

But I rather suspicion that you are happy all curled up and snarling your hatred for all thngs good.

amicus...

 

[Lisa Denton]

TV -

You may have missed my point. I used John Wayne as an example of the "bigger than life hero movie star strap-on-my-six-guns save the day" (even though I could watch True Grit several times every day) myth.

Yes, a myth, akin to the shirtless men covering every bodice ripping romance novel. We recognized it as such in the U.S. a long time ago.

It's nostalgia. Everlasting hope - a dream. And I think that remains part of the United States.

Despite the asshole politicians, the love of money, the pandering for power, underneath it all we hope.

And that's pretty damn corny, especially coming from cheerfully sarcastic little me.

Oh,oh,oh. Don't you dare try and say that was corny!! You usually are cheerfully sarcastic but that was fucking beautiful, not corny.

It's nostalgia. Everlasting hope - a dream. And I think that remains part of the United States.

I really like that, thank you for writing that. Oh, uh.......... now your not sarcastic anymore

 

[Guest]

Oh,oh,oh. Don't you dare try and say that was corny!! You usually are cheerfully sarcastic but that was fucking beautiful, not corny.


I really like that, thank you for writing that. Oh, uh.......... now your not sarcastic anymore

Ah, damn it!



(Thanks, sweetie) -

 

[oggbashan]

Unfortunately, the guys that actually fought and won - and watched their comrades die in battles - so many many of which 'John Wayne and Errol Flynn et al won single-handedly according to our film industry (though never having been in the forces or fired a gun in anger), live on in our new film stars. We get things like how they won at Alemein, or escaped from Colditz, or captured ENIGMA, when in fact there wasn't a Yank in sight at so many of these events. (I think the first Yank in Colditz was a reporter two years after it had been taken!)

And the Brits captured the first ENIGMA in 1941. Against his better judgement, Winston C, gave the code to us. Within months his worste fears were realised when through the US embassy in Cairo, it was leaked to the Germans that the Allies had it. This resulted in false information being supplied to Allied forces, and the loss of many more lives. It also meant the Brits had to capture a new model. The one WE captured years later was of token use as a moral-booster for our troops. By then the war was nearly over, and the Germans mostly communicated in open code. (You can check the facts.)

That type of falsifying of facts cut deeply those who were REALLY there. Their children remember, and grew up with a grudge. Now THEIR children are being fed the same Hollywood crap, and they are angry too.

If the films were for national consumption only, they would fit in fine with other propoganda fed us. As they are circulated around the world to pull in the dollars, so they perpetuate ill feeling in some, and generate it in others.

I think that ill-feeling is overestimated. That is Hollywood and Hollywood isn't the US. What US forces actually did in WWII is impressive enough without distorting history. The attitude that only US forces are capable of sorting out the Europeans mess was prevalent in their troops in WWI and WWII - until they fought side by side with their allies. The father of one of my daughter's friends was a US tank commander on D-Day. His tank and crew sank underneath him. He survived and fought his way off the beaches. I was pleased that I could say 'Thank you' to him personally. I can't say thank you to his crew, but I can remember them.

One of my British friends was an engineer who was one of the first ashore to dismantle the booby traps. He was injured at the end of D-Day and returned to service just in time for the crossing of the Rhine. His unit finished building a bridge across the Rhine under fire but he was injured again and unfit until after the end of the war. As he used to say 'I was only in action for two days'. What he did on those two days was important and the price was pain and impaired mobility for the rest of his life. I thanked him too.

I do resent Guinevere as an archer but she and King Arthur are a myth.

When they see the attrocities committed by our soldiers in Iraq (held back from us seeing them until exposure on the web forced the truth to out), more anger generates. Many see us as the biggest hypocrites in existance - proclaiming peace, care for the planet, a leading light in the human rights movement - then refusing to sign up to the K agreement, flaunting the Geneva convention in Iraq and elsewhere, making our own rules for 'justice' in G Bay, etc..

We then see a whole town turn out to welcome home as a hero, one of the main villains in Iraqi torture incidents. We saw those pictures - the rest of the world did too. And they have seen much we are not allowed to see on TV or in our newspapers.

We have to accept we have a shit image in the eyes of others, and it has ZILCH to do with envy or jealousy. It is all to do with, "You do as I say. We will do as we like, because we have the big stick."

During the Falklands War, there were only embedded reporters. Any TV coverage was censored and all reports from the battle area were held back until an official statement had been issued. The US envied us that control. In Afghanistan and more so in Iraq the reporting of what is happening is immediate and not all of it is from the US media. If such reporting had been active in WWI could the public and the governments have supported the reality? Wars kill people, not just soldiers. When you can see people dying 24/7 it is difficult to remain unaffected.

I wonder just how many of us cheer the medals our colored guys win us, then treat their colored friends and relations like shit on our own streets!

When black troops arrived in the UK before D-Day we tried to treat them like all our allies. We welcomed them as part of a liberating force for Europe. Only their fellow countrymen treated them like shit. The black troops who built the US air bases were welcome in our pubs, our churches, our villages and even our homes until the white troops arrived and insisted on segregation. We couldn't understand why.

You ask what lessons it was hoped 9/11 would teach us.

Many people seem to have forgotten that people from many other countries were killed on 9/11. It wasn't just a tragedy for the US. Have people forgotten the sympathy that was generated around the world and not just from countries that are your allies? There were a few that celebrated it but they were a very few even among countries that had good reason to hate the US. Those who were not your friends were appalled. Some remembered Pearl Harbor and the miscalculation made by the Japanese. 9/11 frightened people, not just because it showed that terrorists could attack anywhere, but because it would incite US citizens to anger that would be directed somewhere and the judgement of the US's government had already been shown to be flawed.

It also seems non-Americans feel the same way. They have no quarrel with US citizens - other than we could do more to influence our leaders. Their grudge is against 'America', and what it supposedly stands for, but so often does not.

It is not just the US government that is resented. It is US multinationals and their notion of 'fair play' in trade. It is no coincidence that McDonalds is the first place to be trashed in a riot against US foreign policy. It isn't as defended as the US embassy but is seen as the front line of a new method of colonisation. Coca-Cola and Pepsi are not just drinks - they are life-style statements. One of the first items of Arabic script I could read was Coca-Cola in a neon sign high above an ancient African city. It could be seen as a statement of ownership. How would US citizens view a Chinese neon sign sited high above Philadelphia proclaiming the sale of Chinese products to the US?

We in the UK suffer guilt by association. During the Cold War era we were called 'running dogs of the US' - in other words we were part of the dog pack that followed the US's lead. We are blamed just as much as the US is and individual citizens here are just as powerless to influence our government's policy. All we can do is understand how other people feel.

Og

 

[Teenage Venus]

Teenaged Venus...sighs....When I read through you posts, I feel like I am listening to one of those really mouthy female talk show hosts who say the same thing over and over and over, seemingly without pausing to even take a breath. suppose one can forgive your youth and the one-sided education you seem to have received. And it sounds like you really believe what you say and worse that you think you speak truth...truth so obvious you are amazed that anyone would even consider disagreement.

You have been looking in the mirror again AMICUS - : In YOUR case we forgive your senility: (Some you will have given a smile. Others will have seen it was by AMICUS, and scrolled past it. .

As for the rest of the posting: Mostly idealistic crap. I think we all know what government is SUPPOSED to do and not do. I think we also all know much of the devious, underhanded, things they do - in doing so bring disgrace on our fine nation.

I also think most of us know you would spew out some of your usual crap

You have a fine brain, man. Use it for more altruistic purposes.


LISA, sweetsubsarahh,loves: I didn't miss the point - very valid and good ones. I was merely pointing out that our film industry is one of the biggest sourses of providing 'outsiders' with more amunition to bombard us with, and reason to distrust and loath 'America'.

Most everyone enjoys many of the varied films - from 'cowboys', to 'romance', fantacy', or 'horror'. They accept them at face value as 'entertainment'. It is the ones they produce as 'factual', but are full of lies which others object to. They know that many viewers believe these to be true portrayals of actual events. (MANY Americans believe they are true too.) They object to 'America' distorting the truth - especially on sensitive subjects where GENUINE heros (Not Americans), gave their lives, or suffered hardship and torture to further the cause of freedom etc.

I was reading some Russian 'history' of the 1950s recently, taught to their children. In it, it made claims of how Russians invented virtually everything from zipfasteners to sliced bread. With no means of accessing the truth, those kids must have grown up believing those 'facts'. As a result, they would defend them, and feel badly wronged by other countries laying claim to have invented them.

One thing I am pleased about is they have not (yet) made one of the siege of Stalingrad, and how American heros did all the fighting within the City and repelled the Germans. (Albeit a few token Russians happening to be their in minor roles.)

Let them 'imortalise' in film the heroics of those on 'Omaha Beach', by all means - Grandpop tells me about that, and I lost relatives there - that is something our forces can be genuinely proud of. There are many other events we as a nation can be proud of, but save us and the rest of the world from 'factual crap' which dishonors heros of other nations, and feeds our own gullible citizens with crap.

Many Americans believe the crap. They are fed bull showing what the rest of the world owes us, so naturally get upset when non US citizens seem so ungrateful for what we have done and are doing for them, and can not understand why others dislike 'America'. (I too would question Americans if I were an Arab, or Pole, or Brit, and saw the lying crap produced as 'fact' by our film industry when portraying events I knew to be totally distorted and utter tripe.)

We have a lot we would like best forgotten. We have one hell of a lot we can feel proud of. Let's give other nations TRUE facts. Give their heros their due, and OURS theirs.

 

[amicus]

Old, senile Amicus shuffles off, muttering into his greying beard, 'damned kids nowadays anyway...young whippersnappers, never shudda given them the right to vote, never shudda edicated them in the first place...' mutter mutter....

I have never been fond of Ogbashan's politics, but I too walked the beaches of Normandy twenty five years after the war. Tears rolled down my face at the sight of thousands of white grave markers still meticulously tended in the quiet French countryside.

And futher on...perhaps in the Ardennes, I guided my motorcycle off the main road and discovered a giant bronze statue of a woman holding a dead child in her arms over her head. I do not recall the inscription on the pedestal, perhaps it was in French.

And I walked the streets of London and Paris with the memory of the Blitz and the liberation and of French troops coming back into Paris after five years of German occupation.

I had fish and chips and hot sweet tea in Piccadilly, and sat for a while in the Rodin outdoor museum; I saw the old castle at Heidleberg and stayed a week in a German village when I threw a chain.

I looked into the cold eyes of a young Russian soldier when East Germany was still under Soviet occupation and had dinner and vin ordinaire in a small French village that was all communist.

I walked the streets of Amsterdam and thought of the history of the Dutch in world war two and looked over the harbor in Genoa where Columbus once stood.

There is more to the world and to history, my dear TV than your young eyes have yet seen.

So as I point out your ignorance and the flaws of your assumptions, I also applaud your passion.

Let the games continue...


'mutter, mutter, clomp, clomp...'(heard off in the distance....)

 

[oggbashan]

I have never been fond of Oggbashan's politics...

That is your prerogative. I will never forget that I only have the right to state my views because people fought and died for that right.

It is my duty to those who fought to try to ensure that my democratic representatives are elected by the votes of those they represent and that people participate in the democratic process. Sometimes I may not like the result but that is another matter. I try to work with whoever is the appropriate representative, whatever their party affiliation.

My interest is to see that people vote. I, as me, not as Oggbashan, do not advocate voting for any particular party line, only that people should exercise their vote after consideration and not stay away from the process through apathy.

I think that every unused vote is a betrayal of those who died for democracy. It is not much to ask that people should use their vote.

Og

 

[Lisa Denton]

You have been looking in the mirror again AMICUS - : In YOUR case we forgive your senility: (Some you will have given a smile. Others will have seen it was by AMICUS, and scrolled past it. .

As for the rest of the posting: Mostly idealistic crap. I think we all know what government is SUPPOSED to do and not do. I think we also all know much of the devious, underhanded, things they do - in doing so bring disgrace on our fine nation.

I also think most of us know you would spew out some of your usual crap

You have a fine brain, man. Use it for more altruistic purposes.


LISA, sweetsubsarahh,loves: I didn't miss the point - very valid and good ones. I was merely pointing out that our film industry is one of the biggest sourses of providing 'outsiders' with more amunition to bombard us with, and reason to distrust and loath 'America'.

Most everyone enjoys many of the varied films - from 'cowboys', to 'romance', fantacy', or 'horror'. They accept them at face value as 'entertainment'. It is the ones they produce as 'factual', but are full of lies which others object to. They know that many viewers believe these to be true portrayals of actual events. (MANY Americans believe they are true too.) They object to 'America' distorting the truth - especially on sensitive subjects where GENUINE heros (Not Americans), gave their lives, or suffered hardship and torture to further the cause of freedom etc.

I was reading some Russian 'history' of the 1950s recently, taught to their children. In it, it made claims of how Russians invented virtually everything from zipfasteners to sliced bread. With no means of accessing the truth, those kids must have grown up believing those 'facts'. As a result, they would defend them, and feel badly wronged by other countries laying claim to have invented them.

One thing I am pleased about is they have not (yet) made one of the siege of Stalingrad, and how American heros did all the fighting within the City and repelled the Germans. (Albeit a few token Russians happening to be their in minor roles.)

Let them 'imortalise' in film the heroics of those on 'Omaha Beach', by all means - Grandpop tells me about that, and I lost relatives there - that is something our forces can be genuinely proud of. There are many other events we as a nation can be proud of, but save us and the rest of the world from 'factual crap' which dishonors heros of other nations, and feeds our own gullible citizens with crap.

Many Americans believe the crap. They are fed bull showing what the rest of the world owes us, so naturally get upset when non US citizens seem so ungrateful for what we have done and are doing for them, and can not understand why others dislike 'America'. (I too would question Americans if I were an Arab, or Pole, or Brit, and saw the lying crap produced as 'fact' by our film industry when portraying events I knew to be totally distorted and utter tripe.)

We have a lot we would like best forgotten. We have one hell of a lot we can feel proud of. Let's give other nations TRUE facts. Give their heros their due, and OURS theirs.

Hi TV, I like discussing with you because you get passionate about your views and opinions without insulting those who don't agree.

I am not sure I follow you on the film industry portaying events which are not true facts. Films are made to entertain and make money and have nothing to do with facts. Did somebody not know that? I think when they say a true story was adapted for film they mean it was all changed to make it entertaining.

As for russian history taught to russians. I e-mail almost daily over the last couple of years with a 47 year old russian lady. I met her through her daughter who has since moved to bangkok and we lost touch. Her mother Tanya is the sweetest thing and I have been helping her with english slang.

She doesn't defend what she was taught, she asks me for the truth. Her mother told her at an early age that the facts, as told by their media, were not true. She didn't need her mother to tell her that, she says everyday russians have never believed their media and stiil do not today.

Several years ago the government told them to all enlarge their gardens, almost all have gardens for fresh vegetables. The government said they would come by and buy up the surplus and they would all make money and help food shortages in other areas. She didn't do it. Her neighbors did, when the time came for the trucks to come get the surplus the government said they didn't have enough trucks and NEVERMIND. All her neighbors had no way to get the surplus miles to the nearest town with a market, and the market had too much anyway in no time and didn't want anymore.

The neighbors had a party, it was partly to eat up some of the food before it went bad. They invited her because she makes homemade wine. She asked them why they had trusted the government. One old man looked around the room, meeting others eyes, and finally stood and spoke.

"We didn't. We are good people and we love our country and wanted to help hungry people. If the government had asked the americans how to do this, perhaps they would have found a way. They were too proud to ask the americans. So we sit down to eat with too much food on our tables, while others sit down with little or nothing on their tables, and hungry children. If they ask us to do it again, we will."

My friend said she felt such shame that she had not even tried. She left her wine and ran away crying. She said through her shame she also felt a great love for her country and its people.

She does not hate her government, but she does not believe them. She loves her country, and if the government asks them to enlarge their gardens again, she will rise everyday with the sun and rush out to work on her garden.



I wrote her back and told her she made me cry like a baby.

 

[oggbashan]

First to set man free from the bonds of Kings and Gods, Caste and Color.

Slavery was outlawed, women were given the vote soon after, the country prospered and the rest of the world lined up at Ellis Island for the chance to live free.

amicus...

Forty years ago - you were wrong. The UK (William Wilberforce et al.) were the first to set slaves free and used the Royal Navy to help. A court case established that any slave landed in the UK became a free man.

As for Kings - Magna Carta, Simon Montfort, our Civil War and the bloodless revolution of 1688 progressively took away the power of the King. The King had little power by the time of the American Revolution. It was his ministers who had the power and some wanted to turn the clock back before 1688. They failed. The American Revolution could not have succeeded without the help of the French - under their King.

As for God - the various Christian churches have far more influence in US domestic affairs than the 'established' Church of England has had since Henry VIII. In the UK the Church of England is ultimately responsible to our Head of State.

As for Women - New Zealand were first to grant women's suffrage.

Og

 

[McKenna]

As for Women - New Zealand were first to grant women's suffrage.

I'm not disputing this Og, I'm just curious about the date when New Zealand granted women the right to vote?

In Wyoming (the state where I am from,) women were granted the right to vote in 1869. This was, of course, before Wyoming was admitted into the United States, so at this point it was still a territory. Wyoming was one of the few territories to lead the States in granting voting rights to women. The U.S. constitution wasn't ammended until 1920 to give women the right to vote, 51 years after Wyoming territory had made it legal.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Re: Re: Colly -

The day the twin towers fell I cried. As I watched americans crying and wrapping their arms around strangers, who were fellow americans, I cried. As I watched the brave and the lost, I cried.

I did too.

And then I watched us go in and kill 10,000 Iraqi citizens who were no more guilty of anything than the victims of the WTC, and I cried again.

Honest to God, I just don't understand that.

---dr.M.

 

[sincerely_helene]

Re: Re: Re: Colly -

I did too.

And then I watched us go in and kill 10,000 Iraqi citizens who were no more guilty of anything than the victims of the WTC, and I cried again.

---dr.M.

I'm so glad you said it, Dr., and not me this time.

Everyone lashes out at us Canucks whenever we mention that.

 

[Lisa Denton]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Colly -

I'm so glad you said it, Dr., and not me this time.

Everyone lashes out at us Canucks whenever we mention that.

I don't lash out at nobody, usually, I like to hear intelligent things said by intelligent peoples, and I listen to what I hear. Even if I don't come to share someones views and opinions I am happy to learn that people have those opinions so thank you guys for your input.

 

[Teenage Venus]

AMICUS:

There is more to the world and to history, my dear TV than your young eyes have yet seen. So as I point out your ignorance and the flaws of your assumptions, I also applaud your passion.

Ha, ha You can never pay a compliment without pissing it up with some other remark. Sad.

Thanks for pointing out my ignorance - I hadn't noticed As for flawed assumptions - I strive to change those as my knowledge increases.

I may be young - it does not follow that I am ignorant. Following my rape, I too visited most places you mention, and stood on the steps where Hitler gave many speaches - and wept along with a few Jews reflecting on the past. I would add that there is ALSO more to the world and history than YOU have seen either, my friend. I dare hazzard a guess that in a few short years I have experienced as much as yourself of either, and maybe travelled more, and seen more suffering.

Whilst this thread may have little real anger in it, I see it as serving a useful purpose, and not a 'game' to be continued. I have respect for you because you are older. That does not mean I think you are right - or always wrong. I DO think you have a need to temper sense with snide digs. Each to his own - I'm far from perfect too. .

McKenna: I think women got the right to vote officially in 1893.

LISA:

I found that both touching and encouraging. Maybe our parents could give us the same advice. I'm pleased you have such a nice friend, and I'm sure she appreciates she has a good on in you.

Films are made to entertain and make money and have nothing to do with facts. Did somebody not know that? I think when they say a true story was adapted for film they mean it was all changed to make it entertaining.

You know that, and I know that. However, many really believe that a film like - was it "U751"? - Is TRUE. Films like that are presented as 'fact'. They do not say at the start something like "This is fiction, but based on fact, though nationalities and dates have been changed."

All do not think or understand in the way intelligent Americans do. (Note: - I'm not implying all Americans are intelligent ). It is partly because of different thought-patterns, different priorities, concepts, and perceptions in other cultures that misunderstandings arise.

I firmly believe that the particular film, and many others were/are made to 'decieve'. If not, WHY the gross distortion of facts? My view is that if it portrayed the heroism of continental European patriots in the lead-up to capture of ENIGMA, and gave the true story of how the BRITISH navy captured it, it would have had little appeal to 'American Flagwavers', or have given them anything to feel proud of, or believe - once again - that it was great American heros, that had done their stuff.

That type of film is morning porridge for 'gullible Yanks'. They pay their dollars, see it, and are filled with pride. THEY ARE PURE PROPAGANDA to fill the coffers of the very people I condemn for bringing this country into disrepute.

As a footnote: I saw this film in the UK whilst on holiday. THAT version had a credit at the end to say that it WAS the BRITS who captured the first one three years before our guys did. It was NOT on the original I saw here. I presume it was added after the hue and cry from Europeans about it, and because we really needed them on our side for 'Iraq'. (Perhaps I'm too cynical )