An American's thoughts on world opinion

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Thanks to everyone for offering up why they dislike the US in my previous thread.

Looking over it, here is at least what I saw as some of the major broad opinions there:

Foreign Policy
Electoral System (special interests)
Religion in Politics
Capitalism
Individualism
We work too hard
Propaganda system
Gun control
We are beggars
Patriotism/Nationalism
Christian fundamentalists
Legal System
We are stupid
We are ignorant (of Canada particularly)
We are fat or anorexic

Now, recently I've paid close attention to a few different pieces regarding this subject. All of them were imo fair and impartial (unlike so many articles linked imo.) One was a broadcast by Thomas L. Friedman on the Discovery Channel titled: "Searching for the Roots of 9/11” Also, there was a nice question and answer session with Rami G. Khouri of the Daily Star. Both can be found at this link:
http://dsc.discovery.com/anthology/spotlight/spotlight.html

I've also read a couple op-eds recently, one in the NY Times and one in the LA Times that I don't have access too. The Guardian has some archived articles on this. The other article I will be drawing from here is "Why America Scares the World; and what to do about it" written by Fareed Zakaria in the March 24, 2003 issue of Newsweek.

I thought it would be interesting to compare the reasons people stated here to the reasons discussed in these articles to compare and contrast. The Discovery Channel piece seemed to state the following reasons for the dislike:

1) In many cases the fact that an old and venerable culture is seen as falling behind. Particularly noted was Egypt, something of a cradle of civilization and its relative strength compared to a nation that is 300 years old. To further the injury, they feel that the US looks down upon them for not being rich. Young men who are intelligent and educated but lack opportunities because of the economy are disenchanted. Mohammed Atta was an example -- he moved to Belgium but felt ostracized by their culture and thus became easily swayed by a cult like al Qaeda.

2) The US is seen as a bully with double standards. We invade Iraq but Iraq isn't able to invade Kuwait.

3) The people of the Middle East are in many ways powerless with regards to the dictators who control their lives. They can't protest the dictators because it is illegal but they can protest outside forces like the US.

4) They are angry at the closing of the US doors to them after 9/11. It is now more difficult to reach the US where many apparently would like to come and learn to return to their homeland later and try to bring some of the prosperity of the US there.

The Newsweek piece concurred on a number of these points but also brought out a few more statistics. Some of its points were:

1) France and Russia have long been trying to weaken containment of Iraq to ensure good trading relations and France's "Gaullist tendencies are, of course, simply its own version of unilateralism" but that does not explain the way the rest of the world who has little to gain one way or the other is against the US on this issue.

2) The fall of the USSR. Looking back over the decades, even in France Ronald Regan enjoyed majority support while the USSR was around. Josef Joffe, a leading German commentator observed that during the cold war anti-Americanism was a left wing phenomenon but there was always a solid support for the US. With the rest of the world no longer fearing the Soviets, they now turn on the US.

3) After 9/11 the world "saw a country that was hit by terrorism, as some of them had been, but was able to respond on a scale that was almost unimaginable. Suddenly terrorism was a chief priority and ever country had to reorient its foreign policy accordingly. Pakistan had actively supported the Taliban for years; within months it became that regimes sworn enemy." The US announced it would increase defense spending by $50 billion which is more than the total budget of Germany and Britain combined. A few months later the US toppled a regime 6000 miles away, almost entirely from the air, in Afghanistan, a country where Britain and Soviet empires were bogged down at the peak of their power. This has made it painfully clear to many that the world is truly unipolar at the moment. America’s position today is unprecedented. While Britain was a superpower ruling 1/4 of the world's population it was still only the second or third richest country in the world and one of a number of strong military powers. By contrast, the US will spend as much next year on defense as the rest of the world put together (191 nations). BUT, and this is mind boggling personally, it will do so devoting only 4% of its GDP to defense which is a low level by postwar standards.

4) American dominance isn't simply militarily. The US economy is as large as the next three - Germany, Japan, and Britain - put together. The US only has 5% of the world population yet accounts for 43% of the world's economic production, 40% of its high-tech production, and 50% of its research and development. The indicators for future growth appear favorable for America. It is more dynamic economically, more youthful demographically (this surprised me), and more flexible culturally than other parts of the world. It is conceivable that America’s lead will widen.

5) So, America is strong right now he says. Going on, since the 16th Century international politics has seen one clear pattern - the formation of balances of power against the strong. Countries of immense military and economic power arouse fear and suspicion and soon others coalesce against them. It happened to the Hapsburg Empire in the 17th century, France in the late 18th and early 19th, and the Soviets in the latter half of the 20th. Americans will protest they are different and don't think of themselves as wanting to occupy others but historians tell us all dominant powers thought they were special.

6) While it's true as Britain's minister for Europe Denis McShane says that "scratch an anti-American in Europe and very often all he wants is a guest professorship at Harvard or to have an article published in the New York Times" there is a historical fallacy in believing "they hate us because we are strong." After all, US power is hardly recent. By 1900 the US was the richest nation in the world and by 1919 had intervened decisively to help win the largest war in history. By 1945 it had led the Allies to victory in WWII and for 10 years after accounted for 50% of the world's GDP but there wasn't an outcry for 5 decades after WWII.

7) How did the US buck the "ganging up" trend of history for 5 decades? Consider FDR and Truman who chose not to create an American imperium but to build a world of alliances and multilateral institutions. They formed the UN, The Bretton Woods system of economic cooperation and many other international organizations. America helped get the rest of the world back on its feet by pumping vast amounts of aid and private investment into it. Perhaps most importantly was the special efforts given to diplomacy. Consider what it must have meant for FDR at the pinnacle of his power to go halfway around the world to Tehran to meet with Churchill and Stalin in 1943 and 1945. He was sick, paralyzed from the waist down, haling 10 pounds of steel braces to his legs. Traveling for 40 hours by sea and air took the life out of him. He had plenty of deputies such as Marshall or Eisenhower that could have done the job. But FDR understood American power had to be coupled wit a generosity of spirit. He brought China into the UN Security council even though at the time it was a poor peasant society because he thought it important to have the largest Asian nation properly represented on a world body. FDR's standard endured.

8) Where Bush went wrong: The end of the cold war had given a boost to the rise of international treaties and laws. Some in the Bush Admin. saw this as limiting America's freedom. As neoconservative Robert Kagan writes, they painted a picture "of a behemoth thrashing about against constraints that only it could see." To hear America speak as if it was a besieged nation was mystifying to the rest of the world. In its first year the Bush administration withdrew from 5 international treaties and did so as brusquely as it could. It reneged on virtually every diplomatic effort the Clinton Administration had engaged in from North Korea to the Middle East often overturning public statements from Colin Powell in support of thus efforts in the process. Key figures in the Bush Administration rarely travel. After 9/11, when NATO for the first time in history invoked the self-defense clause and offered America carte-blanche assistance the administration ignored it. It marginalized NATO after the Afghan war. NATO, while in many ways very limited as Kosovo showed, had been America's closest allies so as seen by the rest of the world, 9/11 produced a paradoxical effect of mobilizing American power accompanied by a narrowing of American interests. Bush announced a vague Wilsonian vision of pre-emption.

9) The Bush Administration has reached out. Foreign aid has increased under it by 50% and there has been the creation of a 15 Billion dollar AIDS program. It has also formally endorsed a Palestinian state. Yet none of these measures have gained any good will. This is because in almost every case the administration comes to multilateralism grudgingly, reluctantly, and with a transparent lack of sincerity. For example, Bush for a year attempted to withdraw from having to become directly involved in the Middle East peace process stating that it should be taken care of by them but then suddenly last week (remember this was written March 24), to gain allies for the Iraq conflict, made a belated gesture toward the peace process. The Bush Administration relies heavily on intimidation, for example, "it expects Arafat to step down", and “it expects Turkey to cooperate." One of Rumsfeld's favorite quotes is from Al Capone: "You will get more with a kind word and a gun than with a kind word alone." With the exception of Israel and Britain officials in every nation dealt with by the Bush Administration has felt humiliated. For example, when the reformist foreign minister of Mexico Jorge Castaneda spoke at the UN supporting America in Iraq he had one innocuous phrase that could be construed as deviating from support. The Bush Administration called Mexico and demanded an apology within the hour - he has since been forced to resign but seethes over "US arrogance." There are dozens of stories like this. (Personal aside - Bush called together a number of Congressional leaders on the eve of the Iraq conflict. They thought it was to discuss the war. He showed up, told them he was required by law to inform them, told them they were now informed, and turned around and left. Needless to say, they were pissed. Source was USA Today from last week, sorry for not being able to be more specific.)

10) The Way to Buck History: most of the problems the world faces today, from AIDS to nuclear proliferation, will be solved with more not less US engagement. The lessons of the 1990's - Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor, Rwanda show that American action with all its flaws is preferable to inaction and other nations are simply not ready or able at this point to take up the burden of leadership. Around the world, most people agree with this, even if grudgingly. The question is how America should wield its power. It had a history of doing so through alliances and global institutions. Now it faces new challenges and not just because of what the Bush Administration has done. Alliances formed during the cold war are weakening and institutions built to reflect the realities of 1945, such as the UN Security Council, risk becoming anachronistic. But if the Bush administration wants to further weaken these institutions it has to ask what to replace them with?

____________________________________________

Now, some personal thoughts. I think some of the reasons stated on this board for disliking the US are barely worth noting (they're fat or anorexic for example) except that it shows how because of other reasons the US now is becoming the subject of bigotry. This is something that should concern the US because it symbolizes a greater underlying problem.

Some of the reasons are, in my opinion, minor. They are by themselves a big issue but they aren't really going to affect international relations with the US. Gun control falls here imo. While someone in Germany may not like the US' gun control laws, or the US' understanding of personal freedom, the reason most of the world is angry with the US isn't because they don't like the US' gun control laws. Now, I'm afraid this might be misunderstood. I think that disagreements with the US about this are genuine. I think that this is a huge issue when looked at in isolation. I think that it was a perfectly reasonable answer to my question in the other thread. I think it is something that needs to be discussed. I do not think that it has any major influence on why so much of the world dislikes the US - it is an add-on, a rider.

I think a number of the other reasons can be seen as fitting in with what these other sources have said. One of the biggest problems is arrogance by the current administration in particular. In some ways, this seems petty. Why base your support or opposition to military action in Iraq based upon how many stated dinners the White House is hosting or how many times you've received visitors? However, people aren't always able to separate these things and the fact that their feelings may have been hurt in some instances is important - it is bad diplomacy. It is more than that though; the current administration has been more than rude it has been disinterested. I believe it has been drunk on power and thus ended a number of international initiatives and this came back to bite them in the ass.

I think the US has been inconsistent. It supports democracy and the principles of justice and individual rights in some areas and not in others. The argument some make is that the job of the government is to protect its citizens, not to travel across the globe to protect the citizens of other nations. This is shortsighted in my opinion. Many people insist on thinking of economics as a pie where if one person has a bigger piece there is less for everyone else. This is simply not true. Wealth is created. I'm of the opinion that history shows that democracy leads to a more free, open, and flexible society which leads to greater economic prosperity for all. By encouraging democracy abroad, even if it results in short term losses, it will result in stronger economies abroad which will lead to a net increase of wealth to the system greater than the net increase enjoyed by those we help. It is not only what we should strive for ethically but also out of self interest.

Some people dislike the nationalism/patriotism of the US. This to me is, imo, associated with fear of the disproportional power between the US and others. Working on diplomacy and treating other nations more like FDR did, or even as Clinton did, will result in a lessening of fear with regards to this. I also believe people not from the US miscalculate the level of unity in the US - citizens will raise the American flag after 9/11 here or chant U!S!A! at a sporting event but then go to an anti-war rally.

I think people overestimate dramatically the influence of religion on politics here. I'm an atheist and hardly an apologist for the various religions. Bush's speeches though strike me as political blunders and not actually reflective of an integration of religion and politics. His "faith based initiatives" are in my opinion a poor idea but it is a far cry from the theocracies abroad and I feel comparisons to them are unfair. I also think the presence of religion in politics ebbs and flows with the administration and the fact that it has no staying power since a new administration is at most about 5 years away is important. I also think that a lot more lip service is paid than is practiced.

The comments about the electoral system were interesting. First, I really don't think this is why there is a rise in anger throughout the world recently. I do think that as much of the world is angry with the arrogance of Bush this has become an issue as they criticize Bush. I do think it is an important issue obviously. I think there are strong reasons for wanting an electoral system to prevent marginalization of a vast minority in states such as Alabama or Minnesota. Without the current system the Presidential campaign is confined to New York, California, and Chicago. I really don't know what is best here, but I don't think it is cut and dry.

So, primarily my impression is that inconsistency (hypocrisy) in how the US treats some parts of the world in supporting democracy and in how it treats other parts of the world in taking advantage of a friendly dictator is part of why the world dislikes the US. Another key factor is just plain stupid and arrogant diplomacy. The other issues are interesting and important but don't drive the anger of the world imo.

I think the US can start to help mend fences by one, electing a new president the next time around. I didn't vote for Bush. I didn't vote for Gore. Next time around, I think I will be compelled to vote for a strong opponent of Bush if it looks like it could be a swing state. The reason I think a new president is needed to make significant inroads in overcoming the anger of the world is because I feel that most (not all Powell for example is a noticeable exception)of the administration is not about to change the way they behave which is arrogant.(An aside - it is interesting that polls of Americans overwhelmingly show that it is Powell that American's trust the most of anyone in the administration, and I'll go further but have no proof, American's trust Powell on foreign policy more than anyone else in this nation.)

I then think the US must once again take up the thankless task of achieving an agreement between Palestine and Israel. The solution is likely a two state system, which they were close to once, but now neither side wants to budge. It will take pressure to make either side move and only the US is capable of bringing this pressure to bear. This is perhaps the driving issue behind the anger most of the Middle East feels toward the US and would go a long way toward remedying this anger. And really, no offense to anyone else, but it is the anger in the Middle East and to a lesser extent Asia that most concerns Americans and I feel should be addressed first.

So, that's my long rambling thoughts. I apologize for what I'm sure are numerous typos. I thank everyone who participated in the other thread and look forward to anyone commenting who can stand to read that long mess.

 

Very good Laches, I had read the article you used alot before and found it very interesting. You will find however that many people find it to be absolute rubbish and even stupid. I am most certainly not one of them.

You missed the most burning point though, you touched upon but didnt explore it. The US total dominance makes them incredible visible. Just like we comment on famous moviestars and their personal lives so do we comment on the US and have opinions about everything they do. Just like if you would have got drunk on a bar and smashed the place up a bit and no one would really cared but you would be tossed into jail for a time while if Ben Affleck had done it everyone would care but nothing real serious would happen so is it with the states. They are the moviestar everyone has opinions about and that the system doesnt really touch, which is another reason for resentment but that is not for this topic.

I hope the geist of my ramblings got through to you all.

 

Well, yes, I read your post and I see you put a lot of work and effort in it. Actually, darn well done.

But (surprise) there are a lot of points with which i wholehaertedly disagree.

One point I surely agree with, getting rid of Bush would be very helpfull.

I just want to take out 3 things:

1. Your sources, obviously trustworthy and serious, are only american. As one of the american posts in your "Why you dislike the US.." poll pointed out, Europeans live in small countries. They can't avoid the opinion, which the surrounding countries have about them. If you would have used not american sources (Australian, British, Canadian would be english), you would have found a lot of other points and intepretations.

2. Imo, you dismissed the overweight/underweight issue too easely. That's a big issue in a lot of countries. And the US overweight statistics are for a lot of countries a worst-case scenario and their health-ministries campaign heavely to avoid that their statistics someday equal US statistics in this field. (And I can say from personal expirience, that americans really have strange eating habits and keeping up the pace needs a lot of training for them). So in this case, the US serves as bad example.

3. For me, as history geek, is the Afghanistan/British Empire comparison highly questionable. (And comes over as unfounded (but not your) arrogance). The british raj may be considered one of the world wonders. The rule of so few (~ 100'000 british) over so many (~300 million indians). The british faced no problems, conquering Afghanistan (that was easy and they did so, when ever they liked). Problem was, the Afghans weren't as easy to rule, as the indians.

And i seriously doubt that the americans "control" Afghanistan right now. (No one has ever, yet). At least that's what comes to mind, when I read that Afghan Herion-production is skyrocking again.

[ April 07, 2003, 00:09: Message edited by: Yago ]

 

Laches, that was a great essay. I'm particularly impressed with the amount of research you must have done to accumulate all those facts and figures. A+ !

I think you've nailed the reasons for, and appropriate counters to, anti-Americanism at the international relations level. The only thing that I question, is how much the various political and historical factors affect the average person with anti-American sentiments. The one argument you didn't tackle is the fact that a lot of people have had bad experiences with American people (as opposed to the state) being contemptuous or aggressive towards them, and assumed that the attitude of the individuals who upset them was a reflection on the country as a whole. Yago put it best:

Many other people mentioned discomfort with the air of superiority or combativeness they've encountered among some of the Americans they've met or heard:

You noted in your comments above, correctly I think, that people outside of the US have an exaggerated view of American patriotism, and don't see that it's the same people who wave flags and then protest the war. Similarly, I don't think that most Americans spend a lot of time congratulating themselves on their superiority to Europeans, Arabs, Asians etc. But so many Americans present this image, particularly when travelling or posting on international bulletin boards, that it's very difficult not to come away with the wrong impression. It's very hard to form a positive impression about a stranger who is criticising your homeland and your people - as those sensitive to anti-Americanism understand well! I think a huge amount of lost goodwill towards America could be restored by means of a public-relations campaign that encouraged Americans travelling abroad to be positive and polite about the countries they are visiting, and save their criticisms and unfavourable comparisons with "back home" until they are in the privacy of their hotel rooms. It would make it easier for people to see Americans for the friendly, polite, helpful people that most of them really are.

 

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way- in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

...it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever.

 

Latches,

Good post. Perceptive in the main, although you should perhaps use more non US sources? Nah, still very good.

Just to comment on the fear factor which is big amongst many. As a non US citizen, I find it very, very scary that George W Bush can be elected the president of the most powerful country in the world. That I think summerises why the US electoral system scares me. George scares a lot of people around the world.

 

This is an excerpt from a Text by Merry Win Davies (British author, worked for BBC)
I personally think it’s highly enlightening concerning some major differences between how Americans and Europeans see the world. (and not an american source )

[ April 07, 2003, 16:41: Message edited by: Yago ]

 

A few thoughts.

One, I hadn't considered the sources as being only from America though I should have. It's true for example that the Discovery Channel is American and so can be seen as an American source. Since much of its report relied on Rami Khouri who is a Palestinian-Jordanian writer for a Beirut newspaper and since it was largely made up of interviews of Middle Eastern men and to a lesser exten women I kinda considered it more than just an American source. Maybe I should rethink this. I'm not sure about where Fareed Zakaria, the writer of the other article, is from though I think he does consider the US to be his nation now -- no real proof of this though. Point taken.

IIRC, only one of the posts in the other thread made it clear to me that it was based on a personal meeting with Americans (was it 8peoples?). Also, I suppose I didn't focus on it as much because, well, it strikes me as something of a logical fallacy people are more inclined to engage in when they are predisposed to dislike a nation. For example, I didn't spend much time traveling in France but the time I was there I noticed something dramatic. When I went out by myself (I was backpacking places at that time) in Paris I was treated noticeably worse than when I went out with a friend who was from another nation and could do the talking and we were in turn treated noticeably worse than when we went out with a friend from France. At the time, I said to myself, "well, they're right, the French are rude to Americans." When I got out to the less traveled area of the nation this difference in treatment no longer existed. Later though I realized it was silly to brand all French as rude because of the behavior of a handful of storekeepers etc. I don't think a lot of people ever admit this is silly. I think if the world were less threatened by the US for other reasons its citizens would be less likely to make hasty generalizations - indeed, and perhaps I'm wrong, I thought that a number of the quotes above weren't born out of personal experience but perhaps I'm wrong.

I think that if the world dislikes the US because of the weight problem that is largely their problem. I could understand maybe if it was coming from, say, Ethiopia but it's not, it's coming from England. Again, to me, it seems more like piling on than an underlying driving reason for anger -- espescially when it origniates from places that are fat in their own right (metaphorically).

I think that the idea that America isn't able to engage in debate amongst itself is plain wrong. Two weeks ago I was asked to go to a meeting, unpublicized, to discuss ways of changing subrogation rights with regards to medicaid. The administration, a republican group, was hearing the concerns of other groups. It's slightly complex, but the jist of it is that it isn't my experience that there is no discussion or compromise at all.

I think whatever the differences in the perception of the end of the cold war - the change in polling of public opinion since then is striking and does reveal that with the USSR no longer around it was more comfortable for many to turn on the US. Just my opinion but it makes sense.

Finally, I think to truly make things right the US should make the first steps and has much to improve. However, the world bears a great deal of responsibility for the way America thinks about it and I almost never hear that acknowledged. For example, small things like the burning of the American flag, cheering after 9/11, add up in the minds of American's when they see it on a consistent basis. Small things like this add up and alienate not only the US but Britain as well:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,5944-631671,00.html

I guess what most bothers me and other Americans is an international attitude, perceived at least, that the US must take all the steps and the world only has to sit back and nod judgmentally.

 

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2915245.stm

(Sorry, couldn't resist)

France has the biggest population part in Europe, that has Middle-Eastern Origins.

One 3rd of 50 % would be ~16 %. I guess 16 % of the french people would approx. match the number of french population which are either Maghrebiens or Secundos. Those Maghrebiens are in a difficult situation in France and are highly sensitised on questions concerning the Middle-East. Caught between Jean-Marie Le Pen and radical arab nationalists.

But I agree with you Laches, it's also a duty of the Europeans to improve the understanding between the continents.

And if it helps, Laches, I had some very bad expiriences with french people, as I was in Paris. (They sometimes got a really disgusting xenophobia)

But I had also very good expiriences with french people in south France.

[ April 07, 2003, 20:34: Message edited by: Yago ]

 

I understand an apology was given, almost immediately. But the pr damage had been done. For example, my grandfather was in the 101st and dropped on D-Day. I'm frankly glad he couldn't see the pictures or read the articles because he would have been EXTREMELY upset. Likewise, a large number of Americans and Brits I'm sure know either relatives or friends of relatives who were involved in WWII - it is a very personal war still.

The only point of this is that I think to focus solely on the US as if it bears the full blame for a deterioration of relations is not a complete picture but commonly the approach taken at least on this board. If this board is at all representative of overseas then I suspect that not too many Europeans ever stop to consider whether there is any truth to this either. Anyways, the apology has been noted and the point isn't to start comparing insults but simply to point out that there is rarely an instance where only one side is to blame.

 

Interesting turn of phrase here, Laches, since I think a lot of international resentment comes from the fact that the US are perceived to take those steps into areas where they have no right to be. Just a thought.

[Edit - damn typos]

[ April 08, 2003, 13:37: Message edited by: Viking ]

 

Viking, the trouble is, for every person who sits back and says "the Americans have no right to be in [insert location]" there's another person who is saying "Those lazy, arrogant Americans don't care about the rest of the world, if they really believed their Constitution they'd be over here helping us." I've said it before and I'll say it again -- no matter what the Americans do they'll always take flack from some corner about it. The best thing they can do is use their best judgement and do what they think is best -- like any other country, they cannot let their foreign policy be determined by other countries' sniping.

I can't remember who said it, but the quote that comes to mind is "you can't govern by opinion polls."

[ April 09, 2003, 17:38: Message edited by: Depaara ]

 

Actually, I think we would have many more complaints if we never got involved. If we had the power to help and defend other countries as we do, but took the attitude of "that's your problem, not mine," I believe we would have infinitely more enemies than we do now.

Recently, Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop and Canterbury if he felt that US involvement in Iraq was just another example of "empire-building" by the Americans. Powell answered by saying, "Over the years, the United States has sent many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return, is enough to bury those who did not return." The room fell silent.

Is it possible this was nothing more than rhetorical, ideological B.S.? Maybe. But this sentiment sums up the feeling of most Americans with regard to fighting overseas. We may not do it perfectly, but at least we make the effort. One could ask if other nations would do they same, had they our level of means.

 

That quote has been simplified. Here is the story:

http://66.165.133.65/index.html

 

You have to did around a bit on that site for it, but it's there. Doesn't link directly to the story. When I first logged on I thought, "No, this isn't an urban legend!"

 

Huh, right you are, I can't get a direct link to the site.

If anyone is interested just go to the link, do a search for "Powell" and it is the third one down.

EDIT -- I wanted to add this as an example of the sort of accusatory blame thrown overseas, that really isn't particularly well founded, that turns Americans off. It is this type of thing which I think is commonly ignored and when I say that the deterioration of relations isn't entirely one sided this is the sort of thing I mean.

From Scrhoeder, the economic woes of Europe are because of the war:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2923559.stm

[ April 09, 2003, 18:22: Message edited by: Laches ]

 

Nothing is ever to be laid at the door of poor management of the German economy then Mr Schroeder?

I'm sure Ragusa might have some enlightening facts for us regarding the real reasons for the German economy's performance.

 

Laches, I came up with how weight issues could be symbolic of an American attitude that many people find distasteful.

Anyone who can do the math will realize that there is only one way to lose weight: burn more calories than you take in. However, an uncountable number of fad diets and quick weight loss methods makes the news every month. Is this indicative of America being a country of extremes, or of an inherent laziness - that we'd rather indulge in every scam that comes down the pike, rather than put in some honest effort? It's a stretch, I realize, but it's something to think about.

 

Going strictly from anectdotal evidence - Americans are no more or less lazy than other peoples. What I suspect is that Americans simply have a much worse diet than other nations. I was talking to a couple of doctors about this a couple of years ago and this is what they told me. Lots of fast food and then it started to get supersized etc. Combined with longer work hours (they complained about this in the other thread too, we work too much) and a culture which doesn't emphasize food as a social event to the extent of other nations and you get a weight problem. For example, one doctor, who was Iranian and educated in France talked about how eating is an extremely long social event commonly in France - may take hours in a cafe or of cooking and eating of the course of an afternoon. In the US, it can be this but is usually only as a special occasion. So, we are in a hurry and grab something to eat.

I really don't think that there is a higher degree of people getting exercise overseas either, at least, not in my experience. I'm espescially thinking of nations such as Japan where it didn't appear to me there was a lot of physical activity going on - probably a lot to do with genetics too.

Would be interesting to see the obesity in the US broken up based on ethnicity, race, economics etc.

This is actually one of the more... annoying complaints to me personally. One, like I said, it isn't as if the complaint is being made by someone starving in the Sudan. Indeed, I've spent some time in the Sudan and heard some criticisms of the US but never heard this one. The only time I've heard this is from a European with a full fridge. I really think it comes across as if they were looking down on the uncultured peasant slobs.