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UK Perception of America

  
  

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Mister Six, whom all the girls
12:36 / 18.12.03
I'll also add to my blather that there is an alarming development that has taken hold in the last four years. I was working as a PR guy during the last election. When George W was elected, the papers were full first of stories of foul play, tales of blacks in Florida being obstructed from voting, etc, then the papers began to self-criticize, referring to certain news sources as being 'liberal,' which came to mean pinko commie baby eating bastard.

This tendancy carried over in the next few years to the point where reporters were told to stay away from criticizing the President or his family and any that did were labeled as 'Unamerican,' and their credibility was lost as journalists.

After the World Trade Center disaster, I saw fewer and fewer people speak their minds. This is the situation as it stands: most Americans accept that the last election was rigged. Turnouts of voters have become lower and lower over the years due to the fact that the candidates have become lapdogs to big corporations and private concerns. The fixing of the last election merely proved that those who didn't vote were right in staying home as it has been revealed that America is NOT a democracy in the truest sense. Most liberal-minded people I know have walked around with their tales between their legs since the last election, watching funding move away from Right to Choose organizations, education, the National Endowment for the Arts, and other fringe organizations in favor of Religious Right groups, defense contracts and well, the former head of Halliburton is the VP fercrissakes.

I have seen and heard of several record breaking demonstrations not just in the States, but world wide, yet on the TV news (where most Americans get their news), these demonstrations are continually described as being a 'tribute to the 60's.' In fact, one 'news' piece followed the anti-war movement to its source, saying that two California professors were behind it, manipulating students with false facts. No shit.

To be honest in the eyes of the average American we have been attacked. And we have bad dad Rummsfeld squinting like a bully on the news discounting any information that does not say 'kill Arabs.' People are scared and they'll direct their fear into hatred toward whoever the news tells us to hate. Otherwise, what are they to do?

These are not articulate, complicated people. They have not travelled outside of the country unless it's a tropical resort, view foreigners are rivals for their jobs, don't know classical music outside of what's in the movies, they don't know a book unless it's a film, they don't know history unless its referenced on the news or... again in a movie. To them, that's their lives.

They don't really think too much outside of their small lives. Given that is the case, they have two options: look outside their lives to see they are living a lie, grasp the reigns of their freedom and DO something about it, or just continue to accept the safe opinion accepted by most.

The result is a terrifying with us or against us schoolyard mentality. This is not a mistake, it is not typical of the average American, but it is very easy to manipulate.

So, if you want to take arms and try to change things, what do you do? Take part in a demonstration? Why bother, it gets little attention by the media, no reaction by the President, and could very easily get you identified as a subversive. The Patriot Act really put the fear into a lot of people who used to think they lived in a free country. The Nation has really turned into a monster and I honestly believe that it will not last. I have to, otherwise what's the point, right? I have no reason to think it will change, but I have to believe that it will.

I want to add that these words are based entirely on my personal experience. Please feel free to disagree, whatever, but as someone living here all of my life, this is what it seems like. And I do hate it.
 
 
_Boboss
12:59 / 18.12.03
i don't think the concept of *blame* is useful or necessary at all. ditto for any notion of *guilt*.

i think criticism - in light of individual perceptions that bad decisions have been/continue to be made wrt the way our nations present themselves internationally - is fine, necessary and not to be treated with censure or feelings of personal attack. the issues at stake here are bigger than whether or not we have a right to feel comfortable with the fact that our lifestyles are supported by violence abroad. i think minimising or ending that violence would be good, but would I be prepared to go without cars to do so? meh. maybe not - that's as close as i come to a political opinion on the issue.

and please don't think i'm excusing britain from this. bush makes me scared and angry, but tone makes me ashamed and angry, a far less pleasant cocktail of feeling.
 
 
gornorft
09:55 / 09.01.04
It's not just UK citizens who might have an opinion here, I'm from Australia and you just KNOW I'm going to have one too!

I don't dislike Americans, I just hate what is done in their names by the governents they choose to elect. I object to the arrogant international profile that your nation adopts in the name of world peace. I am bemused at the idea that a group of people could find Arnold Shwarzenegger a satisfactory person to elect to the position of governor of anything, let alone consider changing the rules so he could be the ruler of everything. I'm horrified at what your president, in the assumed position of "world leader", assumes he can tell everybody else to do. I absolutely hate the never ending series of plastic people you parade on the worlds airwaves in the name of infotainment. I loathe the fact that you can create a genre and CALL it something like infotainment in the first place!

I wish you'd leave the English language alone and learn how to spell. I wish you'd stop being so loud whenever you leave your own country. I wish you'd travel more and learn more about the rest of the world and stop trying to make everyone else be like you. I wish you'd stop creating so much crap television. I wish you'd never invented evangelists or Mormons or Scientologists or even Weight Watchers.

But you do a lot of cool stuff too. KFC for one. Hugeness, grandeur and impressiveness in architecture, music, movies, self promotion of the individual, business acumen, art and national pride among others.

The world can learn a lot from America and the way it does and sees things. It would, however, be nice if America understood that many other places could teach it a thing or two as well, particularly about humility, compassion and understatement.

Oh, and irony. Why is that so lost on Americans?
 
 
Tezcatlipoca
10:40 / 09.01.04
It would, however, be nice if America understood that many other places could teach it a thing or two as well, particularly about humility, compassion and understatement.

Vaguley related to this, I was particularly gratified to hear professor Chomsky respond to the question of who the next cold war will be between with the comment that it will "be between America and enlightened global thought".

And that - to a degree - encapsulates the feeling of a great many residents of the UK about America (note America, not Americans), viz that as a national entity it is unenlightened, uncivilised and motivated purely by self-interest. Lurid is quite correct in saying that the US isn't the only selfish bully in the world playground, however it remains a fact that America is viewed - and not entirely unfairly - as the most irresponsible and morally immature of the developed nations.
 
  

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