alert for UK blades (or anyone who can get BBC2)

You mean they don't already know what the world thinks?

Isn't it plain.

 

As a state?

Everyone who they've ever sold arms to I expect.

 

By golly Watson I think we may have stumbled onto something.

 

Just been watching the programme on BBC 2 regarding the Worlds view of the US. It was quite interesting. Wasn't necessarily "balanced journalism" though.

Economically much of the World thought they were better off because of the US and it's economy but not many wanted to copy it.

America's non welfare state approach not liked by Europeans.

There were also fears about Americas protectionism of domestic markets whilst expanding rapidly into every other market.

There seemed to be fear of US's unilateralism in an economic sense.

Some interesting views on globalisation feeling like Americanisation.

There was further evidence of fear of unilateralism when it came to the critique of the American military.

Scariest statistic I saw all night was in this section - 25% of the World think that America makes the World MORE dangerous.

They are seen to be villain against:

Russia
China
N.Korea (even by South Koreans)
Syria
Iran

Hypocrasy and double standards was a theme all the way through but this became even more apparent when talking about military force.

In all honesty I don't think they got slated as bad as they might have been given some of the speakers political standpoints.

What I think will be interesting is to see if the US press picks this up and runs with it. Or will it - like the lost Anthrax in Maryland scandal - only end up as a local news item on page six of the Washington Post.

Apologies for lack of any structure, I'm a little drunk, a little stoned, and a little random.

Peace.

 

i've been waiting a week to watch that program. i watched the first 45 minutes and then i just fell asleep. lol

i woke up though for the conclusion where all of the representatives gave their "jerry springer final thought"

the part where i was asleep was best though, because i had one of those dreams where i was flying.

*yes, my brain has been replaced with a piece of skunk*

 

Do not take the above to be my perceptions.

That is just what I saw from the program.

As re: your point on American military spending..

I enjoyed the obviosuly slightly mad French man proposing a European army to balance the power.

Hmm.

"syria, N.Korea, Iran and basically everywhere are percieved on the whole to be lass dangerous to world peace than america. Only AlQaida were considered more dangerous."

That bit made me chuckle.

The axis of a-little-bit-scary.

 

*Smokes a joint and fears work in the morning shall come too soon*

 

I thought I read in Newsweek a few months ago that right now the US spends more on defense the next 11 highest defense budgets put together and next year the US will spend more on defense than the rest of the world put together.

I dunno, mebbe I'm not remembering what I read correctly.

I'd like to hear more about what the world thinks of America. I'm stuck living inside and stuck seeing them do things without us. The government sways the media and does whatever it wants not really caring what the people want. I wish we could do really do something about it, but it's hard to fight a corrupt system that has tricked the majority of the population into believing in it.

 

You are spot on.

EDIT = > $380bn. Almost as much as my Mrs spends on shoes.

 

Wasn't Geldof saying only a weeks ago that the US has done more to help Africa in this term than Clinton ever did.

“Clinton was a good guy…but he did fuck all” – Bob Geldof.

The problem is that even if we did give $380bn to such a person we still wouldn't solve a problem such as African famine. All the mony in the World won't. Most of the money the West pours into Africa ends up in the hands of the top x% anyway. Corruption and greed is behind the social problems in many of Africa's nation-states, surely if it was purely a fiscal matter Africa as a continent should be a global player. Oil, diamonds, gold, to name but a few of Africa's major commodities.

It's interesting actually. The oil thing.

I notice that while the US meddles in the Middle East, the Worlds current supply of oil, it is also scrambling to grab as many of the oil contracts it can in sub-Saharan Africa.

I read an article only yesterday that reckoned that there would be about $200bn in revenues flowing to various African governments in the next ten years. How much of this goes into buying new bullet proof Mercedes', arms etc for the relevant dictator and how much goes into social redevelopment is another matter entirely.

In a couple of years? Didn't it already happen with Iraq?

But yeah, there arrogance and inflated sense of self worth is certainly fuelled by such status.

Maybe every nation needs it's little imperialistic period before it can mature, perhaps this period should be viewed as the US' pubescent period. I just hope it hurries up and discovers girls. How many fallen empires are there in history!!!

Which bloody one??!! 

 

damn it, I think I might have actually been able to see that since my cable company's having a free preview of 'bbc america'. From what I can tell they just show various British sitcoms and the news with an occasional John Cleese special thrown in. But anyway, most Americans percieve the world's fear of us as some sort of pettiness or jealousy, they believe so much that we're better than anyone else that they couldn't imagine not liking us.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that many (perhaps most) of us Americans see America as the 'real' world and the rest of the actual world as this big floppy appendage that doesn't like us or do anything helpful. Many also believe that the world would fall apart without us.

I think my country would make a lot more sense to everyone else if there was a special about what America thinks of the world.

I'd be laughing through the whole thing, you wouldn't believe the insane crap that people here will believe sometimes.

oh, and Sureshot, is your name from the beastie boys song? I have it playing through my head now, good shit

 

No, a lyric in a Rage Against the Machine track.

Which then became the name of a club night a friend and I promoted at university. When we left I still had all the emails and site names so it became my temporary screen name.

It brings back memories.

Like a link to my youf back "in da day"! *laughs*

Sureshot - Strictly Hip Hop

As for the rest of your post:

This was largely dealt with by the BBC's programme (though as I said earlier it was perhaps not entirely balanced). Most of the World understands that a large proportion Americans feel this way. That's one of the main underlying cause of contention, certainly with Europeans.

As a global population much of the World recognises that without the US the world would be a poorer place economically but they also see that this is not something that we will accept above everything else.

The US only has to do one thing.

Recognise that the US's way is not the only way.

One size fits all capitalism does not exist.

Like a bra.

 

about the lyrics; I think they're reffering to the beastie boys, they're the only hip hop artists I know of that made a song called sure shot, unless I got the context all wrong.

anyway, back to the topic again, what do you do?

How do you convince a group of people that have been trained to shy away from any real critisism to listen to you?

My neighbors yell at me "if you don't like america get the fuck out!" I can respond to that quite well but they don't give me the time

How do you deal with a government that uses the flag to hide the steaming dump they just took on the constitution?

How do you deal with a whole generation who thinks winning an unfair war means you're right? I tell people "We killed people to supposedly save ourselves from weapons, now we know there weren't any." and they say "But we helped all those Iraqis!" Then I say "but that's not why we went there" then they say "But we saved all those Iraqis" etc.

It's all so very disturbing to me, i thought we dropped this mentallity in the social revolution of the sixties.

 

Sureshot, sure to make your body rock.

I wouldn't be surprised if they were talking about the Beasties. But surely it's far more obvious that they're just talkin about my way with the ladies *chuckles*.

You're right, it's not going to be an easy process.

Like you say the government of the USSA's insistance to not allow it's citizens to express their views in fear of being branded unpatriotic is of some import.

EDUCATION EDUCATION EDUCATION.

We can't expect everyone to stop and listen immediately. It has to be a gradual process, start by introducing smaller issues that are less emotive and slowly work up to the big questions.

My spin on it would be to go back to basic marketing principles. There's no point us attempting to sell our product (the idea of change) to the unwilling consumers first. We must aim to sell to those willing to buy. Once the're paid up consumers we move to the next stage. Using this pre built platform to convince the doubters. Once the doubters start to see that it is not just the underground who are jumping on the bandwagon but also the mainstream they will flock to follow. Once you have the doubters in your hand you move onto the haters. So on and so forth.

The snowball effect if you like.

I recognise that's it's idealistic clap trap though.