Europe subverting the US? [sarcasm] can we say MacAruthur? are the Reds going to invade? do we need to build more nukes? are the Viet Cong looking dangerous again? is the world short of terrorist organisations? or shall we make some more anyway?[/sarcasm]
frankly WTF are you talking about? since when has Europe tried to subvert the sovereignty of the US? maybe you should consider right-wing America subverting the rest of the world, murdering, gun running, etc etc.
as for the war crimes court, when has an American ever been tried for war crimes - never. look at My Lai, Vietminese civilians were murdered by US forces and only one person recieved a sentance, which was 2 days house arrest. it’s about time that American war criminals were brought to justice along with the rest of Western war criminals.
Kurt, I appreciate your desire to see the US government protect its national interests. However, as a country which trades so heavily with the rest of the world, and whose military muscle gives it the power to reign, surely you must realise that a solely inward-looking USA would lead to serious conflict. I don’t like the idea of widespread animosity towards the world’s only superpower. Yet this is very much the case at the moment. Much of European Union’s momentum comes from a desire to ‘match up’ to the United States. I know this having just returned from the constitutional convention.
If I accidently shat in your house, I would take it upon myself to clean up. The US are, in my view, mainly a force for good in the world community. I don’t think Bush is quite the idiot people like to paint him as. I actually find his style quite refreshing. When people choose to knock America for their foreign policy, they must remember that their government is (like mine) subject to democratic pressures to act in self-interest. This can often be against the best interests of the wider community. Without a strong government there in the first place, it would simply be one populace against another.
Jawaad asks : “Is half of America really as inward-looking, conservative and violent as he is??!!” I suspect the answer is ‘no’. I’ll be interested to see whether he is re-elected. His ratings were high, until this week when the one thing that the American electorate are most sensitive to starting looking bleak: the economy. Falling share prices appear to matter more than bombing a group of people on the other side of the world.
Can any of our American users tell us more on this? putting their personal prejudices to one side as they tell.
I agree that we shouldn’t return to our old isolationist ways. If America becomes isolated like we’ve done after every war we’ve fought, except WWII, we’ll be falling back into our old rut of “let’s not care about the world”. I think isolationism isn’t going to help the country at all, and Bush isn’t going to help in any way.
Oh, and Bush DIDN’T get more than 50% of the votes in the election. He was elected through the Electoral College, not the popular vote, which Gore won.
I just got back from a drum corps show and I’m kinda tired, so I’ll respond to everything else after I sleep except for Nevir’s assertion that Gore won the popular vote. That’s not true–in fact, it’s impossible to know for certain WHO won the popular vote, simply because in many states, once a Presidential candidate has a large enough lead over his nearest competitor that the number of votes remaining to be counted is not enough for anyone else to overcome that lead, vote counting simply stops because there is no point to it. Had all those votes actually been counted, Bush might in fact have won the popular vote, or it might have been Gore. There’s no way to know.
I don’t know if the world hates Bush so much, but personally I agree with Youngman18 that he shouldn’t be president. I don’t know Bush personally so I would be judging if I said that I hated him. One thing I think that he didn’t do which is a good thing, is start a war or drop a nuke. But a baby could have figured out not to do that too.
I think I have been reading too many posts, since I was shocked at reading Youngman18’s following words which I now realize he was being facetious (I hope)…Youngman18 :
Focus on ‘like’.
Not trying to demean you youngman18, just stating an ironic fact.
Out of all the insults/accusations that Bush recieves, the one I find most mystifying is that he is “stupid.”
Do you HONESTLY think that you can become President of the USA, even if you are basically a member of a political cartel, unless you are a cunning, clever, manipulative bastard???
The guy knows EXACTLY what he’s doing. I wouldn’t be suprised if the mistakes he makes aren’t written into his speeches to give him a “regular American Joe” image for the voters.
You can be a cunning, manipulative bastard without necessarily being clever. I think by asserting that George Bush is actually intelligent, yet just decides to hide it by acting like a redneck, you are beginning to clutch at straws a bit.
Bill Clinton was a good president, and did much good not just for his own country (strong economy etc.) but for the rest of the world (3rd world country aid, the Kyoto Protocol and so on). Sadly, within mere months after being elected, Bush had already undone much of this, apparently seeing America as a country that was free to interfere with the rest of the world economically, politically and in any other way that directly benefitted it, yet had no responsibility to any of these nations to aid or assist them. It may point to the foreign aid it is still giving to the poorer nations, but the question must be asked, how much is it taking back (plus interest) via the IMF?
Anyway, I could go on. Bush is an idiot and the world will be much the better when he gets ousted in 2004.
In America, intelligence is not always seen as an asset (there has always been a strong anti-intellectual streak in America history). It is sometimes felt that intelligent people, egg heads, are too distant from the ‘real world’ and therefore ‘common people’, too apt to discuss arcane topics with no eye to the practical day to day aspects of living. They, the intellectuals, don’t care about us, the people.
It’s not just the redneck image, it’s his waffling, his tendency not to back up what he says (How could he?) that bothers some of us. This is not the sign of a particularly polished image.
i don’t like a lot of things about bush. i didn’t like the way he automatically assumed that the september 11 attack was caused by muslims. i didn’t like his rejection of the kyoto (sp) treaty. in fact, i don’t like most of the stuff he’s done. war on terrorism my arse. the original plan was to get bin laden, but after the taliban had been replaced, they thought it was probably most likely that he’d died. now, obviously, i don’t support the taliban, but i think that such a transparant attempt to get rid of governments the us doesn’t like is taking us right back into cold war territory.
Well in my opinion yes america is very much so those things. Violence is everywhere. It’s avoidable though. Obviously if you go out looking for it you’ll find it. I know a few people that haven’t been in any fights but then again they all live with an abusive parent. I’m not sure how it is in comparison to other countrys but I heard hand guns kill about 24000 people in the U.S every year. Which i guess is a lot in comparison to britains 22. I heard that from a music video (pennywise - homesick if you’re interested) though so I’m not really sure how accurate it is. I’d assume pretty accurate I get statistics like that a lot. Some more I just found…
76 percentage of the world’s serial killers who are American
22 frequency in seconds of violent crime in the U.S.
57 percentage increase of inmates on death row in past decade
2.7 percentage of U.S. citizens victimized by violent crimes
71 percentage of sex-crime victims age 17 or younger
Most of the site are about women being abused or other countries so I guess I’ll leave it there.
In my opinion any radical view is underappriciated. Recently in the pledge of allegiance the words “under god” were taken out because of the seperation of government and state thing which caused a huge fuss. Not saying that all christians or religious people are conservatives but that’s the only example I can think of at the moment. Possibly because we aren’t all that conservative.
A lot of people think america is the greatest country in the world. That we don’t need anyone else. How we should just bomb the rest of the people. Among kids anyway. I don’t really get a chance to take polls for adults.
In my opinion I think we depend on other countries way to much to go into isolation. It wouldn’t make any sense really. It’s a good form of competition which capitalism is based on. We want your money. I think our greed (god bless it ) is more important to us than our ethnocentricity. It also causes huge amounts of violence and other problems though. I don’t know you be the judge. I’m trying to stay neutral by just giving statistics. But I don’t really have all that many sorry.
Bush is stupid. He took the responsibility of President for the money and the power, because he is not smart enough to get what he wanted any other way. He does what he’s told because that’s the deal.
All decisions are being taken by the quiet men who are perfectly happy to remain quiet. Bush is just a front man that will get all the balme if the shit hits the pan. He would have fucked up by now if he had been in charge.
If you were taking such aggresive action would you really want to be the person that everyone knows and the main target for an attack or would you rather be a figure in the back-round. Not remembered in the history books perhaps, but that’s not what these people want. They want the power and the money just as much as Bush does, hence the actions they are taking but they are smart enough to keep their heads down while they do it.
Did anyone dare to go to that link louise provided.??
READ THE OPENING SENTENCE.
DEREGULATION CENTER, “putting america’s stock holder’s first”
then:
IMPORTANT NOTICE: To all high-ranking executives from Fortune 1000 corporations: Your opinion is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT to the Bush Administration. You are entitled to bypass the contact procedures established for the common people, and are encouraged to make use of the Industry Deregulation Request Form below:
wow
I had to look if this was really the legitimate site.
Is this for real ? I need a second opinion.(and how in the world did louise find this page?)
second opinion: sorry to dissapoint, but whitehouse.org is not yet the ‘legitimate’ website of the bush administration.
"Are Your Mommy & Daddy Liberal America Haters? President Bush needs your help to find out! So be an Eagle Eyes snitch - and get rich! Because for every family member you help put in front of a military tribunal, the government will send you a whole dollar! "
I dislike it when foolish bussiness men are in power…it makes me nerves, very nerves, and even more nervious when I live in that country where foolish bussiness men are in power …and what makes me even MORE nervious is when people argee with, and do what those foolish bussiness men in power do…
the answer is yes, but yes to “I don’t like bush’s actions”, but we all do raed dab someitems.
) is more important to us than our ethnocentricity. It also causes huge amounts of violence and other problems though. I don’t know you be the judge. I’m trying to stay neutral by just giving statistics. But I don’t really have all that many sorry.
…and what makes me even MORE nervious is when people argee with, and do what those foolish bussiness men in power do… 
