by DrBang » Wed 17 Sep 2008, 19:12:58
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')I have always wondered how you (the rest of the world) see it, care to explain?
Like anything thing else this is complex. I have met and worked with many Americans. They were mostly good people (with the usual arseh*les). I found them to be a hard people. If you were down on your luck you deserved it. In Australia we have a reasonable social security system. There is a safety net. In the US there is not. This has influenced how people think and interact. As a culture we tend to value community and like to help each other. The US society seems to be fraught with fear of each other.
While the American people were much the same as everywhere else, the US government (s) have been an entirely different matter. My thoughts and this thread is attached to the US govt.
The US has been throwing its weight around something shocking for some time now. They have been breathtakingly successful in creating an empire and transferring all their problems world wide.
I work in an international community with people from the US and all over the world. Their insights are quite telling. Again their issues are not with American people but the American govt. I find it interesting that most people make this distinction.
The greatest fallout/impact has been economic. The military arm seems to be only part of the softening up process. The ideas written in are how I personally see the US administration interacts with the rest of the world:
"Confessions of an economic hitman" (John Perkins)
"The Shock Doctrine" (Naomi Klien)
Noam Chomsky's work on how the world bank has been used to create poverty in exchange for resource management.
This is not just the latest generation but every single one of them since the formation of the US fed in 1917. The key here is to examine what really happened, not what the PR spin media story claims happened.
The Chicago school of economics, which eventually evolved into he Shock Doctrine (an economic strategy applied by the CIA and US financial sector while disabling and taking over smaller countries) is responsible for some really unfortunate stuff in South American Southern Cone areas for the last few decades. All around the world this procedure has been applied. While it certainly worked in disabling the target country and made them beholden to US interests, the ultimate goals of economic "reform" did not take.
Some of the strategies used to further US interests and create their empire have had some really unfortunate effects.
The creation of this fiat based money system
Petrodollar link to oil
Countless wars around the globe
Creation
of this bogus war on terror
to name a few.
In Australia, the US has really pushed us around on many issues. The outcomes of which are to our detriment but further US interests. Our sovereignty has been for the taking for some time. First the British before 1950 and now the Americans ever since. That 'special relationship' is now under the spot light.
What has been happening domestically in the US has been frightening us all. You have the largest stockpile of nuclear/chemical/biological weapons in the world and have been making more at a stiff rate, regardless of a lack of an adversary (the question has to be asked is: Why?). Having this kind of destructive power under a toxic irresponsible government is down right scary. then there is the willingness to use them (the Preemptive Strike Doctrine). Organizations like the CIA, NSA and TIA are down right unethical. The direction you guys have been going in is certainly concerning. I refer to:
"End of America" (Naomi Wolf)
We Aussies are generally used to disdain from other countries. You should hear the crap we get from the British for being one of their penal colonies at our start!!!! Lately we have been getting a pounding because we didn't do so well in the Olympics. I feel the occasional serious loss helps us truly understand what it means when we win. The Aussie cricket team started to look like bad winners for a while, so perhaps this is good timing.
Australia is just as guilty but on a much smaller scale. We have thrown our weight around in the Pacific nations for years. Why this has happened is not clear but I bet it is much more than just arrogance at the root of our actions. A true reckoning of what went down will be told by someone from the Pacific nations one day.
Militarily we also have no moral high ground. We sent troops to Afghanistan and Iraq. We could argue that the US made us do it, but in the end it was us who allowed it to happen. We have taken part of two nasty resource wars.
The title of this tread was off an Jerry Sienfeld poster of Cramer. Very funny, but behind every joke is deadly serious intent
Kind Regards
Dr Bang
For every question , there is a lie. For every lie, there is a truth. For every truth, there is a way. And for every way, there is a time. This is the time.
![[smilie=BangHead.gif]](https://udev.peakoil.com/forums/images/smilies/BangHead.gif "BangHead")
Then stop driving to work, duh..... 
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