[Daryl]

Either way if Bush is so evil, then it shouldn't have been close.

[FatherOfTwo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daryl', ' ')Everytime they blew up one tank, five more came up behind it. That's what beat Germany, an inexhaustible supply of manpower and equipment from the US.

[FatherOfTwo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daryl', 'E')ither way if Bush is so evil, then it shouldn't have been close.

[nero]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('petrodollar', 'I') just got back from a trip abroad where I spoke to 2000 foreigners. I will offer a grossly generalized answer to the initial post:

1) The majority of the world still likes American people
2) The majority of the world really fears and/or hates President Bush
3) The majority of the world really wanted Kerry to be president, and
4) They really don't understand how Bush won the 2004 election, especially given that the exit polls showed a Kerry victory.

[Daryl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('FatherOfTwo', 'S')ure the Soviet regime was brutal. But do you honestly think the Amercian’s were/are pure? Ask the Vietnamese what they thought of the Americans. Ask the Japanese - the Americans are the only ones to ever use nuclear weapons in battle.

[Ingenuity_Gap]

Just a point of view from somebody who lived in both communism and capitalism.

I guess everybody who replied so far is more or less right in her/his on way. But defending or criticizing, being proud or ashamed is mostly based on someone's feelings and less on judging cold facts.

To make it clear from the beginning: communism and fascism were horrible societies, and I truly hope nobody wants to reiterate them. In our quest for a better world I hope they will remain in the past as a really bad example of what human beings were capable of.

That being said, I will not try to make the case for our current capitalistic way of life. There are good parts but I will stick with the criticism.

What I soon learned after I left behind the soviet gulag, is that Americans or Soviets, are pretty much the same soup (maybe more or less seasoned) when it comes up to protect one's interest. It's a matter of flavor, of ideology with the Americans wearing better gloves and the Soviets being more direct and brutal. What Soviets have done by killing or starving millions of their own people, Americans have done far away from home and with different (?) methods (military, economic, politic). There's no point in listing all American atrocities conducted in countries or regions like Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Central America. You just have to open your eyes and stop believing all the crap about America being ole' good Santa Claus.

Certainly, I agree with the dichotomy between government and people. Most Americans are of course honest, hard-working, decent citizens like everybody else. And the damage done to America's image in the world was instrumented by a corrupt, greedy and selfish government.

But I recently started to question this distinction. When things go so far and on every possible media channel we hear only bleak, horrific and regrettable news about what the American government is doing (torturing prisoners, eavesdropping on citizens, abandoning hurricane survivors, refusing to even consider greenhouse gasses curtailing, playing with people’s lives and future, and the list goes on and on), and Americans are doing almost nothing to address this situation, I start to wonder where the government stops and where the American people starts. The government was supposed to be elected by the people. Electing twice the same bunch of corrupt and greedy idiots is kind of troubling to say the least.

But don’t get me wrong. One way or another, the Western World peoples (starting with the Americans and continuing with the Canadians and Europeans) are together in this tragedy. Most of us are still buying cheap stuff from Wal-Mart and still driving long hours every day in our huge, energy-deficient, polluting vehicles. We are still living in Kunstler’s drive-in utopia and we don’t seem to be able to get out of it. We are prisoners of our governments and corporations. We possess lots of time-saving and entertainment gadgets, but we’re still prisoners. Maybe materially richer and still (!) with more freedoms than our gulag counterparts, but nonetheless prisoners.

What we as so-called “First World” citizens are doing (directly or indirectly) to our environment, our resources, the “Second and Third World” people, and last but not least our children and grandchildren, is shameful.

I’m more and more ashamed I’m a human being.

[Daryl]

Hey, you want criticism of America? How about the genocide of the American Indian? What about enslaving 10 million Africans? What about the other 20 million Africans that died during forced marches and on slave ships tied to the slave trade? Hiroshima and Nagasaki pale against those crimes against humanity. Who's proud of these things? Why should our image of ourselves change because of Abu Ghraib?

The bigger and more powerful a country is the more pain it causes others in becoming so. That's why Canadians have a much easier time explaining themselves and find it so easy to cast stones. When I lived in Europe complete strangers would come up to me saying things like, "Carter, why Turkey? Why screw Greeks in Crete? Why Carter do that?" I didn't know what to say to these guys. You know, I'm just trying to take in a few museums and cathedrals and I've got to explain the geopolitical importance of Turkey in the Cold War to some Greek guy whose Mom got killed.

Still, I say overall if you compare the US to its 20th Century peers in terms of power and influence, say to Nazi Germany, Imperial Britain, Tojo Japan, Maoist China, Soviet Russia, and especially to its historical equivalents i.e. Rome and other ancient Empires, it comes out looking relatively good. I'm an American and I'm prejudiced, but I think most fair people would agree.

[Ingenuity_Gap]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daryl', 'H')ey, you want criticism of America? How about the genocide of the American Indian? What about enslaving 10 million Africans? What about the other 20 million Africans that died during forced marches and on slave ships tied to the slave trade? Hiroshima and Nagasaki pale against those crimes against humanity. Who's proud of these things? Why should our image of ourselves change because of Abu Ghraib?

The bigger and more powerful a country is the more pain it causes others in becoming so. That's why Canadians have a much easier time explaining themselves and find it so easy to cast stones. When I lived in Europe complete strangers would come up to me saying things like, "Carter, why Turkey? Why screw Greeks in Crete? Why Carter do that?" I didn't know what to say to these guys. You know, I'm just trying to take in a few museums and cathedrals and I've got to explain the geopolitical importance of Turkey in the Cold War to some Greek guy whose Mom got killed.

Still, I say overall if you compare the US to its 20th Century peers in terms of power and influence, say to Nazi Germany, Imperial Britain, Tojo Japan, Maoist China, Soviet Russia, and especially to its historical equivalents i.e. Rome and other ancient Empires, it comes out looking relatively good. I'm an American and I'm prejudiced, but I think most fair people would agree.

[LadyRuby]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('nero', 'T')hanks for the reply Petrodollar. I understand the Canadian (and European) viewpoint alot better than I do the American. I think you underestimate how much blame they place on individual Americans for acquiescing to the actions of their government.

However my question was more aimed at understanding the American viewpoint. I know there is a significant divide between Democrats and Republican right now, but at least on the subject of renditions or secret prisons I haven't heard too much outrage from either party. There is a segment on the hard left that certainly is worried about it but I'm not sure if the average American is all that worried.

In the responses I've received on this thread, a couple felt it is fine by them if their government has to bend a few rules to provide security. A couple felt it was the other party's fault and so didn't feel that they had to take responsibility as an American, and a couple denied any group responsibility by disassociating themselves from the actions of the country they happen to live in.

Appologies if that is a missrepresentation of your opinion. It is simply my interpretation of the responses. What I didn't receive was anybody responding that thier view of what it means to be American has also being shattered by the actions of their country. I think the image of Americans is changing for the worse outside America but my tentative hypothesis from the responses I've received is that American's self image of what it is to be American hasn't changed much.

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('LadyRuby', '
')Every week there seems to be some new shit coming out on wrongdoings by the Bush administration. If ever a president deserved impeachment and being thrown out of office, Bush does. He's a shameful president.

[untothislast]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daryl', '
')Gee, you finally grew up, congratualtions.

[Andrew_S]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daryl', '
')
I majored in German and lived in Germany for several years. I talked to Germans who were infantrymen on the Eastern front against the Americans.

[Seadragon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ingenuity_Gap', '
')
But I recently started to question this distinction. When things go so far and on every possible media channel we hear only bleak, horrific and regrettable news about what the American government is doing (torturing prisoners, eavesdropping on citizens, abandoning hurricane survivors, refusing to even consider greenhouse gasses curtailing, playing with people’s lives and future, and the list goes on and on), and Americans are doing almost nothing to address this situation, I start to wonder where the government stops and where the American people starts. The government was supposed to be elected by the people. Electing twice the same bunch of corrupt and greedy idiots is kind of troubling to say the least.

But don’t get me wrong. One way or another, the Western World peoples (starting with the Americans and continuing with the Canadians and Europeans) are together in this tragedy. Most of us are still buying cheap stuff from Wal-Mart and still driving long hours every day in our huge, energy-deficient, polluting vehicles. We are still living in Kunstler’s drive-in utopia and we don’t seem to be able to get out of it. We are prisoners of our governments and corporations. We possess lots of time-saving and entertainment gadgets, but we’re still prisoners. Maybe materially richer and still (!) with more freedoms than our gulag counterparts, but nonetheless prisoners.

What we as so-called “First World” citizens are doing (directly or indirectly) to our environment, our resources, the “Second and Third World” people, and last but not least our children and grandchildren, is shameful.

I’m more and more ashamed I’m a human being.

[LadyRuby]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Doly', '
')
Like my brother said a couple of days ago: what does Bush have to do to get impeached? Confess to eating babies?

[Daryl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('untothislast', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daryl', '
')Gee, you finally grew up, congratualtions.