The first kinda snarky thing that leaps to mind is to say this: Hey, I've got this great idea for a website, we're all sick of American hedgemony and all, we don't want to hang out on the American political sites all the time and talk about nothing but American issues, so let's get a bunch of smart people from all over the world together, make our own website and... talk about America all the damn time anyway.
Honestly, I do think it's boring. I'm tired of talking about America. Aren't there other things to talk about? I hear there's some kind of water on Mars? (And if there's life there... no wonder they're hiding from us! Just look at the mess we've made of this planet. Nope, no water here, nothing to be seen, move along....)
I really just don't get the obsession with America. I'm an American who lives in the Middle East, trust me, I get to have the old Amreeka-hedgemony conversation every day. I try to talk to people about things totally (or largely) unrelated to Amreeka, and lo and behold, there they go, bringing Amreeka back into the conversation again. Amreeka, Amreeka, Amreeka. I get it already. (OT: do any of y'all remember the Brady Bunch episode like that? "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia...." Or is that too American? And is it spelled Marcia or Marsha?)
No, seriously. Where was I?
On sensitivity... I think I'm not terribly sensitive. I have a pretty high threshhold for Amreeka-bashing. At dinner one night, I think it was mid-2001, this woman I didn't know chimed in with some comment about how she hated Americans so much that she would be perfectly happy to kill every last one of them (in a very dramatic fashion that she actually described), and she wasn't joking.
Yeah, so having had a few too many glasses of wine, I got into an argument with her, and that was kind of when I learned not to bother, cuz there's really no reasoning with someone like that. So, whatever, yap yap yap.
Anyway, watching Jerome get all hot 'n' bothered about the way the Anglo press deals with France... well, we can all be sensitive, I guess. It's all about which buttons get pushed. And everyone has them. America is not exceptional, contrary to popular belief, but neither is anyone else. Y'know?
Maybe we just push the Americans buttons a lot more... it's more fun.
As an Ugly American living overseas, I try pretty damn hard not to run around telling other people what I think about their various countries and systems and problems and whatever. I figure I'm a guest in their countries, and I'm really conscious of the whole arrogant-Americans-pushing-us-around thing, y'know a lot of people are kind of sensitive about that, so I try not to be the Arrogant Opinionated American, I try to be the "I want to learn about your country" American.
But I swear to you, I get pestered every day for my opinion on this or that or the other thing, as if my opinion was some indication of something greater than just the opinion of one 30-something American chick. As if I have a direct line to George Bush and some magical control over how he makes decisions.
Example: I'm on like my second day of living in Cairo last year and I get into a taxi. They're in the middle of campaigning for the Egyptian presidential election. The driver wants to know what I think of Mubarak and the opposition. And I'm like, um, I dunno, I've been here two days, I really don't have a clue. And he won't give up. No, you must have an opinion. And I tell him that what's really important is not what I think about his presidential candidates, but what he thinks. And he doesn't buy it, he pesters me the whole ride for my opinion, which honest-to-God, I didn't have.
Why he did this is because he's internalized the whole support-from-America thing; the whole election has been cast in terms of who's the bigger American lapdog, and so the opinion of an American on this election is connected in some way to, I dunno, maybe to who he thinks should win. Or will win.
The president, Hosni Mubarak, scored big points with people by claiming that his main opponent (who won a whopping seven percent of the votes) took money from the Americans. This is enough, in many people's eyes, to completely discredit him. Never mind that the Egyptian government, headed for 24 years by none other than Hosni Mubarak, gets something in the neighborhood of $8billion a year from America. Whatever.
OK, back to the subject at hand, which was I think me rambling nonsensically.
See, I think this is my point, if I had one. You could spend all this energy dissecting any country if you wanted to. Everywhere is fucked up. America is fucked up. I don't understand why it's like it is, and I can't explain it to you.
I'm perfectly happy to talk about how fucked up it is. I enjoy other people's observations about this. I have posters on my office wall from protests outside various American embassies, posters that say things like America stop blackmailing tactics etc.
But I really, truly don't get why we have to talk about it all the time. I mean, it seems a little like the ex-girlfriend who keeps insisting to her friends that she's over him, really, I don't think about him at all anymore, that jerk, I wouldn't take him back if he came crawling on his knees, honestly, I'm over him. What?
See, there is this narrative here about American exceptionalism, the idea being it's a bad thing, right? And my thing is that we could really probably deconstruct any other country on Earth just as thoroughly as we do America, but we don't bother. And on a sort of meta-level, why is that? Because we're not really over him yet, I guess, maybe we're just saying that because we really want to believe it.
Because we just can't stop talking about him....
Because if we were over him, we'd just move on.
let's get a bunch of smart people from all over the world together, make our own website and... talk about America all the damn time anyway
You're talking about some other site? We talk about America all the time here? We don't talk about other things, (those you mention, btw)? Take a look at my diaries, for instance, and tell me how often I write about America. I too have kept out of the American-European debates. This diary is just an attempt to get something more positive out of what often looks like a snarl-up.
I really just don't get the obsession with America.
I'd have thought that you might have understood (because of your experience in a number of countries in the world) that America is in fact the big wheeler-dealer on this planet. When I asked: Could Americans be less innocent about the projection of American power in the world? I didn't think I'd be needing to remind you of it. I'm sorry if people bug you and bother you as an American person, but that America is kind of important seems to me too obvious to have to explain.
So fighting media spin is all about being over-sensitive? Some of us here actually believe firmly, rationally, that it matters. That we don't want to see continental Europe pushed too far down the globalising free-market road. That we think Europe may (may) be able to set an example in this that will be useful to other parts of the world. Perhaps we need to do more explaining, since intelligent people like you who've been here for quite a while don't appear to have understood our motives.
See, there is this narrative here about American exceptionalism, the idea being it's a bad thing, right? And my thing is that we could really probably deconstruct any other country on Earth just as thoroughly as we do America, but we don't bother.
Please go ahead with a series of diaries bothering to deconstruct other countries as thoroughly as I-don't-know-who has apparently deconstructed America "here" and demonstrating they all share a similar kind of exceptionalism as America does. I'll enjoy reading them.
You pushed a button? Yeah. My thoughts above didn't deserve this.
The obsession started when Amerikkka (deservedly written with 3 Ks) invaded, occupied and devastated Iraq in the face of massive worldwide attempts to stop it, with no justification whatsoever save for a pack of transparent fabrications and highly-improbable lies, asserting the "principle" that it-and-it-alone was entitled to invade, smash, devastate and otherwise massmurder whoever/whatever it saw fit wherever/whenever it saw fit, simultaneously telling the rest-of-the-world and its institutions that they/we were a weak-kneed, no-good bunch of "irrelevant" appeasement-wimps who would soon be crawling back to kiss glorious Amerikkkan ass.
Until 2002 absolutely no-one outside the USA was obsessed by the US and its doings/role, since then its armed presence outside its borders and the consequences/implications thereof have become an obsessive source of worldwide non-US concern. "Ignoring moralities is always undesirable, but doing so systematically is really worrisome." Mohammed Khatami
McDonald's reported that U.S. November sales rose 5.1 percent, while worldwide sales rose 6.2 percent. In Europe, sales rose 8.4 percent, the 10th straight month that sales have improved in that region.
Until 2002 absolutely no-one outside the USA was obsessed by the US and its doings/role
If you meant to exclude most of the 20th century, particularly post WW2, then yes, I'd agree.
you are the media you consume.
Here: most of the time during the cold war our attitude towards the US was friendly: we saw the US essentially as a big, young, go-ahead, prosperous country a lot of Italians had emigrated to in the 19th and early 20th century. We watched a lot of US films, danced US dances, imitated American-type clothing - some still do. So the US was a "trend-setter"- it had an image of modernity, big open spaces, fast highways, tall building - but we didn't actually TALK about it much "as such".. it was remote, somewhere "over there" = both familiar (movies) and exotic (different climate, language, customs, food...).
In the vietnam war years the left protested against the needless slaughter but, as has already been pointed out elsewhere on this diary, this did not imply hostility to America-as-such as at the same time it was emotionally and ideologically linked to the American left and its culture. Plus we did not feel personally threatened = south-east asia is too remote from Europe. However, the US-promoted military coups in Chile and Argentina plus ditto in Greece just when we were being "strategy of tension" Gladio-bombed were scary... so we feared a US-backed military coup - but carried out by our OWN far-right - i.e. not involving US planes bombing our villages and cities and US marines shooting into our crowds and kicking down our doors pointing machine guns at us and screaming at us to lie flat on the floor or they'd blow off our heads, as you have been doing to our Arab neighbours in Iraq.
"Ignoring moralities is always undesirable, but doing so systematically is really worrisome." Mohammed Khatami
I also thought I made it clear that what I was writing wasn't entirely about your diary, it was sort of a product of days of little things floating around in my head. So I really hope I haven't offended you in any way, that would really upset me. Really.
Anyway, I certainly didn't mean to single you out for criticism, and in fact I didn't think of my comment as particularly harsh criticism at that. (If I'd meant it as such, trust me, you would have known.) I'm just saying...
I'm just plain sick and tired of talking about America. I lived there my whole life. I moved away because I wanted to learn about other places and other peoples. I came to ET for the same reason.
We talk about America all the time here?
You don't think? Um, six of the eight recommended diaries at the moment are either entirely or significantly about America.
Sure, we talk about lots of other things here, which is the reason I'm here, but yes, we talk about America a lot here, and often in the most-commented-upon and most-recommended diaries. That's probably partly because there are so many American participants here, and probably partly for... um, other reasons.
So fighting media spin is all about being over-sensitive?
Of course it's not, but that isn't really the point. In life and here, I don't bother to call people on some things, because if I complain, it's obviously just because I'm just the over-sensitive American. Even if I'm right. Being right isn't the issue.
Please go ahead with a series of diaries bothering to deconstruct other countries...
But I don't really want to. I want to like everyone, and everywhere. Honestly! Can't we all just get along?! :-\
Yes, I get frustrated with the country I live in, endlessly frustrated, but as I said, I'm a guest there, and it seems rather ungracious to tear them to shreds. Besides, as an American, it would feel a bit like being a bully, picking on the little guy. Because everyone's a little guy compared to us.
Sigh. Where am I going with this....
Of course I recognize that America is "the big wheeler-dealer" on the planet. Of course I don't need to be reminded of that. If I didn't respect you so much, I'd take offense at the suggestion... ;-)
I think the problem is that despite not needing to be reminded, I keep being reminded. Done. Mission accomplished. We get it. Mister, the horse is dead, you can stop hitting it now.
OK, this next part is serious.
I really wan't going to mention this, but I spent a large chunk of my summer in Lebanon, a country that was at the time being bombed by my government's closest ally, using bombs that my country sold to them, while my government sat by and said, "Oh, it's all very awful, but Lebanese lives are worth less than other lives." Essentially.
I'm in Beirut right now, and these people are amazingly, unbelievable, breathtakingly gracious: "Oh, you're from America, I love Americans, I have three sons in America... they all support the resistance...."
An so part of it is yes, I am well and truly familiar with how bad we can be at our worst, how hideously and grotesquely powerful, I have seen ample evidence of that, and I am surrounded by that evidence right now.
But I am also surrounded by evidence that criticism and anger need not be rancorous and personalized and simplistic. And yet sometimes it gets that way. Even here, and that disappoints me. And what disappoints me more is that when it is not recognized for what it is.
Because if these people can be so gracious, and my bombs have destroyed half their country.... ag, words fail me.
Maybe I just lose a little patience with the complaints of people for whom all of this is a little more abstract. I should work on that, cuz you don't have to have had half your country destroyed by America in order to have a valid opinion about America, right? Just like you don't have to be an American to have a valid opinion about America.
Ag, I'm still rambling. Anyway, I guess I just need to say again that I really wasn't trying to offend you, and I'm sorry if I did.
Good night.
I do think you have a unique perspective, for one, that you have lived and traveled in Africa extensively, and secondly, that you are currently living in Cairo and working in Beirut. I don't think most of us can fully understand the impact of the experience you may be having in Beirut right now. That the people you are having contact with now are being friendly and gracious is truly amazing. Somehow I can imagine having mixed feelings myself, if I were there...like, "what the hell did we just do??"
For me, as an American-expat living in Europe, who was kindly invited to participate as a volunteer administrator of this Pan-European culture & politics blog we call ET, I have tried...and will continue to try...to do my damnest to write articles & promote diaries that focus primarily on European and International topics over American topics here on ET. Its not about being anti-American, as much as having to do with the fact that there are TONS of American politics blogs already. What we need is more Pan-European blogs. Of course, I am also the guy who often pesters people about writing more diaries (punkt), so beggars can't be choosers so much. I'm glad Americans come here and participate as readers, commenters and writers...but I do hope (and have frequently asked) that we keep the focus on European and the international issues, first and foremost. Occasionally we have to remind people...but in a sensitive way, so they don't get pissed off and leave...but just change the focus away from US topics so much. And for the most part, when this has been brought up, people have responded. Maybe it is just another one of those times...I personally want to see more European diaries, and with all the variety of countries and cultures, there is SO much to write about...we really don't need to focus on US stuff so much. But...we are also continually being bombarded by US politics, economics and culture here too. I mean, I often shake my head at how much the Swiss seem to want to become more like "Americans" (or their picture of Americans), ie, Paris Hilton, fashion, free-market bullshit, corporate hostility towards workers, etc. The Swiss right wing seems to think the Republicans are worth copying. So...I only hope an alternate vision prevails (and in this respect, the dialogue here is important).
Anyway, now I'm rambling...but having myself for the first time in the last year taken trips to Egypt and Eastern Africa, one really gets that it is a big, rather different world out there. Though, perhaps different from your experiences, I have mostly been met with indifference (which I prefer) or with "shh, don't tell too many people you are American", or "you didn't vote for him, did you?". As for gracious Lebanese, I have made a friend here in Switzerland who is from Lebanon...who is an avid watcher of Hesbollah TV. And unfortunately, it appears that network is as full of bullshit as the worst that Fox network in the US comes up with...the things he thinks are true about America and AMericans are obviously propaganda based, that it is maddening. So we don't see each other too much these days...he's too damned conservative and angry...though I suspect, there are many who feel/belive just like him...which as an expat, is quite disturbing.
Anyway...take care of yourself out there TSP...and please keep talking about your experiences, as you add important views!! "Once in awhile we get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if we look at it right" - Hunter/Garcia
I really am grateful for this place (ET) and for the people I have a chance to interact with here. And I didn't mean to imply otherwise.
<sniff> I love you guys. <sob>
No, really. I do.
OK, I'm outta here, need lunch.
(Hope you enjoyed a good lunch stormy!!) "Once in awhile we get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if we look at it right" - Hunter/Garcia
In fact you're right that if America's the subject, there'll immediately be a big discussion. And there are diaries on America at the moment (but to some extent Kos's elegant remarks on the status of non-American contributors set that off). Partly, too, diaries on American topics are (welcome) cross-posts. And ET's biggest single constituency is Americans living in the US. Add to that US power and intervention in the world, and you've got reasons why people talk about America here.
Imagine we didn't. We would hear: you people aren't talking about the elephant in the parlour, why is that?
Anyway, the focus of my piece above was misunderstandings between Europeans and Americans in discussions here and on other blogs, and not America per se. I just sneakily put "America" in the title so I'd get lots of comments and recommends. This place is getting like DKos ;)
So I said what I thunk.
I would never expect anything less.
And it's not like I want to ban America as a topic of discussion here. That would be (a) impossible, (b) stupid, and (c) did I say impossible?
No, look, I want to talk about the world, and America (much to its dismay at times) is a part of the world -- a big, sloppy, insecure, powerful part. You can't talk about the world without talking about America. It'd be like talking about Of Mice and Men without mentioning Lennie.
But it's not all about Lennie. You can't leave out George, either.
(How's that for an American metaphor? I don't know if this means anything to you, maybe non-Americans don't read this book in school. But trust me, it's deeeeeeeep....)
Anyway, like I said, I don't really mind talking about America, I just wish I lived in a world where I didn't have to do it so often, or at least in a world where those conversations weren't so resounding, relentlessly, unflaggingly depressing.
This place is getting like DKos ;)
Astaghfirullah! God forbid. :-0
I saw the movie with Gary Sinise and John Malkovich, and then read the book...
Deep metaphor, and funny. Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides
Imagine "Dubya" Lenny saying "I just wanted to pet 'em Iraqis". Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides
and then when Europe won that golf thing, must have been '88 (walker cup? or whatever--i'm not a golfer), the celebration by a few of them because they had beat America! I thought to get my goat--they seemed quote disappointed when it was obvious I could care less. Hmmm, nationalism EU vs US?
But do you mean to broaden my comment beyond my specific story, and to my broader experiences of living in Europe, traveling frequently there, and doing business in Europe (not just the UK). It's an interesting thought that we all to some extent see things because of who we are, I guess--ie. our experiences are partially due to who we are. But I think one gets through that as you develop friendships, have long discussions that yield deeper understandings, and through all of one's experiences of decades (reading, discussing , observing) you gain a pretty deep understanding of the other's mind.
watching Jerome get all hot 'n' bothered about the way the Anglo press deals with France...
I'm sorry you see it this way. I've explained repeatedly that this is primarily an ideological fight, which includes the old Franco-British rivalry and is colored by it. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
That may seem wishy-washy. It's not. From the SOS POV, our job is to provide a fertile conceptual environment by uniting dfferent expertise. The 'crop' that we grow will be a function of the seeds we sow, the weather and the effort we put into nurturing it.
The issues emerge as a result of that process. You can't be me, I'm taken
It has been an inspiration. You can't be me, I'm taken
