Americans - Friends Or Foes?

[echnidna]

took a dive

[Gra]

So! What did happen to Harold Holt?

I thought that was more a question for Wongo not Bob

[jerryc]

Just a few viewpoints on America for the argument.

We Americans are the lasvishest and showiest and most luxury loving people on earth; and at our mast head we fly one true and honest symbol, the gaudiest flag the world has ever seen
Mark Twain

Americans play to win at all times. I wouldn't give a hoot and hell for a man who lost and laughed. that's why Americans have never lost or ever lose a war.
Gen George S Patton.

Americans who travel abroad for the fist time are often shocked to discover that despite all the progress that has been made in the last 30 years, many foreign people still speak in a foreign language.

An asylum for the sane would be empty in America.
George Bernard Shaw.

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent Government from wasting the labours of the people.
Thomas Jefferson

You can always count on Americans to do the right thing after they have tried everything else.
Winston Churchill

Jerry

War does not decide who is right. War only decides who is left

[Toolin Around]

I can remember a heated discussion with a mate about the American government treating other nations with contempt and possibly risking their health and lives. I no longer remember the complete details but the gist was along these lines...

He was that the American gov was deliberately interfering with Australian policies... I said all governments do such things, Australia is only in the position to interfere with other nations that were less superior to there's... If we were larger our influence in others affairs would also be larger. He said that was total garbage; Australia would never interfere in another nations affairs...

A short while later a news story broke here that reported Australia deliberately interfered in another nations affairs and many people had lost there lives as a result...

Australia is no better than the US on it's international (or domestic for that matter)policies, just more limited on where they can deliberately interfere and cause problems.

Yes the US's desire to test weapons on Aussie soldiers is disgusting but it sounds like there were those in the Australian administration that were also interested in taking the US up on their request.

[reef12]

I'm in two minds about replying to this thread. The reason for that is that the USA is a very polarising topic, and pretty well always has been. This could quickly descend into a flame war.

Throwing caution to the wind, here is my considered opinion.

The United States, overall, is a force for good. Plenty of mistakes have been made by numerous administrations but on balance the US comes good in the end.

I would much rather an interventionist USA than the isolationist USA that existed prior to WW2. Roosevelt was prevented from making the USA the diplomatic powerhouse it has become by political sentiment at the time of not wanting to get involved in Europe's problems. Unfortunately this had the opposite effect to that intended. If the USA, Britain, France and others had stuck their collective oars in earlier and with more vigour then the whole mess may never have happened.

That is the big lesson that the USA learned and they are determined to not make that particular mistake again.

So much for geo-politics. Whenever and where ever there is a disaster in the world, the United States is there. A recent case in point is Burma. Standing off shore was a whole fleet of help ready to go. There was a degree of luck in the rapid availability of this help but it was there nonetheless. Not that it ended up making any difference but that's not the fault of the USA.

I have had the privilege to travel to the USA many times (more than 12) including four months in 2000 when I worked there. To be honest, I found the average person is at least as friendly and helpful as the average Australian.

For example, my wife and kids were trapped in a garage sans car by a sudden downpour. A fire truck pulled in to fill up and they noticed that they were sheltering from the rain. My wife was asked if they could drop her and the kids home. Not only a lift home but a lift home in a fire truck. My kids (who were four at the time) must have thought they had gone to heaven!

People would talk to you in buses and trains. Not just the creepy ones either.

The other great thing about the American people is that they are, as a group, extremely up beat and want to get on with things. The flip side of which is that they also tend to not always see the shortcomings of their intentions because the nay sayers are not always listened to.

As for the gun thing, well it's largely true. I remember seeing a bumper sticker in Phoenix that said "An armed socety is a polite society".

You know, maybe that's why they are so polite!

Said the Best Mate.

[Dingo Dog]

Oz folk have been used before as experimental piggies, by the Poms testing their Nuc weapons on the coast of WA and in SA, research the cloud that got away full of bad karma from SA, drifted over to the East of NSW and up into QLD, its the reason why QLD folk are so slow.

[GekoMan]

1) I agree that Australian government had and do currently have things to be ashamed of as far as how it treats it's "friends". Look at oil in the Timor Sea for example. I don't see protest marches in Australia over that issue. What does that say about Australians?

2) I can distinguish between USA government and USA people. Yes most USA people are very friendly and want the same things that people everywhere want.

3) Having said all that, I think the distinction between the USA government foreign policy and the USA people is less easy to make in recent years. I think there is more clearly cause and effect between the attitudes of the USA people and the foreign policies of their government.

Also, I also think the simmering resentment against the USA in most of the rational world is to a limited degree deserved. [I don't include most extremists in that statement].

For example: people that say we should distinguish between the people of the USA and their government fail to explain why Bush got voted in to a 2nd term with the majority that he did. To me this says a lot about the American people and what they thought at the time.

Sure the isolationist polices of the USA prior to 1944 were a mistake. On the other hand the USA is gradually becoming isolated in another sense due to their foreign polices since the Korean War.

The USA is also gradually becoming less relevant to the rest of the world. There was a time not so long ago when if the USA dollar fell to it's current level it would have triggered a world wide depression. It is having an effect, but not as significant as in the past. I think this is symptom and will have long term consequences. A subtle shift in power is occurring.

[Gingermick]

1) the simmering resentment against the USA in most of the rational world is to a limited degree deserved. [I don't include most extremists in that statement].

Well their resntment is neither simmering nor rational.

[Sebastiaan56]

I think Shed nailed it when he cautioned about generalising. Personally the Americans I have met to be damn fine people, almost without exception. But they like us have a government and institutions and theirs, like ours, do some dumb even despicable things. But for the last 70 odd years they have had the dominant world culture.

What fascinates me is the deep dichotomy in American society. On one hand the country was founded by pioneers who had to bash out survival in often quite difficult territory against smart and hostile native inhabitants. On the other a lot of these pioneers were deeply religious and were fleeing religious persecution. Add to that the whole slavery episode and it deep african cultural precedents and you have a melting pot of very different mentalities. Its why a god fearing african american can wield a gun, preach free trade and go and shoot and torture with little apparent compunction. Amazing!

That the brass wanted to test on our men is nothing new for the times. Aussie soldiers were at Maralinga and their protection when the Pommies blew a bomb "turn your back son, it'll be a big flash". They had a shower before they went home. First hand from my wife's grandfather who was there.

What also fascinates me is that China seems to be on the rise and their culture is at least 3000yo. The Roman empire lasted over 1000 years. Islamic culture is a millenia. The American empire 70-100 years. Not that flash....

[Studley 2436]

The Yanks I have met have by and large been all right. Have been some that were a bit loud you have to stare those ones down, like turn the volume down a bit mate.

The Yanks do have a fault that they don't really get that there is a world outside the US. When you are so big it is easy to just ignore the rest of the place I guess.

Studley

[Zed]

if they switched to metric and mum instead of mom it may help.

thier own biggest economy doesnt help, neither does thier imbicilic head honcho who said " the american way of life is not up for negotiation" imbicilic f'wit..... that will make them friends in poorer countries wont it ? (rolleyes...)

[jerryc]

Zed,

You've just opened a new front on America. That is how they complicate life by being so stubbornly different for no apparent reason.
They had metric money very early on, yet the American Stock Exchange still gives values in fractions of a dollar and not by decimal point.
Who but Americans know what they mean by a ten penny nail? (Don't all rush and tell me -I know why).
When they had a gallon measure, it has to be different to the Imperial gallon.
Tried to work out shellac measures? Two pound cut? Sounds a bit painful.

And what they can do to language would leave even old Shakespeare gob smacked.

But although it is a bit of a simplification because I have deliberately left out race as an issue, important as it is, really there are four Americas. East Coast, West Coast. Bible Belt and those Good Ol' Boys down South who still fight the American Civil War. Which is why we have trouble talking about "Americans."

Jerryc

War does not decide who is right. War only decides who is left.

[Honorary Bloke]

But although it is a bit of a simplification because I have deliberately left out race as an issue, important as it is, really there are four Americas. East Coast, West Coast. Bible Belt and those Good Ol' Boys down South who still fight the American Civil War. Which is why we have trouble talking about "Americans."

I assume by American Civil War you are referring to what we Southerners describe as the War of Yankee Aggression?

Or, as my grandmother used to call it in true Southern Lady understatement: The Late Unpleasantness.

[Ron Dunn]

... The Late Unpleasantness ...

Sounds like your grandmother should have been an Honorary Sheila ... typical Australian flair for understatement

[jerryc]

Sorry Bob,

I promise I will never even whistle "Marching Through Georgia."

Jerry

War does not decide who is right. War only decides who is left.