Yea, but Red, how would that work? We are the Great Evil and are downplayed by the rest of the world.

Ok.. ok.. ok.. Here is my question. Why does everyone hate the USA (this goes out to you American America haters as well)? I would imagin cause we follow our own ideals and not yours? Or maybe its just cause we seemed to it right for the past 100+ years? (See our current.. err.. power.. for justification)

I mean I think France is a beautiful place, England is full of great people (not like southern hospitality though..), the Middle easterners and their customs/history is wonderous. I love these world nations/groups/peoples/animals yet because I'm an american I'm ignorant and a whole host of other things cause, and I quote, "You elected a monkey as a president", unquote. First off I didn't elect GWB, in fact if I coulda voted I woulda abstained. And he got voted in on fact that *gasp* people voted him in! Its not like he seized power.

For gods sake, he has like 2 more years.

If your wondering where this little blurb came from I was browsing different forums, such as the jolt.uk forums etc. and I found out that they (other people) think were horrible. Generally over here the only people we don't like are.. uh.. Actually I don't know a single place that I don't like, or people. I think you all are wonderous institutions but I like mine better, so I'm a nationalist and a bunch of other things. So much for caring about other countries..

Why did everybody hate Rome in the past?
Romans were wondering back then why does everybody hate Rome.

Same goes to US: War. You have violent politics. Making excuses going to hunt down criminals in Afghanistan, saving Iraq from Saddam, and finding wepons of massive destruction (which didn't exist), all for sake of stealing oil. I mean EVERYBODY knows that. Forget about any idea that USA are some kind of peace makers. Sorry, but peace can't be achived by guns and bombardment. I apologise if I'm being a bit too direct.

Everything in politics is about intrest. Nothing is done for free. Why would you, since you love your nation and all (and that's a very good thing, being a patriot), send your American to die for some Iraqi? Nah, you would keep your men safe. Let Iraqi solve their own diffrences. Just as you should leave Serbs and Albanians solve theirs.
More people die if you folks get involved

That's why i dislike USA politicians. Offcourse, I have nothing against the people, because people didn't really vote for ''let's PWN Serbia! ! !''
Nah, I belive Neela when she says you didn't even have a proper media coverage. I bet that people didn't even know that war is going on. And I am 100% sure most of them don't know where is Serbia on the map. I don't hate you or any other American. Joe Shmoe isn't responsable my country being bombed.

As for you inner politics, I couldn't care less. If it suits you, It suits me even better. I don't care fot US ideals, you can belive whatever you god damn want. But hands off my country

Note: You might think I'm a bit aggressive. I'm actualy perfectly calm, and brutaly honest in this. Since you asked, it would be a real shame if I didn't tell you the thruth. That's all

So, 9/11 was just one big excuse to hunt down criminals in Afghanistan? That's a llittle far-fetched, even for our government.

Iraq? Yes, it's an unjustified war, but not one for oil. If we only invaded Iraq for the oil, how come gas prices are going up, instead of down? If we were actually getting more oil in the country, the law of spuuly and demand would well, demand that oil get a lower price.

Tell me, how much is 1L of gas?
EDIT: And yes, Afghanistan is my mistake. I may have gone over the line there

This post has been edited by HyPN0: May 26 2006, 01:24 AM

Ooh dibs!

Channler, you ought to look at you statement more closely, and there lies the answer, if you just read over what you said very carefully a few times over, you might just get why so many people from all over the world have united in opposition against the United States...

have you figured it out yet?

Arrogance

I believe in following my own ideals as much as the next guy, but it's not strictly American. The American form of the American dream is that that one people will stride above all the others, and that it's their destiny to be great. The syntax of the American Dream is in the words, it's stamped American, as though no other human being on Earth is allowed to have ambition. Sure, ambition is a signatured personality trait of an American, but ethics are not, morality is only a spin-word used by the religious right to further their own agenda, real morality comes from stepping up and taking a stand against global injustice.

But the real, black-and-white, fact-based, economic issue that has so many people from all over the world pissed off is the global class war, the degradation of human rights and environmental protection in favor of making the richest people on this planet even richer. American corporations (and Canada, too, fuckers) have factories all over the planet where they spend nickles an hour and then bump up the products 1200%. Certain people have grown aware of these atrocities, these people, you seem to enjoy calling American America Haters, I prefer to call them Justice-Employees, because they sweat all day long for global justice and freedom, they are the new Americans and stand up for the real American Dream.

It's key to know most humans around the world don't blame American citizens, Channler, that's just the misconception. Just because someone burns a flag and says "Death to America" doesn't mean they hate any particular people, just the symbols, and everything it stands for. In fact, most people on the planet feel sorry for us, because of the choppy info we get in the media and the propaganda we are lead to believe.

Example: The movie black hawk down, painted as a bunch of American soldiers that went to a country to give them aid and got shot to smitherings. The truth? The ruling warlord of Somalia opposed American Corporations and all the free-trade they were imposing in his country, and he kicked the corporations out, or some other more complicated version of what I just said. So, the soldiers were, what's a polite way to say this? lead on to believe they were giving aid, when their real duty was to remove the warlord of that country so the United States could, as it has done a dozen times before, stick in a puppet government, not one that supported freedom and democracy, mind you, as they claim that they do, just one that would let in American Corporations.

And Somalia was just one example of Americans tricked to believe that the US fought for freedom when in practice fought for greed and the ambitions of a few fat white guys. Another example is Nicaragua, how many Americans talk about the Sandinistas and genocidal maniac? Well, it's funny how distorted that fact is, especially since it was originally printed that way. The Sandinistas, in their four years of government (and I can't remember the gentleman's name), eliminated illiteracy, nearly wiped out hunger and made a giant leap in medical availability. Four years later, after Nicaragua is approaching some sort of golden age? Well, it's funny, that golden age came at a price, including telling the hamster cave free-trade inplanted businesses that they were being forced to sell their lands. Oooooh, they didn't like that, not long after thanks to good ole Reagan, the whole country went to Hell. Assassins and death-squads trained by an American Assassination school, constructed under the orders of Reagan, tore people from their homes and tortured them to death or disappeared them. They were trained at an American military school, and went on violently over-throw the country and put in place a dictator, why? Because he let in US businesses.

America has been responsible for more injustice post world war 2 than every terrorist and failed state combined, that's why people oppose it. And, despite China's new-age capitalism and trigger-happy deathsquads, according to most analysts, they still don't hold a candle to the US.

Edit

While I was writing my essay you guys went ahead and started talking, hokay.

Dantrag- The reason gas prices are going up is because the oil companies recently pulled a fast one on the American Citizens, or have you been watching the news? Every oil exec in the business has been indicted and forced to try and explain their booming profits. They played it out as some sort of supply and demand thing, but there lacks a vital piece for that argument to be logical.

Iraq wasn't purely for Oil, every argument the liberals made about it came into existence. Look at Halliburton, they raked in billions upon billions up dollars from the Iraq expedition.

This post has been edited by DoomedOne: May 26 2006, 01:27 AM

We do things in gallons (we have yet to convert totally to metrics) but one gallon (3.875 L of gasoline) (the last time I drove by a gas station coming home from school) is two dollars and ninety-five cents.

Compared to about 1.60 in 2002/03 when the war started.

This post has been edited by Dantrag: May 26 2006, 01:30 AM

The prices have always been around double in Europe.

On the west coast gas can be up to 4 dolalrs, especially around LA, but the cost of living in general is rather high here.

60% of what they pay at the pump is taxes in Europe.

Depends where.
I will remind you that not all the Europe is the same.
And somehow I'm not so convinced it's 60% Taxes.

Actually, thats backwards. The gas companies, who are good friends with the administration, used the war as an excuse to raise gas prices. Certain politicians (mostly in the administration) don't mind because they get huge amounts of money in taxes from the companies, or they're in the scam with them. Funny enough, CANADIAN oil companies are using the Iraq war as an excuse to rob us too, even though we have one of the largest oil reserves in the world.

As for the subject of American hating, I think hating an entire country becuase of those in power is rediculous. I don't burn Iraqi flags because of Saddam (actually, I've never burned a flag) and I don't hate my pro-Bush friends (although I do wonder why they voted for him).

EDIT: I get so freaking mad when I reply to this stuff.

I just have a moment I'm at work.

So Doomed your saying the UN coalition that was sent to Somolia was because initiated because Pakistan and all the other supporters wanted to force american business on the somolians? Your to funny.

Just in case this is directed to me, I stated I dislike US leaders, but I have nothing against people.

Read up on it, you're not getting the full story on the Somalia illegal invasion.

Well I'm not going to bother. Why? Cause I give up, I'm battered, torn up, mutilated and most of all tired. I can't do a multi-front campaign and keep my sanity any longer. Congrats.

The cold hard truth of it is that the American Government isn't good or evil. It is subject to the same ebbs and flows of morality that plague every nation. The only difference is that the US has alot more capacity to affect change. Sometimes this is for the better, sometimes it is not. One thing to remember is that most of the time when it is for the better, no one will ever hear about it or even realized that it was for the best. When its for the worst, everyone hears about it and will never forget it.

Example.. Alot of you sound like you are against the war in Iraq. Why? mostly because you don't see a reason for us to be there. Now what if, hypothetically speaking, we would have invaded and found a store of nuclear tipped warheads or at least material for creating dirty bombs. If no invasion had taken place and they then used these weapons and killed thousands or millions of people. Who would have been blamed then for NOT taking action sooner. The US of course. To be the American government/president means that there is no good course of action. You will get blamed for taking action and you will get blamed for not taking action.

This is another major reason why the US is looked on in a bad light. We are the action takers for good or for woe is to be judged by history, but being humans we really focus on the bad much less than the good.

Truth is that it is easy enough to look back on events in hindsight and complain about how it never should have happened, however, when those decisions were made, the decision makers didn't have the power to know the future.

The same thing will soon happen with Iran. Someone is going to have to make a decision whether to believe the Iran government that they only want to make peaceful nuclear power and not take action. This of course risks the fact that they are lying and will use their new weapon on someone(most likely Israel) which in turn will spark a major war where millions more will be killed. Or take action and possibly kill a few hundred people but putting the chance of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon back a hundred years. Which will you choose? What if you choose wrong?

Thank you Neela, you just said what I couldn't of said.

As for Iran, let someone else deal with it, you know?

It is and they do ... it's called crack. I don't know anything about this Mexican attitude towards personal drugs, but I'm not at all surprised.

I realize that this post was a ways back, but I felt I had to comment on it because these illegal drug enabling countries are destroying the fiber of American life and that might really be their ultimate aim.

Concerning Americas attitudes about war in foriegn lands that seemingly don't affect us much .... let's see, Viet Nam was about very precious minerals vital to the space program being in abundance in the SouthEast basin, especially in Viet Nam. Obviously Desert Storm and Afganistan and Iraq are about oil ... of huge concern to American highway commerce. Our "efforts" in Columbia, Panama, and other countries South of us are more concerning cocaine than bananas. We reach out and control for our own commercial interests ... if we happen to free some people here and there from dictators, all the better.

{In some cases we were the ones who set the dictator up to rule in the first place ... but they became uncontrollable power freaks.} ... but we won't mention that.

Actually it's more like 70-80% in Norway, and the current price is about NOK 11-13 per liter, which is almost 2 dollars/euros. So about 7 dollars/euro for a US gallon.

And since I work in the oil business, I'd also like to point out that one of the main reasons for the high prices around the world is that very many oil-producing wells have reached their peak, and is now starting to produce less. This combined with a heavy increase in demand for oil - like the current industrial revolution in China - contributes to bringing the prices up.

Currently there are a huge amount of exploration wells under planning and already started all over the world, so hopefully they'll turn up good oil and gas producers which will bring the prices back down, but it could take some time.

Neela-

The US is not justified to go and invade every country it doesn't like just because a few people are suspicious they have nuclear weapons. The reason people are against the Iraq war is because the intelligence that pointed to Iraq as a threat was faulty, biased, and used for that purpose, as members of the administration who decided to clear their conscience by exposing the truth have informed us.

Everything about going into Iraq was wrong. Members of the administration have said Hussein was responsible for 9/11, by accident, during numerous press conferences, have said that it was necessary to get that dictator out of office, have said they want to invade Iraq because of some very real evidence on WMDs and because of a link to Al Quada, and have said that invading Iraq is all part of the war on terror.

Now, as a lot of people figured out before, but were ignored and are only allowed to say, "I told you so" today, we have the result, the reason why WE DON'T TRUST THE GOVERNMENT.

On removing Saddam Hussein, there are far more far worse dictators that harbour far more terrorists that Hussein ever did. Not only that, but historically the US has enplaced many more dictators than they've removed.

On WMDs, the main point being what if, well a fellow by the name of Richard A Clarke wrote a whole book revealing that the administration manipulated evidence, omitted evidence, and basically painted the report they wanted to use to make Iraq seems like it might possibly have WMDs. For god sakes some of their field intelligence on the matter was written by crayon!

On Al Quada, Bush has closer links to Al Quada than Hussein.

Oh, and of course on Terror, don't they say you should learn your enemy? Terrorism is the result of when people can't fight back by conventional means and choose unconventional means. The more war you wage, the more you piss people off that want revenge but can't go round up an army to do it, and so choose terrorism.

So, there, Neela, and no I'm not trying to turn this argument to be about Iraq, you had an example about how the US doing bad things gets highlighted, and the good stuff ignored, and about some what-if thing, so I retorted that particular example. Here's the funny thing, anyone with a drop of common sense knew all I just said before they ever went to Iraq, and knew what the final result would be. When an administration ignores their people, lies to them, and expects them to just eat their lies for dinner, and pretends the cator to freedom, equality and justice above all else, they are so soaked with corruption and draw such heavy opposition that Of course anyone who looks at them and their deeds will look with cynical eyes. It's like the boy who cried wolf.

Pretend to fight for freedom, invade a country and enplace a puppet dictator once, okay

Pretend to send aid and instead remove the anti US government and enplace their own puppet government & deathsquad, twice, okay

Make up bad things about a country to give reason for invading it so your friends' company can move in and make billions on the rebuild, and all your other associated friends and their companies can move in, too, no, not okay.

Actually none of it is okay ... but it happens. Why?

Since the long drawn-out miasma of the Viet Nam war, American politicians have learned and perfected the art of the mini-war. And the timing of them, to fit nicely within a certain administration, extend until just beyond a voting date and then to be miraculously ended by the ruling party that started the war for profit. Kind of redundant to say that, because all wars are for profit.
W. actually has failed at the mini-war, he's let his midEastern war get way out of hand. He had a real incentive though - vendetta, the avenging of his father's name, George Senior - who was forced to let Saddam slip out of his hands by his own administration in order to tie up their little miniwar neatly at the time.
But George W. served his purpose when he avenged his dad and shouldn't really ever had a second term. A second term?? He * *, he should never have had a first. But he did have a good plan ... see there's this little state called Florida and there's this little brother called Jeb... and Jeb's state has these things called hanging shads in the ballots ... & I hope that you all remember the story. Katherine Harris, who now looms large in the Senate for her Republican loyalty, arranged for the undecided ballots never to be counted, for Al Gore to be counted out on a "technical failure" and for the Bushes (yes there's a 3rd brother on Wall Street) to prosper. So W. ain't so dumb after all.
That this could happen in America, the supposedly most free nation on Earth, amazes me only less than that the American public bent over and took it.
========================
But that is not really what I wanted to say. What I want to say is a response to Player10's question about the use of the word "our". The only place I used that word was "our shores" and of course, anyone standing on a shore anywhere can use that term.
This thing about living uder one sun is so true and we should all pool together our efforts to cleanse and save our Mother Earth. Despite all that was said about illegal aliens, we here in Orlando saw the largest demonstration ever in our history that was concerning Immigration Laws, and I am on the side of making the illegals who are already here = legal. They are here, they need help, they need to be citizens, make it happen. We need the taxes.
Olav told it to you true, the oil reserves of the world are shrinking and although they are looking for new ones ... the hard fact is that someday there just ain't gonna be anymore. No more dinosaurs dying, are there? Sooo, we all need to think of cleaner ways of power - wind power, solar power, oceanic current power, corn squeezin's power. I know some people will say nuclear, but when they can tell what their gonna do with that heavy sludge that's left over to make it totally safe for Earth .. then I'll include that one.
And this that Olav said, really says it all to me ... and I would hope to you too:

Bout time we all started thinking of ourselves as children of Earth, like the original Americans did ... Mother Earth, Father Sun - respect the land and the animals are our brothers. Respect. I don't think the modern day has that word at all.