Do you "Hate" the United States?

I hate the United States government ...the people of the US I do not know so I can not say, there must be some good and bad just like in every country.

What I hate is the influence the US government has in the politics and culture of other countries and the way other governments kow tow to whatever the USA wants, just so they get a few crumbs thrown their way in trade agreement. Trade agreement? that's a laugh, other countries dare not disagree, they just do as they are told by BIG BROTHER.

I hate the way the USA has managed the infiltrate every landmass on this planet with military bases and supplied arms to keep staged bogus wars going just so they can profit in blood.

I hate that most of the TV broadcast in my country is from the USA. To the naive who may say 'Well so what, what is wrong with that ? Well I'll tell you what is wrong with that. This is Australia, not the USA and we do have to stand by and watch our cultural heritage disappear due to the influences of some other government that is hellbent on world domination. I do not have to tolerate my government being weak either and unfortunatley that is what it is.

I dislike Austrlaians embracing American ideals and concepts as if they are the best and greates thing n the world (McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Hungry Jacks, Wendys, and the concept of the shopping malls - hate those little mall rats)

I hate the way that young people in Australia are starting to use American accents and say stuff like 'Whatever" "Talk to the hand" and other idiotic sayings from American sitcoms. Australian and British words are disappearing from our vocabulary and finally, I dislike the attitude of some Americans and in particular, your government be they either Democrats or Republicans (they are all corrupt)that they are superior to everyone else on this planet. The USA is ethnocentric.

I do not mean to be offensive but hey my culture is under threat and faces extinction.

I hate the way I have been treated by the US government in regard to 9/11, you see I am not a citizen of the US (would never want to be) and resent being treated like one. Let me explain...citizens of the US are supposed to see and accept...not ask questions...not make a fuss...not exercise free speech due to being charged as a terrorist in a kangaroo court and thrown into Guantanamo Bay.

I do not see and accept, I seek answers to my questions and if someone wants to
label me a terrorist becasue I have an opinion then so be it.

I am an Australian and at the time of writing this was still able to exercise free speech (how long I have to wonder for the time is coming when I fear that Australia will become the next state of the USA...I hear ya ol::lol.

I am sorry I feel this way I do not like what I see.

I have not said this just to incite ill will at ATS, I am sincere in my beliefs and opinions

resi

Peace for ALL of us SOON

Hate America?

Hmm... Can't say I hate all of it, no.

I dislike Bush and his administration immensely. Had a lot of respect for Clinton, yeah he had his moments but no-one really felt uncomfortable with him in the hot seat. Bush comes across as an arrogant, war mongering inept fool.

I could certainly do without the crass arrogance alot of Americans display. I could definitely do without having world history re-writen by ill educated morons just so it can feed the American ego. Americans mostly have no concept of real history, in my experience.

I would love my son to be able to growup speaking his native language and not some bastardised version of it that he's learnt off US-born television and rap culture.

Compensation culture sucks too, and thats straight from America. You aren't just a clumsy bastard who needs to look where they are going in the UK anymore, because everything is someones fault apparently. Oddly, that attitude is reflected in US foreign poilicy. Its always someone else's fault.

The positives? I think the US is founded on a great ideal. I find most US people I come across to be well mannered and polite - (except for an overnighting cruise ship full of tourists in Italy in 1997, who were the biggest bunch of morons I've ever met and caused the hotel staff to open a seperate dining room for them becasue of the complaints).

I think the US has, with its great industrial base and mix of people, advanced the world scientifically, technologically and creatively.

I think what it boils down to is that, in relative terms, the US is a teenage nation compared to the European cultures. Teenagers do things their way. Thats the way it is.

But as that great American Uncle Ben Parker, of Spiderman fame, told his erstwhile nephew "With great power there must also come great responsibility."

I just wish America realised that, and certainly some of the posters on ATS need to understand it.

[edit on 18-10-2006 by neformore]

[edit on 18-10-2006 by neformore]

posted by resistancia
I hate the way that young people in Australia are starting to use American accents and say stuff like 'Whatever" "Talk to the hand" and other idiotic sayings from American sitcoms. Australian and British words are disappearing from our vocabulary and finally, I dislike the attitude of some Americans and in particular, your government be they either Democrats or Republicans (they are all corrupt)that they are superior to everyone else on this planet. The USA is ethnocentric.

A good day to ya pal, how'r ya doin', trouble wyth th'lassie?

Don't hate so much (6x), I understand you perfectly well. You don't like yanks to rape your Mathilda. Fair enough!

I've been to Oz, I know what you mean, and if I should choose a place to resettle it would be down under - most privileged country I've ever seen (for white folks). I love your space and nature, your cultural mix, your disrespect of social class, your straight forwardness - so I don't take your post il intended, in no way, mate.
That's how aussies talk, straight forward.

I've never been to America - except for once being stock in LAX transit on my way cross pacific - but I've have ever since I got a perception of the world, just loved America, for all the myths I was raised on, the cowboys and indians, the wild west, the settlers in the wilderness, "land of oppurtunities", so forth, the big cars, the skyscrapers, its great spirit expressed in the multi-mix known as American Culture. Its music took me at an early age and was never to let go its grip.

Amercans have to me always been the most interesting and intertaining people to be around. I've adored them all my life, but you're right, now they make me sad, not because of their culture, but their politics. Yes, folks from America makes me sad. Not the "nuke'em" arrogants, I,ve got nothing to do with them, but the easygoing more or less hip ones I've known for years. They're getting offensive, getting scared to a degree where they have to defend these very un-american politics an unlawful administration rams down their throat.
No, I don't like US politics, and to tell what I think oughta be done to Dubaya, would earn me a single ticket to... well, it's classified. So I don't.

Just let me say I dislike George double trouble as much I do John Howard and my own man of the dark, Mr Rasmussen of the ridiculous, windy, cold, rain-infested, envy-ridden, islamophobic country I come from.
But it doesn't make me hate my country.
In fact the further out in social injustice, illegal alliances and human rights abuses it gets, the more I appriciate its uniqueness, and the more it needs my love, cause hate don't change anything, it polarizes, make things flip into something worse.
So love is all you need, and it goes more than ever for America.

Face this fact and give it some consideration. Sophisticated weaponery, or even its predominance, didn't win the Cold War. A culture did, the American, the richest, widest spanning and most all embracing the world has ever seen.

It conquered the anglo-sachsian, christian caucasian world with its multi-faceted expressions from stupid brain-dead inducing sitcoms to the poetry embedded in the long tradition of its popular music. That's what people wanted. The Soviet culture couldn't give them anything near, so it eventually had to collapse -- well, the build-in lies in its economy helped.

The moral is, in the end the People always gets what they want, though it might take an awful lot of suffering and killing, before they get there.
So the question is now, what does the American People want.
Not their sons to get killed in Iraq.
Not to be increasingly disgraced in the world opinion.
Not to have their system of justice compromised by implementations of Soviet-like laws.
And definitely not to have their freedom put on the peril by such laws.

By the way, anybody ever read Franz Kafka's novel "The Trial"? About a character named Josef K., who awakens one morning and, for reasons never revealed, is arrested and subjected to the rigours of the judicial process for an unspecified crime.
It was a nightmare fiction of future times in 1925 when it was published. As we all know the horrors did came true, and a system cherishing core values of liberty and individual freedom, fortunately came to our help and fought and destroyed the tyranni. Some of us are forever thankful for that.
But who is to fight the present day lone-superpower tyranni? There's only the People to do that. Civil obedience have brought down administrations and stopped wars before in the history of America. That's why they make these unlawful laws, to scare them off.
I pray to my soul they won't succeed.

You can't count on Osama to do the work, he's not doing it for liberty and freedom (should be clear), no, he's doing it out of hate to that most successful culture in the history of Man. The American. And the US should respect that.
They don't want no shallow entertainment, pornography or ungodly music.

That's the core of the problem of this war, that has made Americans so much hated worldwide. They want the oil (and to pay for it), but they wanna pay with what they've got - American culture. Only problem, they donne wannit.
What this so-called WOT is all about.

Tell me, who is the real terrorist, the one forced to listen to loud music, or the one forcing that music on someone who dislikes it?

For more on the subject, see my signature-post

[edited for adding this suggestion: make the 17th of October into a day of sorrow.
On that day of shame the military tribunal laws were passed.
Every forthcomming October 17, lower your flag to half mast until these disgraceful laws are removed]

[edit on 19/10/06 by khunmoon]

Hey khunmoon...yeah I do say hate alot...and yeah I am straighforward...I am an Aussie...just be lucky I ain't got a gun and shooting straight from the hip!

Your reply is most thought provoking....I like that (see I can say something other than 'I hate').

I have to agree with you on some of the points you make and I found myself nodding my head whilst reading your post. The US is culturally rich, a factor that makes it a great nation. But if I want a dose of American culture I will go there, just like when I need Greek culture I go there. I do not need it in my face 24/7 and in small doses there is no harm. I do not feel that I am uneccessarily judgemental, I am just annoyed and betrayed as human being by the horrific events and deception. It is normal to be fearful of all I see but I have not yet reached the stage of paranoia (them meds help....just kidding mate).



cheers resi

Hello again resistancia,
thanx for replying, no I didn't mean any offense. Just to show I understand you Aussies. And a lot of great ones of them on this board, by the way.

I just wanna say welcome to the ATS! Hope you shall enjoy your stay.

-khunmoon-

Summary of thread to date: we don't hate Americans. Most of us love the idea of America and some Americans are wonderful people.

But we hate American foreign policy and the ignorant, superior, sometimes thuggish attitudes all too often displayed by Americans in their dealings with other people around the world.

Is there anything more that has been said, or needs to be said? I really don't think so.

I was in no way offended, my friend.

Thanks for the welcome and I am sure we will have lots to say to each other
in the future.


In Pace
resi

And of course, some of us deeply resent America's dominance of the world economy and popular culture. As who would not?

hi astyanax,

I think you summed it up correctly


In Pace
resi

Originally posted by Astyanax
And of course, some of us deeply resent America's dominance of the world economy and popular culture. As who would not?

Yeah summed it up good, but on the other hand I guess im just a hater.