Someneck wrote:My wife worked in Lancashire in 2007 and she got a lot of flak (Fliegerabwehrkanone) for being American. I told her it was the result of the Bush years and she almost believes me. Post war there was resentment about Americans bonking all the lower class British women during the war while the men were fighting in places like Burma (my dad was). That lasted until Elvis and Gene Vincent and Little Richard and big cars of the 50's when people thought America was great ! Vietnam was the start of slippy slope - with all those burned Vietnamese children on our screens every day.
Clinton was a high point and provided laughs when he was doing the Polish Jewish girl in the White House.
When Bush took over he scrapped environmental measures and started a lying war and then the sky fell. People really hated what America was doing. There are 460 million people in Europe alone and they hated Bush and everything he represented - swaggering cowboy, ignorant, couldn't speak properly, violent trampling on people everywhere and cynically lying about it and his stupid WMD's
Then Obama came along and everyone applauded it and saw a brand new day for America - still slipping economically but gaining respect as a civilized nation with universal health care and no new wars
If Romney, and I am deadly serious now, if Romney wins, we will be thrown into a new dark age of cultish repressive religious laws and new wars for his friends to profiteer from. I predict the world's view of the USA will be lower than EVER in history
I said something similar before on here once and the reply was "fuck the world" and I know there are Americans like that - -but I have learned they might be the majority on online - but not in the population.
The next 3 weeks will change the world - and there are undecideds!
As long as we're the hyperpower and they're not, they'll hate us. Not all of them, but Islam wants a world caliphate and there'll always be fundementalists who want to press it. If the US power wanes and China comes to inherit our position, you'll have Syrians, Libyans, and Pashtuns pissing and moaning about the great slanteye'd devil.
That said, the idea Europe loves us more under Democrat than a Republican is a bullshit, and rather pointless, observation. Obama hasn't closed down Gitmo, hasn't done anything different than Nixon in Iraq or Afganistan, and went into Libya, while Bush hasn't done anything to Iran Obama hasn't. Secretary Clinton, in fact, has said nothing to the contrary of the Bush administrations policies toward Iran. So, if it's the case that Europeans like Americans more under a Democrat, then it's because of image and not policy.
On the topic of Iran, and foreign policy in general, I think we do need a much better realpolitick. I can't say most of what we've done isn't beneficial, but we no longer live in the Cold War while our alliances do. Israel, for all it's strengths, no longer serves a purpose as an ally; nor does most of Europe. To my knowledge, we don't have any bases in Saudi Arabia, though we do in Kuwait, UAE, and Turkey, and recieve only a small fraction of our oil from the Middle East. I'd rather see us try to restore relations with Iran, who can serve as a base and influence in the Middle East, Central Asia, and Southern Asia, rather than on Saudi Arabia. On that note, we also need to say "Fuck Europe(Britain excepted)" and start doing more to court Russia.
- By wat0n
- By Potemkin