Non-American views of America/Americans

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mkdominatr

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I find it very interesting what non americans say about the election and the people. I missed the election by 24 days as i will be 18 on the 26th. I would have voted for Kerry although its not like a dont like bush. He's done a decent job, and now he needs to clean everything up. But the country is reall y divided. i think everyone at school voted for kerry, and that sasy something about the young vote. Pennsylvania carried kerry anyway. Just wondering what everyone else was thinking.
 
and it must really suck to spend 100's of millions of dollars (fund raisers most likely) and 2 years of your life and end up a loser. But like Kerry said. "No one is a loser cause we will always wake up Americans"
 
I am most definitely a minority of foreigners on this forum who supports Bush. It comes down to the GWOT and unwavering support for Israel, the two issues are entwined. Now I will not argue the point for the next week or so because people are venting, but I have reasons that I think Bush is better for the world in the long term; backing away from the fight would seal America's fate.

Don't agree with me thats perfectly fine, but at least do so with dignity.
 
I have nothing against America as a whole. Some of my best friends are Americans, in fact. I do, however, have something against your president.

Everyone was talking about it today at school. And just about everyone was in utter shock and disappointment that Kerry didn't make it. Myself included, though I must say, I wasn't all that shocked over the results. I knew Bush would win from the word go.
 
Let me try to write down my point of view as a german.

When I grew up, i always looked up to america - everybody i knew did. I always respected the United States for what they are - a great country with ideals and big ideas. Hey, it saved us from the Nazis and let our country become a great democrathy!
America always had a good reputation here in Germany, especially when Clinton was President.
Then there was the election in 00 - a total mess and betrayal to the voter, and suddenly the country that always seemed to be the perfect one wasn´t that perfect anymore. But: shit happends, I thought.
There were some people who were worried about Bush, but then again, they said: ok, what´s the matter - maybe he´s not the right man for the job of the most important man in the world, but it´s still America, the trusted country with all those ideals and bis ideas.
That´s four years ago. Only four years, but they changed it all.
At first there was 9/11, and it was one of the saddest days - not only in the US, also in the rest of the world and germany. I was shocked and fighting with tears when i saw what happened. And I was on the side of the US when they marched in in Afghanistan.

But then there was Iraq, which has nothing to do with the war on terror and was already planned before 9/11. The false resons for that war and the lies that were made to start the war.
Now there´s anti-americanism wherever you go. Many germans lost their trust and respect to the US, and all because of Mr. Bush ("Aaaaall becauuuse of yooouuu!" *g*). The country that we all looked up to turned into one that we don´t trust anymore. In only four years!! The enormous lie, that led into the Iraq-war changed it all. Then there was Kyoto, Abu-Graibh and all those things that let us lose our trust. America has lost its respect in the world because of its president. It isolated itself because of the imperialistic, greedy and dishonest politics in Iraq.
Not all germans were against the war. I wasn´t, because I trusted this president. I couldn´t imagine that the president of a great country like yours would betray the whole world. He did.

That´s why about 80 % of the german people would have voted for Kerry, and so would I have. But it was a democratic decision (and I´m glad it was!) and I respect it. And I still respect the amercian people and their country. But I hope Kerry was not right when he said, the re-election of Bush would mean "more of the same". Because I still do believe and hope, that the people here can look up to america the way they did before and respect and trust it. But I´m afraid that this will take another four years and another election.
Nevertheless, I´m not as negative as many others in my country because I know that America is better that its president.
God bless you!
 
FlamingRudy said:
Let me try to write down my point of view as a german.


Nevertheless, I´m not as negative as many others in my country because I know that America is better then its president.
God bless you!

Amen.
 
One of the major concerns I have is that foreign media portrays what they want to portray of the US. I watch the BBC news frequently and am amazed by the absolute bias they reflect. I can only imagine it is far worse in some other media outlets. There also seem to be many non-Americans who seem to favor Kerry, or dislike Bush, without having all points of view presented to them. I have had the same issue with people from outside of MA tell me what a good leader Kerry is without really knowing in detail what his record is or what he stands for. In fact, many people in MA who voted for him can't tell me exactly why. I think all dissenting views should always be analyzed and tolerated. I just wish more people were informed on the details of every issue. We, as Americans, I think always try to do the best we can in helping others around the globe. You may not always agree with our methods. It is your right as free people. Others around the globe are not as lucky.
 
Boston01 said:
One of the major concerns I have is that foreign media portrays what they want to portray of the US.

That actually works both ways. I find American media astonishingly bad. And I can definitely see bias (both ways) in the media here in Australia and overseas. Just watch and read more from more corners of the globe. Eventually you'll read/hear enough different opinions to get an opinion.
 
The American media has been astonishingly bad throughout this madman's term. It has managed to get its act together somewhat over the last few months but way too late. As a European who hates Bush and everything that he stands for I really fear for our world over the next four years. To those Americans who voted against Bush I hope u know that the rest of the world realises that u are there and that u will be there in the future. Take care.
 
my views of america are probably best not expressed.

i don't hate americans. there's many here that i really like at interference alone, and i know a good deal in real too.

however, the administration and the mentality of a good number of american folk that i've encoutered makes me heave.

perhaps a quick lesson in geography would improve matters, but i'm afraid their government is more interested in spending money on wars they don't need to fight rather than giving it to an education system that doesn't offer any immediate monetary rewards for a company such as halliburton.

look at me, i'm rambling. my apologies, it's late and my words are mudded. perhaps tommorow i'll come back and articulate my feelings better.

however, it is important to stress that i do not hate americans. not even maybe. i love them like i love canadians and anyone else.
 
Boston01 said:
One of the major concerns I have is that foreign media portrays what they want to portray of the US. I watch the BBC news frequently and am amazed by the absolute bias they reflect. I can only imagine it is far worse in some other media outlets. There also seem to be many non-Americans who seem to favor Kerry, or dislike Bush, without having all points of view presented to them. I have had the same issue with people from outside of MA tell me what a good leader Kerry is without really knowing in detail what his record is or what he stands for. In fact, many people in MA who voted for him can't tell me exactly why. I think all dissenting views should always be analyzed and tolerated. I just wish more people were informed on the details of every issue. We, as Americans, I think always try to do the best we can in helping others around the globe. You may not always agree with our methods. It is your right as free people. Others around the globe are not as lucky.

That's interesting because most non American folks, including the ones in here, know and have a better understanding for American politics than the average American. Sad but true.
 
For a look at a more true representation of the U.S. populace, please watch Jerry Springer .

Most Americans know nothing and care less about the outside world, and are of the fervent belief that God (the Christian one, of course) loves them better then He loves anyone else.

And they have voted for a President who agrees with them.

Do i hate americans? Not really...

Do i like those americans who voted for Bush? No, i don't like them.
 
U2_Guy said:
For a look at a more true representation of the U.S. populace, please watch Jerry Springer .

Most Americans know nothing and care less about the outside world, and are of the fervent belief that God (the Christian one, of course) loves them better then He loves anyone else.

And they have voted for a President who agrees with them.

It's very tough to make a blanket statement about Americans, especially in regard to this election.

There is an extremely noticeable divide in this country between the conservatives and liberals...even moderates have strong opinions these days. Per usual, Bush won the vote in virtually every state between the east coast and the west coast (aside from the upper mid-west (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois).

I hope non-Americans understand that, while by shear numbers, Bush won the vote, the concentration of people who voted for Bush (and whose states gave Bush his electoral votes) lie in these very conservative, Bible-belt areas. The only thing that makes a conservative evangelist from Alabama like a liberal from New York is our rule under a common law. On opinions and ideologies, I'm not sure two people can differ more...

I can tell you for one thing, that in Chicago, there was absolute depression amongst many people I went to work with and saw on the streets. Some actually got physically sick the day after the election.

Now that Bush is president, I sincerely hope he concentrates both on uniting our very divided nation as well as uniting our allies better and not just on winning military battles.
 
Bush says "We have one country, one Constitution and one future that binds us." Leaving aside the issue that this sounds suspiciously like Sauron from Lord of the Rings, I fail to see how a president who has actively been the most divisive in modern times can say this with a straight face.

With a record turnout and, excepting 2000, the closest race in a century, America is now one country but two deeply-divided nations: white religious fanatics and everyone else.

I am impressed that a majority of Americans obviously put morals and religion before their economic interests, but anyone seriously now say that USA 04 is that different from other recent examples of dangerous fundamentalism.

The anti-gay, anti (legal) abortion, racist, gun-loving, and apple pie brigade now have their era, possibly in a way never seen before. Add to that a couple of more nuts on the Supreme Court to upset the already difficult conservative/liberal divide and you have a serious problem.

Maybe Bush deserves a chance, but he said pretty much the same thing in 2000 and we all know what happened then.

9/11 has made him more rabid for sure. We are now, officially, in the era of Bush. As a non-citizen, it does not matter at all to me whether Americans are a majority of religious nuts. But non-citizens are entitled to annoyed when that fanatacism becomes part of mainstream foreign policy by the leading global power. I feel sorry for Palestinians waking up this morning to 4 more years of Bush.
 
reflections from sub-saharan africa

This is a timely topic. Last night as I lay in bed, I found myself reflecting on the reactions of the Africans I live and work with. Since I have been living here in the last year, I have had many conversations with people who have asked me if Americans actually approved of the job Bush was doing. I told them honestly that I didn't know about others, but that I for one was very unhappy with his presidency. They always seemed relieved to find that some Americans have (their words, not mine) common sense and a global view. People told me all the time that they like America, the concept of it, but that they were dumbfounded by the policies of the Bush administration. Everyone assumed that no one would ever vote for him this time around, given his disastrous record, even though I assured them that not only would people vote for him, but he would probably win. People here honestly didn't believe me.

The day before the elections, one of my coworkers told me very insistently that it was crucial that I vote. He said, "you are the only vote, the only voice we have. And this election will affect us all. You have to vote against Bush."

Last night after the outcome was final, I was sitting around chatting with some of the young men in my neighborhood. One of them asked me why I looked down, and I told him that I was depressed with the election results. "Bush won," I said. "What???? It's not possible!" he exclaimed and kept repeating. His other friends started into a long description of the electoral college and the situation in Ohio and the provisional ballots...rather amazing when you consider how far removed these people are from the States. He then quoted the statistics of how many US soldiers had been killed in Iraq that day and how the majority of casualties had been incurred after Bush declared the war "over". I was surprised that they follow the news so closely.

One of my other colleagues asked me incredulously how it was possible that the people of the US could vote for a proven liar who presented himself as someone religious. He ticked off the long list of misrepresentations regarding the WMDs and the war in Iraq. I told him that I was as lost for an answer as he was.

In summary, the impression I get is this. People in the world may have been behind America in the days after 9/11. But the Bush administration has squandered every last dime of that goodwill. And now, this election has confirmed what people did not want to believe, that the American public actually approve of what he is doing and will continue to do to jeapordize the safety and peace of the world. I fear that the US is now well and truly "on it's own" and that not many people will waste their sympathy on us in the future.
 
To be honest, outside of the war on terror the British media doesn't tell you anything at all on what Bush's policies are, as far as the British media is concerned all he's campaigned on is the war on terror.

I assue he has policies on education, health, budget etc etc. But we know none of these. IMHO I was disappointed to see Bush elected again into the White House purely on how he delt with Iraqi and how he seemed to play on the emotions of the American people after 9/11 as a back door into Iraqi to take control of it and it's oil. But overall I can't really comment too much as I don't live in the US, I don't know if he's doing a good job of running the country outside of the war on terror.

As for my opinions on American's, yeah man, you guys are alright by me!
 
From yesterday's Financial Times (London) newspaper - the article below summarises some world views of the Bush administration.

Quentin Peel: Sentenced to four more years
By Quentin Peel
Published: November 3 2004 21:03 | Last updated: November 3 2004 21:03

George W. Bush's victory over John Kerry is not the result the world wanted. The Democratic challenger was much the most popular US presidential candidate in nearly every country bar the US. But foreigners do not have votes. For a majority of American voters, the incumbent president was the man who made them feel safer in a world threatened by global terrorism after the events of September 11 2001.

With some obvious exceptions, notably Israel and Russia, most other nations feel the opposite: that with Mr Bush as US president, the world is a more dangerous place. In Europe and Asia, Africa and Latin America, they believe the US-led war in Iraq has further destabilised the volatile Middle East. They see their economies threatened by the resulting rise in energy prices. They fear that the United Nations, overwhelmingly trusted as the best available institution for peacekeeping and conflict-resolution, has been undermined by America's unilateralism. They mistrust the US inclination to pre-emptive military action.

Such views were apparently not shared by a majority of US voters when they went to the polls on Tuesday, although the country remains deeply divided. Mr Bush and his team will see that as a vindication of their muscular prosecution of the so-called "war on terror", lumping it together with the invasion of Iraq. The president's absolute self-belief, and his dedication to the fight of "good" against "evil", motivated a solid constituency of conservatives and religious evangelists in his support.

Mr Bush's victory presents a great dilemma for the outside world, including many of America's traditional allies. The Bush administration's ideological unilateralism has split Europe and widened the transatlantic divide. It was not just the ill-judged invasion of Iraq but also the underlying conviction that "coalitions of the willing" were to be preferred to the Nato alliance. Mr Bush and his neo-conservative advisers seem hell-bent on reworking the international order that has kept the peace more or less successfully since the second world war.

Many of the European nations that have contributed to the "coalition forces" in Iraq have done so because they feel they must stick close to the superpower come what may, and not out of conviction that its policies are right. Other friendly countries, such as Turkey and India, were appalled at the invasion. "It is very sad. They wanted an international coalition against Iraq, and they ended up by getting virtually an international alliance against America," says Jaswant Singh, India's former foreign minister. "I do hope they have learnt an extremely costly but very necessary lesson."

There was no sign of that from Mr Bush on the campaign trail. Yet the danger of a descent into chaos in Iraq will greatly raise the pressure for dissenters, such as France and Germany, to get involved. Both have repeatedly rejected the idea of sending soldiers there but neither wants to see a failed state emerge. Whatever they may think in Washington, neither Paris nor Berlin wants to see the US humiliated. They need to work out a new modus vivendi.

Iran follows hard on Iraq's heels as a potential source of friction between Mr Bush and his allies. The European Union (including members of the Iraqi coalition, such as the UK and Italy), Russia and India all believe that a policy of carrot and stick is needed to persuade Tehran to abandon its nuclear ambitions. They recognise that the country has genuine security concerns in a region where both Israel and Pakistan already have nuclear weapons, while neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan are profoundly unstable. They fear that a powerful lobby of hawks in Washington might persuade the re-elected president to launch missile strikes against presumed nuclear facilities in Iran, ending any hopes of peaceful reconciliation.

There are hopes, not least in London, that a Bush-2 administration will be altogether more heedful of international concerns, just as the second term of Ronald Reagan produced a more sensitive foreign policy. Yet the opposite could well be true. Mr Bush's electoral success was gained on an unashamedly hawkish policy platform. Colin Powell, his most moderate adviser, seems certain to quit as secretary of state at the end of the year. His successor is unlikely to be so sensitive to international alarm.

The more positive view is that two perceptions may finally percolate through to the White House. One is that dividing America into fiercely partisan camps may help re-election but it will not help in the history books. The other is that Iraq will never be stabilised without a far broader coalition, to give any future regime the legitimacy US occupation forces so clearly fail to provide.

A triumphant Mr Bush may not be inclined to hear such messages. But there is another view gaining credence in an increasingly despairing international community: that only after another four years of muddle and mistakes by an ideologically driven administration will enough people realise that even the sole superpower cannot remain deaf to its allies forever. Only then will the lesson be learnt. It may be a very expensive price to pay.
 
If the USA wanted Iraq's oil then it could have just cut a deal with Iraq to sell cheap in exchange for the sanctions being lifted, they spent 200 billion in Iraq and that could buy a lot of oil off Saddam.
 
paulrg said:

With some obvious exceptions, notably Israel and Russia

I think the Beslan schoolhouse massacre may have changed Vladimir Putin's thinking a bit.
 
A_Wanderer said:
If the USA wanted Iraq's oil then it could have just cut a deal with Iraq to sell cheap in exchange for the sanctions being lifted, they spent 200 billion in Iraq and that could buy a lot of oil off Saddam.

It worked for a number of French, Russian and UN officials.
 
A_Wanderer said:
If the USA wanted Iraq's oil then it could have just cut a deal with Iraq to sell cheap in exchange for the sanctions being lifted, they spent 200 billion in Iraq and that could buy a lot of oil off Saddam.

Do you stand for your country the same way you stand for the USA?
 
Well, My first "view" is:

Isn't America an entire continent? I don't see why just one country gets to be "America". I used to think I was an American because I live in Honduras. I guess I was wrong... :eyebrow:
 
Lo-Fi said:
To be honest, outside of the war on terror the British media doesn't tell you anything at all on what Bush's policies are, as far as the British media is concerned all he's campaigned on is the war on terror.

I assue he has policies on education, health, budget etc etc. But we know none of these. IMHO I was disappointed to see Bush elected again into the White House purely on how he delt with Iraqi and how he seemed to play on the emotions of the American people after 9/11 as a back door into Iraqi to take control of it and it's oil. But overall I can't really comment too much as I don't live in the US, I don't know if he's doing a good job of running the country outside of the war on terror.

I wouldnt' necessarily agree with you there, lo-fi. The reason that the majority that we saw in the british media was bush's 'war on terror' is that that was the centre of the whole campaign.

we were, however, informed about his stand on stem cell research, abortion, same sex marriage....of course the contentious issues get more coverage. And I didn't feel that we were kept in the dark on bush's policies - they were there in the news if you cared to listen. In fact, there was that much bloody coverage on the US election that I now feel I know more about politics in the US than I do in my own country. I wonder if American media has as much coverage when we have an election :hmm: Oh, and I thought that the cover of part of the guardian (uk newspaper) was very amusing today. Just completely black, apart from 2 very small words in white in the middle : 'oh god'

ps interesting link here on 'how the world sees the bush victory': http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3978489.stm
 
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Boston01 said:
One of the major concerns I have is that foreign media portrays what they want to portray of the US. I watch the BBC news frequently and am amazed by the absolute bias they reflect. I can only imagine it is far worse in some other media outlets. There also seem to be many non-Americans who seem to favor Kerry, or dislike Bush, without having all points of view presented to them. I have had the same issue with people from outside of MA tell me what a good leader Kerry is without really knowing in detail what his record is or what he stands for. In fact, many people in MA who voted for him can't tell me exactly why. I think all dissenting views should always be analyzed and tolerated. I just wish more people were informed on the details of every issue. We, as Americans, I think always try to do the best we can in helping others around the globe. You may not always agree with our methods. It is your right as free people. Others around the globe are not as lucky.

If you hang around liberal/leftist circles, you might receive the impression that the BBC and the Guardian are the only sources of media in the entire UK.

I find the Telegraph and the Economist to be a bit more balanced. (Of course, this qualifies them as right-wing in the UK.)

And of course, there's always the News of the World.
 
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