U.S.A. -- good or evil?

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If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
Good:
Our women shave their legs and smell nice, first and foremost. :drool:
Pro-Israel.
Got rid of the Whig party. (I know, I cheated with the pre-WW2 stuff)
Outlawed slavery. (Yet again)
Fought communism/socialism.
Influenced Europe to use more humane punishments for criminals.
Sought racial equality.
Devoted to combating global terrorism.
Gave birth to aviation.
Invented the internet. (Thanks, Al Gore.) :wink:
Invented the skyscraper. (Another pre-WW2 cheat, sorry)
Landed on the moon.
Invented the fortune cookie.

Bad:
Watergate.
Bay of Pigs.
Vietnam.
Adulters for presidents.
Obsessed with sex.
Many dodgy politicians.
Overweight.
Murdered John Lennon, Malcolm X, MLK, JFK, RFK, 2Pac, B.I.G., etc.
Politically divided.
 
Macfistowannabe said:
Good:
Our women shave their legs and smell nice, first and foremost. :drool:



Wow...do you realize how many women around the world you have just insulted?
 
Muggsy said:


.... I heard once that was a setup to take advantage during the cold war...

and the movie was directed by Kubrick :ohmy:
I've talked to conspiracy theorists about it, and their cases weren't very convincing.
 
Angela Harlem said:
Same goes for bottled water. I'm old enough at the ripe old age of 28 to remember the days when people drank it from a tap! Imagine that. But in our increased times of excess and expediency, we want instant clean water, instead of boiling it ourselves or buying an at home purifier. It's moved beyond being a handy product or service to make life easier, and become something we now rely on, and it's made us lazy as a result.

Bottled water still amazes me. I only buy bottled water if I'm out and forgot to bring my own water and can't find a fountain. I always have and still get my water directly from the tap. I have a couple of large bottles I fill in my kitchen sink and put in the fridge -- that way it's always cold. I love cold water. And it's cheap to buy -- something like $28 USD per 1500 gallons. I have a cistern and roof gutters which feed into it, so I haven't had to buy water in a few years.

But whoever started to market bottled water is a frickin' genius! A lot of it is simply tap water put into bottles. The same damned stuff that comes out of most people's tap! Boggles the mind. :huh:
 
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Angela Harlem said:
Touchy! Sheesh!
If anyone personally created what I object to, then my sincerest apologies for offending anyone. If not, then buck up and put it in context, eh? I just dont want to start up Word and have it underline words like 'favourite' in red, because it is spelled incorrectly. I've set my MS to English (Australian) which is it's own bastardisation of the English language, but I dont want to go through 2 lots of changes to get it spelled correctly for here. I dont want to 24 hour donut shops. Who in their right mind would want a bloody donut at 3am? On the subject of the latest invasion, Kripy Kreme, who in their right mind would want to buy a box of 12? Unless you have a family of 10 kids and it's a treat? It's excessive. And yes, I do avoid it. Like McDonalds and other fast food. On fast food though, Subway! What the hell is the deal here? A novelty healthy fast food place? It's famous for simply being healthy. That is sad. Countless sandwich bars already sell, and have done for as long as we've all been alive, healthy simple sandwiches. And they're a lot cheaper too. But in railing against (admirably) the stronghold unhealthy fast food has on all our societies, Subway has become something to bow to. This appreciation speaks more than the mere presence of Subway. I wont believe that America has never seen healthy food before. It cant be all that new and exciting, surely? Yet in it's protest against affordable convenient food, it took another giant chain to get people to eat well. Starbucks and their counterparts. Isn't this a bit excessive too? Can people not surive a few hours anymore without a coffee when they're out and about doing their errands? Our parents used to, and I'm sure they all drank a lot of coffee as well. Sure, it wasn't any swanky mocha latte frappacino with skim milk, but it served it's purpose of a caffeine hit for those in need. People survived a great long time with having coffee at home and not needing to spend the cost of half a jar of instant while 'doing the shopping' or whatever. Same goes for bottled water. I'm old enough at the ripe old age of 28 to remember the days when people drank it from a tap! Imagine that. But in our increased times of excess and expediency, we want instant clean water, instead of boiling it ourselves or buying an at home purifier. It's moved beyond being a handy product or service to make life easier, and become something we now rely on, and it's made us lazy as a result.
Is this all America's fault? Certainly not, and not in the case of 'blame' either. I'm sure all these businesses and concepts began as a way to help a rather large nation by offering things which helped make life a little easier. Consumerism took on a new face as time went on, with everything being throw-away and instant. And like all good businesses, they wanted to expand to where ever would adopt them, including here. So we lapped it up, and it kept getting fed. Here was yet another willing market for this change to spread to.

Something similar happened with television. 7,9 and 10 look at ratings for American sitcoms and realise it's cheaper to buy the rights to a season of already established popularity, than to try and create our own. Your networks utilise that popularity to sell it to overseas markets. And so when we turn on our tellies, we have a choice of American sitcoms or the latest imitation of an American based reality tv show. As for how much our industry suffers is probably debatable, but it seems the only shows here which get any run is Home and Away & Neighbours, or gardening/lifestyle programmes. Our movies have moderate success here, but how many of ours make it over there? It's not a form of cultural or social exchange when all of this is one-way. It reaches more than movies, tv and food. The fact that all of this reaches our shores is not the problem, nor whether it is quality or not (as that is subjective), but the volume of it, the saturation, is.



yup, pretty much agree with everything.

you also get to an important point -- what's often labled as "cultural imperialism" in regards to movies, tv shows, and music, aren't part of an insidious plot but are simply the restult of market-demand. i laugh when people think television, or news, espouses a certain political point of view. it doesn't. television isn't motivated by ideology, it is motivated by where the money is. the bottom line, i think, is that if people find "friends" culturally threatening -- and i think that kind of argument can be made, but it also seems a bit protectionist and parochial, and as A_W said, why not get the best of what the world has to offer? i'm very happy to have seen both "coupling" and "the office" in their original british versions -- then they need to speak with their wallets.

if people didn't watch bad movies, fewer bad movies would be made.

as for Aussie movies in the US ... well, Baz Luhrman is revered, and Jane Campion has had her share of Oscar nominations, and we all know that more and more filming is being done in Australia, like the new Star Wars movies (i don't hold you lovely people accountable for those atrocities, however; that's clearly George Lucas' fault); and Australian actors have always done well over here, from the obvious superstars (Nicole Kidman) to the up-and-coming (the lovely Naomi Watts).

i also think people make the mistake of making direct one-to-one comparisons between their country and the US. the US has 300 million people, Australia has somewhere around 28-30 million. our cultural export/output should be 10x that. people will say things like, "in sweden we do this, in the US you do that" and i find it an impossible comparison. the US is vast, geographically and culturally, and you're much more likely to make good comparisons between, say, the EU and the US than you are on a one-to-one basis.
 
beli said:
A fair bit of this thread is internationally insulting.



how?

i intended for it to be kind of contraversial, to heat things up, but i in no way intended for it to be insulting -- in fact, if i was hoping anyone would be insulted, it would have been my fellow americans. i mean no one any disrespect.

i suppose the direction i was hoping to steer towards was both cultural "imperialism" and, much more specifically, what the US did to win the Cold War -- were all those proxy wars resulting in, say, the death of 30,000 Nicaraguans worth it to defeat the Soviet Union? was what happened between 1945 and 1990 which resulted in the US "winning" -- evidence in the collapse of Communism -- achieved in such a way that the ends (no more Soviets) justified the means (proxy wars, horrible anti-communist dictators supported).
 
Irvine511 said:

were all those proxy wars resulting in, say, the death of 30,000 Nicaraguans worth it to defeat the Soviet Union? was what happened between 1945 and 1990 which resulted in the US "winning" -- evidence in the collapse of Communism -- achieved in such a way that the ends (no more Soviets) justified the means (proxy wars, horrible anti-communist dictators supported).

i don't think meddling in south america or southeast asia really did much to 'defeat' the soviet union. it's well documented that the ussr crumbled due in large part to internal problems rather than ronald reagan. so i don't think the wholesale slaughter and destruction of the "proxy wars" were really worth much of anything except the spread of u.s. hegemony. i think you'd find a lot of people who would argue that the collapse of the soviet union was indeed a bad thing in and of itself because it created a power vaccuum that left he u.s. as the only viable international force. and in the end how better off are the people of the former soviet republics? places like turkmenistan and uzbekistan have brutal dictators and most of the countries are in financial ruin. polls in russia show many people miss the soviet era. i won't make an argument for stalin or totalitarianism, but it seems like it has been a lose/lose situation for the people over there.

but we're in charge now so it has definitely been worth it. a little collateral damage never hurt anyone. /sarcasm
 
bammo2 said:
the guy that invented the internet was british
It was invented in the late 1960s so the US Department of Defense researchers could share information with each other. The Web - the part of the internet that provides users with graphics/audio/video was invented by an Englishman. Tim Berners-Lee is his name-o.
 
indra said:


Bottled water still amazes me. I only buy bottled water if I'm out and forgot to bring my own water and can't find a fountain. I always have and still get my water directly from the tap. I have a couple of large bottles I fill in my kitchen sink and put in the fridge -- that way it's always cold. I love cold water. And it's cheap to buy -- something like $28 USD per 1500 gallons. I have a cistern and roof gutters which feed into it, so I haven't had to buy water in a few years.

But whoever started to market bottled water is a frickin' genius! A lot of it is simply tap water put into bottles. The same damned stuff that comes out of most people's tap! Boggles the mind. :huh:

I must admit that I only drink bottled water, but if you had the kind of tap water that I have where you lived you probably would too. It tastes horrible and makes me feel a bit sick to my stomach.
 
Irvine511 said:


how?

i intended for it to be kind of contraversial, to heat things up, but i in no way intended for it to be insulting -- in fact, if i was hoping anyone would be insulted, it would have been my fellow americans. i mean no one any disrespect..

I tried to email you but you have turned that option off. Im not offended by anything you have said in this thread (or any other thread for that matter)

I wanted to email you as I think others have heard my story before.

I find it offensive that people in the USA subconsiously do not acknowledge that the USA is not all of America. I think most people know I used to work for Oxfam, and my history with Amnesty blah blah. etc. If you want to hear it my email is belilindt (at) gmail (dot) com but Im sure you can get the gist regardless.
 
beli said:


I tried to email you but you have turned that option off. Im not offended by anything you have said in this thread (or any other thread for that matter)

I wanted to email you as I think others have heard my story before.

I find it offensive that people in the USA subconsiously do not acknowledge that the USA is not all of America. I think most people know I used to work for Oxfam, and my history with Amnesty blah blah. etc. If you want to hear it my email is belilindt (at) gmail (dot) com but Im sure you can get the gist regardless.



oh, i agree. i try to always use "the US" or "USA" as opposed to America.

i do use Americans, which might be lazy, but i'm not sure what else i'd use ... there's no such thing as a United Statesian, and "US citizens" is a bit cumbersome for casual conversation. but point taken, absolutely.

i'm curious. will send you an email at some point.
 
I think the "fact" that the Americans DID NOT land on the moon is pretty realistic.

Remember it was at the height of the Cold War, and both sides were determined to gain an advantage in the space race.

And it doens't surprise me that the Yanks would go to such extreme lengths, particularly in the 60's.

It is possibly the biggest sham in the history of mankind and there is a good TV doco out there that explains exactly why.

It also seems rather strange that, despite the amazing rate of technological advancements, no one has attempted to "go back" to the moon. Why not?
 
intedomine said:
I think the "fact" that the Americans DID NOT land on the moon is pretty realistic.

Remember it was at the height of the Cold War, and both sides were determined to gain an advantage in the space race.

And it doens't surprise me that the Yanks would go to such extreme lengths, particularly in the 60's.

It is possibly the biggest sham in the history of mankind and there is a good TV doco out there that explains exactly why.

It also seems rather strange that, despite the amazing rate of technological advancements, no one has attempted to "go back" to the moon. Why not?



it's a *garbage* conspiracy theory.

if the government can't cover up a break-in at a posh washington dc hotel (watergate) do you really think they'd be able to keep such a massive conspiracy under wraps for 35 years?
 
because its too damned expensive, and there's nothing to justify such an expense; especially not another nationalistic few steps on the moon, of all places....
 
I think a lot of so called good inventions where not possible without the Sovjets, it was all competiton. And don`t forget the Nazi scientist that came to the USA ( operation paperclip ).
 
Someone, I forget who, said that most conspiracy theories are bullshit because conspiracies require large groups of people to be both smart and silent for long periods of time.

I think that's quite true.

***

I haven't weighed on in this subject, really, but I do want to point out that while my faith in the American government has been eroding steadily for the past few years, my faith in Americans has actually increased. I feel very lucky to have known a large number of people who are just decent, well-meaning individuals trying to make good lives for themselves and their families--and this goes for persons of all political, religious, ethnic, and sexual stripes.

Unfortunately our major failing as Americans, I suspect, is apathy in our own political process, which means we continually elect jackasses who are not close to what I think is the true heart of the U.S. character (and, again, I'll point the finger at John Kerry here as well as George Bush--I'm quite peeved with him at the moment over the Massachusetts gay marriage thing) because they look and/or sound good on TV. I wish dearly that we could change that. I believe we deserve better from our elected officials, but until we do that electoral legwork, we'll get what we pay for, so to speak.

I really do like Americans. For all the crap we take, I think most Americans' hearts are in the right places.
 
I agree with you, pax, I think most Americans are good people. The problem is with political apathy, which, yes, does allow jackasses to get elected President, and I also agree with you about John Kerry and the Massachusetts gay thing. We just don't get the best candidates in presidential campaigns from either party. If we'd gotten the best Republican from 2000 John McCain would be President.
 
verte76 said:


Yes, actually there were two Somozas, a couple of generations. The first one was installed in Nicaragua in the '30's--he'd been a used car salesman in Philadelphia, and they installed him as dictator in Nicaragua. President Roosevelt said "Somoza may be a son of a b:censored:h, but he's our S.O.B." The second one pissed off the business community in Nicaragua with his greed, so they didn't save him from the revolutionaries. Eventually the place got straightened up with democratic elections.

THREE Somozas. After Anastasio Somoza Garcia was assassinated in 1956, the eldest son Luis Somoza took over. He was a bit more moderate than his father in terms of political freedoms but he too had a penchant for graft and corruption. Luis Somoza died of a heart attack in 1969 and was followed by his younger brother Anastasio Somoza Debayle who combined the power of president and Commander of the National Guard for complete control of Nicaragua. Under his watch, the Somoza family gobbled up almost every industry in the country. Things got so bad for the average citizen that even the conservative factions (La Prenza, the Catholic Church etc.) threw in their lot with the Sandinistas just to get rid of Somoza.

Back on topic, the United States has been an enormous force for good in this world. But at times our leaders (both Republican and Democrat) have supported some of the most ruthless regimes in the world (Somoza, Mobotu, Pinochet, etc.) in the name of anti-communism. Now that the Cold War is over, the U.S. no longer has an excuse to make such compromises.
 
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