What I would personally like to see (as opposed to what I think I will see), is for the world to signal its rejection of the USA's psychopathic behaviour by ostracising the USA.
Don't buy their products, don't join their wars, don't do business with them if it can be avoided. Send a clear message that the way they behave is unacceptable and will not be accepted.
Americans have a weakness, they (collectively) have an exaggerated need to feel loved and to feel good about themselves (hence the crap about "America ashining a light on the world" and all the rest of the nauseating propaganda they put out in the hope it will be believed). If they feel that they are unloved and un-respected, they will change. It's a Pavlov's dog kind of a thing. Behaviour can be conditioned if the right buttons are pressed.
Stop all the obsequious grovelling to America just because the country has ripped off the world and has lots of money as a consequence. Apply the only remedy that bullies the world over understand and respect. A kick in the testicles and another in the hip pocket.
That is pretty much guaranteed to work, make their own pathetic need to be loved work against them.
"I believe he was pointing out that your generalizations about Americans are false, not that your generalizations about America's reputation are false."
As people, we are all defined by what we do, and rightly so. Our reputations are accumulated based on what we do and how what we do is interpreted. Therefore we tend to be what our reputations suggest we are. Hence, Nigerians are scammers, Germans are efficient, Italians design beautiful cars, Britons are a pain in the ass, and Americans are bullies.
Of course its a generalization. Generalisations are how we make sense of and survive in the world. If you don't generalize then you'd be quite happy to go down to Harlem with a Ku Klux Klan teeshirt. But of course, you wouldn't, because you generalize as to the how the people would respond to that.
See? Generalising is how we survive.
That'll be $10 for the education please, will that be cash or a cheque?
""For my friends, anything - for my enemies, the law," he is reported to have said, highlighting the way in which Brazilians are seen as prizing personal loyalties over other social responsibilities.
Most of the 2n and 3rd worlds prize personal relationships above the law and principle, it's their culture. But make no mistake, the Americans are equally rapacious and corrupt, they just try harder to conceal it and trust that if their propaganda has worked then none of the other 200m Americans will have the intellect or the drive to expose them and throw them out.
Across the world, personal relationships trump principle and law every time. The yanks are always good at spotting the mote in other people's eyes, but not so good as espying the beam in their own.
Hypocritical? Yes. Pathological? Frequently. Will it change? Not for as long as Americans like to feel good about themselves more than they like to have an honest and truly world-leading nation. As opposed to the fiction they have right now.
"I'm sure he means all those things that we say in school, and the pledge, and the anthem, and every instance and every time we refer to America as being a land of the free and home of the brave (which we do FAR more than most any other country does), but most of us already know is complete bullshit that hasn't applied to America as it stands for almost a century."
Indeed, just checking the BS meter and wondering how many Americans still subscribe to the propaganda. Most people believe what they're told to believe while children, and those beliefs are hard to change when they're adult.
Land of the free? Bollocks. Home of the brave? Bollocks. Land of the psychopathic cowboy with spurs that jingle-jangle-jingle? Without a doubt, Americans just love to shoot up people and when they can't do it to a smaller, poor and often defenceless nation, why then they do it to themselves in their schools and Navy yards.
Americans badly need to wake up to the way the rest of the world sees them, and it isn't pretty.
USA, NSA and trade agreements
What I would personally like to see (as opposed to what I think I will see), is for the world to signal its rejection of the USA's psychopathic behaviour by ostracising the USA.
Don't buy their products, don't join their wars, don't do business with them if it can be avoided. Send a clear message that the way they behave is unacceptable and will not be accepted.
Americans have a weakness, they (collectively) have an exaggerated need to feel loved and to feel good about themselves (hence the crap about "America ashining a light on the world" and all the rest of the nauseating propaganda they put out in the hope it will be believed). If they feel that they are unloved and un-respected, they will change. It's a Pavlov's dog kind of a thing. Behaviour can be conditioned if the right buttons are pressed.
Stop all the obsequious grovelling to America just because the country has ripped off the world and has lots of money as a consequence. Apply the only remedy that bullies the world over understand and respect. A kick in the testicles and another in the hip pocket.
That is pretty much guaranteed to work, make their own pathetic need to be loved work against them.
Annie
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"I believe he was pointing out that your generalizations about Americans are false, not that your generalizations about America's reputation are false."
As people, we are all defined by what we do, and rightly so. Our reputations are accumulated based on what we do and how what we do is interpreted. Therefore we tend to be what our reputations suggest we are. Hence, Nigerians are scammers, Germans are efficient, Italians design beautiful cars, Britons are a pain in the ass, and Americans are bullies.
Of course its a generalization. Generalisations are how we make sense of and survive in the world. If you don't generalize then you'd be quite happy to go down to Harlem with a Ku Klux Klan teeshirt. But of course, you wouldn't, because you generalize as to the how the people would respond to that.
See? Generalising is how we survive.
That'll be $10 for the education please, will that be cash or a cheque?
Annie
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Did you just claim that all generalizations are true?
Nope, that's not what I said. Straw man alert?
"Because it's the opposite - all generalizations are false, including this one.""
Right.
On rainy days, it generally rains.
Just as wrong as wrong can be - right? Gotcha.
lol
Annie
Re:
""For my friends, anything - for my enemies, the law," he is reported to have said, highlighting the way in which Brazilians are seen as prizing personal loyalties over other social responsibilities.
Most of the 2n and 3rd worlds prize personal relationships above the law and principle, it's their culture. But make no mistake, the Americans are equally rapacious and corrupt, they just try harder to conceal it and trust that if their propaganda has worked then none of the other 200m Americans will have the intellect or the drive to expose them and throw them out.
Across the world, personal relationships trump principle and law every time. The yanks are always good at spotting the mote in other people's eyes, but not so good as espying the beam in their own.
Hypocritical? Yes. Pathological? Frequently. Will it change? Not for as long as Americans like to feel good about themselves more than they like to have an honest and truly world-leading nation. As opposed to the fiction they have right now.
Annie
Re: America stands for this...
"I'm sure he means all those things that we say in school, and the pledge, and the anthem, and every instance and every time we refer to America as being a land of the free and home of the brave (which we do FAR more than most any other country does), but most of us already know is complete bullshit that hasn't applied to America as it stands for almost a century."
Indeed, just checking the BS meter and wondering how many Americans still subscribe to the propaganda. Most people believe what they're told to believe while children, and those beliefs are hard to change when they're adult.
Land of the free? Bollocks. Home of the brave? Bollocks. Land of the psychopathic cowboy with spurs that jingle-jangle-jingle? Without a doubt, Americans just love to shoot up people and when they can't do it to a smaller, poor and often defenceless nation, why then they do it to themselves in their schools and Navy yards.
Americans badly need to wake up to the way the rest of the world sees them, and it isn't pretty.
Annie
Re: Re:
Im interested in this:
"I love what my country is supposed to stand for."
What exactly is America supposed to stand for?
Annie