Subject:
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Re: Conversation w/ a LEGO Rep
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 25 Aug 1999 16:51:27 GMT
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Viewed:
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1933 times
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> What we see coming from America on the news is a constant stream of
^^^^^^^^^^^
> 'We don't want to pay for this' or 'this is none of our business'
> or 'We don't want to help other countries'. Not only that, but we see reports
> of kids being sentenced to death, of guns being everywhere because
> Americans expect the right to have them. Of American churches distorting
> the Christian message into a right wing propaganda tool. Of anti-gay
> and anti-any-minority-group prejudice.
> Perhaps some of that isn't really true, but all those images do add up to
> create a very poor impression of Americans.
Being from Germany originally, I have to wholeheartedly agree
that the European 'news' media generally strive to (and succeed at)
creating a very poor impression of America. Besides intentional
misinformation[1] and genuine ignorance (take a poll on what fraction
of the Euro populace think that the US was at war with _all of_
Vietnam, e.g.) leading to dislike in the population, there's also
a lot of political opinion biased news-makers would like everyone
to have, and then create "peer pressure" (so-to-speak) about by
portraiting that opinion as the general opinion of the population[3],
e.g. when blowing participation in public protest activities
out of proportion. And antiamericanism is certainly one of
those opinions - I'd say gentle jealousy, with a bit of scorn
over wastefulness (particularly in holier-than-thou Germany[2])
is in reality a rather common attitude.
> Now like I say I am generalizing. I also think it's really a political
> thing. From Americans I've known personally I'd say that when it comes
> to *personal* life, most of you are very caring people. Possibly
> more so than people in the UK. But when it
> comes to politics, it's different. I've seen debates here on lugnet, where
> many Americans are saying about how they don't want to pay any taxes.
> In the political culture in America, I guess that sounds reasonable. But
> seen from a European perspective those postings just make you
> look incredibly selfish.
Well, there appears to be a lot money being spent here on other
countries defenses. While that in inself is probably mostly done
for US-centric purposes, many people probably see that as too much
spending-money-on-other-countries (rightly so? I don't know, really).
As far as scandalous politics are concerned, it's nice to
have some of the corruption (particular "pork" money funneled
to silly projects in politicians' home area) revealed rather
than just have it go on anyway - Germany's corruption problem
has been called "as bad as any banana republic's" by critics
in G.
-gbr
[1] This is common - just thinking of all the "surprising"
facts about life in East Germany slowly discovered by the news media
after the wall came down...the same facts that were public knowledge
for a long time, and always scorned as "propaganda" by
sympathizing media...
[2] For those who don't know (e.g. US residents), when Germany
was ahead of everybody else in environmentalism yet again >:)
in the mid-80s, many cars had OEM sticker along the lines of
"already catalytic-converter-equipped". The German-dubbed version
of Blues Brothers (1980) has a line that describes the '74 Dodge
cop car as being built "before cat. conv." (in '74 the US intro of
same started) translated ungrammatically and using a literal
(gibberish) translation of "catalytic converter" - to where it
all doesn't make sense, unless you know the English term,
and maybe hear the original audio as well. While I doubt
there's such a conspiracy to hide the existence of such devices
(the feasibility of offering unleaded gas in all of Germany :}
was hotly being discussed at the time), this certainly points
out the ignorance at the time...
[3] This was again very obvious after German reunification -
oftne you'd hear disgruntled Easterners being interviewed
about how they'd lost all these advantages of Socialism...
....which they had due to being among the small group
of parasites abusing the rest. As one commentator said, like
reporting the fleas's opinions on the reforms under which
a dog is finally allowed to scratch itself after years...
--- A current topic, where the amplification of the few
isn't quite as big, is the relaxation of store closing hour
laws in Germany, which is mostly fought by small stores and
sales personell in general - the general populace which
would like to have stores open *past* the time they
leave work <:) isn't heard too much; I, too, was jealous
of relaxed US store hours when living there - I can't say
I'm planning on moving back to Europe in the forseeable
future.
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Conversation w/ a LEGO Rep
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| (...) I've just seen some very strange answers to this question. Jesse, I think what you've written comes closest to the truth. Eric Kingsley was pretty close to the mark too. Coming from the UK, I think that yes it is true that *in general* many (...) (25 years ago, 25-Aug-99, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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