BS: Television: The Anti-Americans

Subject: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 02:28 PM

Last night on PBS there was an interesting documentary on how and why Americans are viewed around the world. Did anyone else see it? The protagonist and videographer traveled from country to country, instigating views as they went. Some of the people were- well, interesting.

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: katlaughing
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 03:13 PM

We watched it, Ebbie. Found it very interesting, at times I wanted to yell at them that they were not the only ones who hated Bush and what our country has done recently and that not all of us are racist, illiterate, etc. At times we totally agreed with what thye were daying and at times really had a good laugh, esp. the French puppets doing the news and the Polish cowboys. There are links to each segment on THIS PAGE.

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: Wesley S
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 03:18 PM

I had an unrelated thought just before I checked in now. I find it interesting that the Mudcat music section is dominated by English or UK music topics but the BS section tends to be dominated by American political topics. Just a stray thought. Perhaps it's worthy of it's own thread someday.

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: TheSnail
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 05:52 PM

katlaughing

not all of us are racist, illiterate, etc. At times we totally agreed with what thye were daying

Um, yes, right.

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: John O'L
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 06:34 PM

Snail, If it's your suggestion that a couple of typos indicate illiteracy, I think you're missing the point altogether, and worse than that, it will be impossible to explain to you what's actually going on here.

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: Big Mick
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 06:39 PM

Snail, do I need to go back and check all of your posts for typos? Be happy to do it. kat's history here is filled with her written works. She is also a published author. I would guess you would not want to get into a contest to see who has contributed more. So why not stop trying to be cute and get on with the discussion? You could have been a subject in said program.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 07:27 PM

Amd some Americans (maybe Kat among them) are a bit less sanctimonious than stereotyping sometimes suggests. Are we not entitled to smile at two typos so close upon a denial of illiteracy?

In the UK a few nights ago, One of the two biggest mass-audience tv channels in the UK set aside a huge chunk of airtime to show John Pilger's cinema documentary The War on Democracy. Moreover ITV1 considered significant enough to be run with only one commercial break.

I hadn't seen it. The film is VERY hostile to the US and is very much a polemic, but there are plenty of unarguable facts behind the opinions. What came across most strongly was the breathtaking hypocrisy of the admin's utterances and pronouncements about "democracy" and "liberty." How Miami's economy must have suffered when the 2002 coup in Venezuela, by grotesque capitalist gangsters backed by Washington dollars, came to naught.

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: katlaughing
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 07:31 PM

Thanks, my friends, but it's okay, really. Had a good "larf" at Snail's catching my particularly funny typos. If that's all I did wrong, today, then I say Yea!

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: Nickhere
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 07:31 PM

When people here say that protesting against the war in Iraq is being 'anti-American' I want to ask them "what about Americans who oppose Bush and his war? Are they anti-American too?"

Don't worry, the rest of the world knows that there's good and bad everywhere. We know there are lots of Americans who think things out and would prefer their country to take a different direction. Y'all just need to try and get more access to the main media, no easy job what with Fox, CNN etc.,

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: Big Mick
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 07:31 PM

Fair enough. Now that I think about it, it is kind of amusing.

Grumpy Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 07:36 PM

Perhaps we are fuller of it than they are, Wesley. :)

I too agreed with a good deal of what was said, although a good many of the opinions stemmed from ignorance. The woman, for instance, who caricatured ALL Americans as being racist "except for New York", she said. Guess which, if any, part of the US she has been in? :)

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 10:34 PM

Call me Frenchie and give me a 2 month vacation.


I guess I feel about America the way the French and Brits do.

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: katlaughing
Date: 28 Aug 07 - 11:14 PM

*Smile* atcha Mick, thanksdarlin'...I read my typo as a Southern-fried "thaya" and I don't know what in the heck "daying" is but they musta done it! (Spelling is spot on and spellchecker is OFF for this post, Snail.*bg*)

We could take a cue from the French and learn to take time to enjoy things NOW and not wait until we retire and may be worn out. I liked what they had to say (ha! got it right!) about that.

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 04:02 AM

As somebody wrote in an article in the Guardian (UK liberal newspaper) a week or so ago, the worldwide anger against the USA is driven not by hatred of Western values, but by the fact that we claim to own those values but don't actually live up to them. It's not only (some) Americans who are hypocritical. This morning, thare was an interview on BBC radio involving a Turkish Islamist MP (recently re- elected) and a British Euro-MP. The MP, having the last say, criticised the Turk because his party had recognised the Hamas administration in the Palestinian Territories. Had he been allowed to respond, the Turk would possibly have pointed out that Hamas was democratically elected- you can't claim that you support democracy, then ignore the results of fair, open elections.

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: TheSnail
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 06:18 AM

John O'L

Snail, If it's your suggestion that a couple of typos indicate illiteracy, I think you're missing the point altogether,

John and Big Mick, as they say on your side of the pond, "Lighten up". I agree that picking on peoples typos is trivial and petty and often employed by people on forums who know that they have lost the argument.

I NEVER do it!







But this time the context made the temptation too great. It was one o'clock in the morning and I had just got back from having a great time at Towersey and was feeling very mellow.

Thank you katlaughing for taking it in the spirit it was intended.

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 01:47 PM

I've always tended to see the way Americans seem to worry about what other people think of them, and even get upset about it, as an indication of a kind of insecurity which is really a kind of humility.

People who are genuinely arrogant don't react like that.

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 02:03 PM

but the BS section tends to be dominated by American political "topics."

Have you noticed that these American political discussions tend to be dominated by UK participants?

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: Big Mick
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 02:13 PM

Snail, bite me. I already chuckled. Read before posting, cause every last one of us Americans is a gun toting, terrorist supporting, racist, and we have no sense of humor especially as it comes to irony, or ironing, depending on what part of the country we come from.

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 02:24 PM

I agree that picking on peoples typos is trivial and petty and often employed by people on forums who know that they have lost the argument.

I NEVER do it!

But then, ya did! Admittedly, though. No need to be hard on the fellahs, either. We are good at circling the wagons here if we think there's a need and, we've got experience. Check out this Blast from the Past.

Oh, and if you take Mickdarlin' up on his offer to bite? Ya better like Irish stew!

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 03:12 PM

Of course he did - that was the whole point of his writing " I NEVER do it!"

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: TheSnail
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 03:21 PM

Big Mick

Snail, bite me.

Snails don't bite but they have very rough tongues.

I'm sorry, but my childish intervention is distracting this thread so I'd just like to mention that I've met or communicated with quite a few US citizens over the last few years and not one of them has said they voted for Bush or supported the Iraq war.

I think "Ocarina" Barbara should meet Valmai Goodyear, a fellow enthusiast for blowing things up.

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: Bee
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 04:15 PM

I've never met a real live American who admits to ever voting for Bush - makes me wonder who did.

Americans themselves are the usual human mixed bag... but the government is scary, IMO. It hardly seems like a democracy, really. You apparently have to be fabulously wealthy to run for office, there appears to be no easy way to get rid of a bad government short of revolution before their term is up, and they seem able to do what they like with the laws with little regard to what the people might actually want. But that's just a view from outside.

Also, all of my most certifiable (and not in a good way) relatives live/were born in the US - they come here as a sort of southern plague every year or two. Blurs the image, eh.

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 04:55 PM

Ya'll just haven't met folks from certain areas of the You-Ess-of-Eh. There were plenty in WY and CO who were proud of voting for the little shrub. Some even still admit it. Some are even serving in Iraq.

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: Barry Finn
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 05:17 PM

Ya Kat, that's called natural selection or in New England lobster talk, culling. They're culls, 1 clawed & flawed & cheaper than the rest. Now if we can just let them culls serve or live in Wy & Co where we could gass 'em & we'd be alrite.

I'm in a fowl & flawed mood today, I might go out & find me a lawmaker who's braking the law, probably need a passport though to get into an airport restroom, it's gonna get crowded in there, now that the words out.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: GUEST, Ebbie
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 05:50 PM

Bee, you say that you've never met a real live American who admits to having voted for Bush- it seems probable to me that you have met only Americans who are in the arts. Business people- especially in corporate America- would have a different story.

By the way, up above I mentioned that the French puppeteers said that if John Kerry had won the presidency they would be using Woody Allen to typify the American persona, instead of, I said, the buffoon they are using today.

I said 'buffoon' because I couldn't remember at the moment who the buffoon was. Today I remembered: It is Sylvester Stallone.

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 07:46 PM

Now hold on there, Barry...we gots us Mudcatters in Why-Oh-Myn and Cawl-oh-ra-doe, so don't get too hasty with the gassin' unless yer jist talkin' 'bout letting Spaw loose!**bg**

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: Bee
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 10:51 PM

Ebbie, while I've met a considerable number of American artists and musicians, I've also met many American tourists, and they come from many professions and states (though we do tend to naturally attract more New Englanders).

On the whole, I prefer the musicians - quite a few of the artists have New York Modernartsceneitis, a deadly disease that causes one to think One's Art Is As Important to the World as all the the rest of human invention. I blame Oldenberg (he of the giant plastic hamburger).

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: Ebbie
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 11:26 PM

I have relatives who most certainly voted for Bush both times and I have a sinking feeling that they would do it again if they could. These days I'm afraid to ask them. We live a thousand miles apart and I don't want to engage in a row on the telephone.

But there are plenty of die hards left in this country. On last night's Charlie Rose the main guest was a retired man whose name I have forgotten for the moment but he was in the State Department under Reagan (whom he loved (his words) and he thinks that Bush has great ideas and is on the right path; it is only the men who surround him that have failed him...

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 11:51 PM

G'day Bee,

From: Bee - PM
Date: 29 Aug 07 - 04:15 PM

I've never met a real live American who admits to ever voting for Bush - makes me wonder who did.

Maybe you should have talked to the voting machines...

Regard(les)s,

Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Aug 07 - 07:41 PM

I'm not surprised if it's hard to find people who admit to voting for Bush. The same happened in the case of Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, over here.

There's always a tendency for people to retrospectively adjust their voting record in their memory, in line with how a politician turns oyut in office. It's been repeatedly shown in polls asking how people voted - most time the proportion who say they voted for the winner is way down on the actual record.

Occasionaly it goes the other way and people say - and probably actually belueve they voted for someone who seems to be doing well. But the general rule is the other way round.

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Aug 07 - 08:07 PM

Well, McGrath, I really didn't vote for Bush. I'd be surprised if 10 percent of U.S. Mudcatters voted for the bastard.

But if you wonder who DID vote for Bush....well, they don't get out much. They all stay at home, listening to radio talk shows and cowering over all the things that frighten them, and Bush and many Republicans get elected on those fears. People like tat are afraid to go outside the U.S., so you won't see them very often. If you visit the U.S., you won't see them out in public unless you go to a megachurch or a shopping mall....

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Aug 07 - 08:47 PM

Hear, hear! Here is another who did NOT vote for either Bushes nor Reagan.

Actually, not until Jimmy Carter did any of my presidential picks make it. I did vote for Clinton. Twice, and would vote for him again. Better the divvil you know.

Mudcatters seem not to have much difficulty admitting past transgressions. Elsewhere I admitted I voted for Nixon once - not the times he got in, thank the gods - and there have been several others who have also posted that they once were Republican.

Discovering that I was NOT a Republican kind of taught me a lesson. I have not been registered as anything but non-partisan since.

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 30 Aug 07 - 11:13 PM

"I've never met a real live American who admits to ever voting for Bush - makes me wonder who did."

"I'm not surprised if it's hard to find people who admit to voting for Bush. The same happened in the case of Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, over here."


We have that same problem in Aus with Little Fascist Johnny.


"he thinks that Bush has great ideas and is on the right path; it is only the men who surround him that have failed him... "

Every great meglomanic dictator has had that problem...



"When people here say that protesting against the war in Iraq is being 'anti-American' I want to ask them "what about Americans who oppose Bush and his war? Are they anti-American too?""

During McCarthy, many good Americans were called that...

Hysteria fed Histronics...

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Aug 07 - 11:40 PM

I've never had a chance to vote for an American president. If I had had the chance it would have been like this (assuming I was able to vote):

1952- Stevenson
1956 - Stevenson
1960 - Kennedy*
1964 - Johnson* (although he turned out to be a disaster as far as I'm concerned)
1968 - abstain (useless choice!)
1972 - McGovern
1976 - Carter*
1980 - Carter
1984 - Mondale (without much enthusiasm)
1988 - Dukakis (with not too much enthusiasm)
1992 - Clinton*
1996 - Clinton*
2000 - Gore
2004 - Kerry (without much enthusiasm at all)

So despite the fact that I don't like the Democratic Party much at all, I clearly like them somewhat better than the Republicans... ;-)

I put the asterisks * by the candidates who won. I would have voted for 5 winners out of 13 chances, and one abstention on the 14th chance.

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 31 Aug 07 - 12:20 AM

I Like Ike!

Just old enough to remember...

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Aug 07 - 12:32 AM

Yeah, me too. ;-) Ike was definitely a likeable fellow, but I would have preferred Stevenson by a long shot. The fact that someone was a general does not encourage me to vote for him...quite the contrary, in fact.

I would prefer that military commanders do what they are trained to do...fight wars...and stay out of political office.

Subject: RE: BS: Television: The Anti-Americans
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 31 Aug 07 - 12:40 AM

... and that Presidents do what they are elected to do - govern the country, and stay out of wars.... :-P