BS: A World without America

Subject: BS: A World without America
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 07:57 AM

Hola from sunny Hull,
                                     go onto you- tube and look for "A World Without America" It's a spoof news item about how the world could have been over the last fifty years if America hadn't existed. It's currently driving A Grauniad writer mad on the Jeremy Vine show on BBC radio 2.
          Flamenco, the true path!

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 08:56 AM

""A World Without America" "

I must be dreaming...

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 10:26 AM

If the rumours about the next great crash turn out to be well-founded, we may find out.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Amos
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 12:28 PM

Great crashes of financial constructs do not remove nations, their lands, resources, wide-open spaces, homes or buildings, erase their highways or melt their pipes. There is a REAL place, as well as your fanciful cyber-world one, called America. ANd it is -- as a place -- doing as well as may be expected under the circumstances.

A

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: beardedbruce
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 12:30 PM

"how the world could have been over the last fifty years if America hadn't existed. "

Does this mean America was here for WW II? If not, some of us would be speaking German, and others would be dead.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Peace
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 12:32 PM

Lots of people died to defend the world in that war. America did its share.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Amos
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 12:37 PM

Here is a link using simple HTML techniques.


A

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: beardedbruce
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 12:42 PM

Would the Allies have been victorious without US industry to supply them?

I DO NOT state that ONLY the US won WW II: But without the supplies produced here, would it have been possible for the Allies to win?

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Peace
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 01:04 PM

I could counter that by saying if the Nazis hadbn't been drained by their attack on Russia, they would have been too strong to have been defeated by America's late entry into the war. There are lotsa whatifs, BB. I did not intend to start a Third World War on this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Wesley S
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 01:10 PM

Try reading "The Man in the High Castle" by Philip K Dick.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 01:30 PM

50 years ago WWII was over. Cold war was up and running. mg

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: dianavan
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 01:55 PM

Exactly right, Mary.

No need to bring the World War II into the discussion.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Folk Form # 1
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 03:22 PM

America, one of Britain's finest inventions.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: GUEST,Seiri Omaar
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 03:22 PM

This offends me. If America hadn't been around, that doesn't mean someone else wouldn't have made medical advances, or stepped up to defend in wars. What a glaring bit of unnecessary glorification.
And I'd get into the bit about a poorer world, but I value my blood pressure.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: beardedbruce
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 03:26 PM

Just trying to understand the program. Is it that America never existed, or that it ceased to exist 50 years ago?

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Amos
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 04:21 PM

Take it any way you like; I think it is silly chauvinistic hypothetical foolery.


A

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 04:37 PM

I'm with Amos!

I would add that the video is patronizing, shallow, poorly advised and weak propaganda.

It comes across like one of these corporate inspirational/feel good films that staff have to watch to feel loyal to the company they work for.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Scoville
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 05:26 PM

As sick as I am of everyone bitching about America (35% approval rating people! Our dysfunctional government no longer represents the will of our people), I have to say: What a lot of simplistic, fear-mongering, crap. Do people not have anything better to do with their time that produce ridiculous web videos like this? Or pass it around the Internet? It doesn't even make sense.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 07:18 PM

As Bob Dylan said?

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 07:22 PM

Don't criticize what you can't understand?

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Peace
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 07:22 PM

Haul on the bowline, he sang that melody,
Like all tough sailors do when they're far away at sea.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 07:23 PM

Oh, the tedium.

I wonder if Adolf Hitler ever commissioned a similarly cheery little film entitled "A World Without Germany", just to remind everyone in the Reich and elsewhere how very, very lucky they were to have the Nazis?

Sounds like just the sort of thing Goebbels would have enjoyed putting together.

Come to think of it, I bet Joe Stalin would have liked this approach to using film to get the message across too, not to mention Chairman Mao. Perfect Red Guard stuff. "A World Without Mao"...mmm-mmm-yummy! Get all the kids to watch it and wave little red, white, and blue flags enthusiastically.

God...we are sooooooo lucky to have "A World With America", aren't we? ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 07:34 PM

(Thanks, Peace)

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: number 6
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 07:36 PM

A salute of my appreciation to your post also Peace.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: robomatic
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 07:40 PM

The instructor assigned his class to write a treatise on the elephant:

The Englishman wrote: Elephant Hunting.

The Frenchman wrote: The Love Life of The Elephant.

The German wrote: Introduction to the Bibliography of the Study of The Elephant.

The American wrote: Breeding Bigger & Better Elephants.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 07:43 PM

"some of us would be speaking German"

Yeah? Are the Germans speaking English? Were the East Germans speaking Russian before the Wall came down? Are the Iraqis speaking Ay-Murican?

It ain't as easy as you think to get other nations of people to give up their langauges just because you score a temporary military victory over them.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: number 6
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 07:48 PM

"It ain't as easy as you think to get other nations of people to give up their langauges just because you score a temporary military victory over them."

Now ... let's get away from 'Germany' and the U.S.A for a bit and reflect on that statement and how it can be applie to Canada.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Peace
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 07:49 PM

We a bunch of Dylan fans or what?

You know, I happen to love the USA (don't tell Dickey). I hate Washington and its politics with something akin to a passion, but I feel like that about Ottawa, too. The American people are so much like Canucks that after two beers you can't really tell them apart. (Well, Canadians are better looking, but the US has more basketball teams.) The people I met in my years there were wonderful. I had the privilege of travelling all over the place in the US and I made some friends I have to this day. A world without America is one of those execrcises in rewriting history that I have never liked, and it ranks right up there with, "If the dinosaurs had survived, what would . . .?" Fact is, they didn't. The world we have is right now the ONLY one we have. People all over it are gonna have to learn to get along. We owe the US a great deal, and when its political leadership is pissing in the swimming pool, it's very easy to use the term American when what we mean is Government. I have no wish to insult Americans because of their idiot President or dictatorial foreign policies. Ther are too many good folks out there who feel much the same. In the United States.

As heric pointed out, "The Times They Are A Changin'", and I think my neighbours to the south are mostly happy about that. I know I am.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: number 6
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 07:52 PM

I think "all politiks aside" the world owes a lot to the U.S.A.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 07:54 PM

it would be bloody long way to Japan. I doubt if we would have bothered.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Amos
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 10:22 PM

I think the world owes a lot to its bravest, most adventuresome, ground breaking folks, the bright, the bold, the experimenters and the pathfinders in any domain. If a number of them happen to be Americans, well and good. The ones that are Americans owe a lot to the Irish, English, French, Arabic, Greek and Egyptian. Good people tunr out good stuff wherever they be.

That's my two cents.


A

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 10:29 PM

It's mutual. The world owes a lot to the USA. The USA owes a lot to the world. ;-)

Without the world, after all, there'd BE no USA!

Yeah, Number 6, in Canada's case the French may have lost the war way back in the 1760's...but I note that they are still speaking French! ;-) This is why I snicker and cough whenever people trot out that tired old cliche "If....(whatever).......you'd all be speaking German!" Bull.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: number 6
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 10:46 PM

I pointed that out cause I was in agreement with ya LH.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Mar 07 - 11:13 PM

Yeah, I figured you were.

Conquering empires usually overestimate their ability to replace an existing culture with their own. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Dickey
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 02:45 AM

No Big Macs with fries. No Budweiser. No levis. No rap music, No monster trucks.

What a horrible world

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: John Hardly
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 05:15 AM

No blues or rock and roll. I'd tell you all to go to hell, but you'd already be there.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 07:41 AM

"it would be bloody long way to Japan. I doubt if we would have bothered. "

Didn't you know the place is absolutely stacked underground with gold and precious minerals?

Oh, sorry wrong thread...

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 10:16 AM

No Jerry Lewis. Ho Howard Stern. No Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. No "Survivor" shows. No "Gilligan's Island" or "Three's Company". No Ku Klux Klan. No Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly and Prohibition.

Hmmm.

Can we rethink this proposition? ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Amos
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 10:29 AM

No Jefferson, Walt Whitman, Faulkner or Warren or Hemingway or Sandburg, no Fords or pickup trucks, no Crospby Stills and Nash or Original Dillards, no Bo Diddley or Satchmo, Bessie Smith or blues at all. No Thornton WIlder or ALexander Hamilton, Thomas Paine, Buick or Mark Twain, Henry James, Bret Harte, and Kate Chopin. An absence of Frank Lloyd Wright, American Impressionism, Steinbeck, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and E.E. Cummings. A world without banjos and Martins, hot dogs or autoharps.

Gawd, what a dreary, sorry notion!!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Mooh
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 10:39 AM

I will live and die a peaceful white Canadian Chistian male, no amount of jingoistic posturing by under-informed or ill-educated internet posters will have any effect on me or my beliefs, except to make me more commited in the face of such cyber excrement.

Normally I ignore these discussions but for heaven's sake, "a world without" applies to every nation, culture, religion, colour, sex, law, you name it. Virtually everything has a list of pros and cons, its supporters and its opposition...but what's important is what we're doing to improve the world in spite of it all. What are we doing about hunger, poverty, pollution, environmental destruction, war, prejudice, intolerance, and hate?

Want to keep score? The fucking game isn't over yet. What are we doing about hunger, poverty, pollution, environmental destruction, war, prejudice, intolerance, and hate?

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 11:42 AM

What if we had a world without silly rhetorical questions and speculation?

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Dickey
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 11:44 AM

No Internet. No global warming. No E-meters. No downfall of the USSR.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Scoville
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 12:51 PM

No Big Macs with fries. No Budweiser.

What, because the UK is known for its fine cuisine? (I can't argue with the beer thing, though. Most mass-market beer over here is crap.)

The world would be significantly different if any country had ceased to exist 50 years before any given point in time. Ask an Indonesian what the world would be like without the Dutch, or an Australian aboriginal without the British, or . . . you get the picture. The U.S. is neither the first nor the only country to invade a country and do horrible things to native populations. As with every other country, some of our contributions have been good and some not, but that's the way the ball bounces.

I'm with Amos 10:22 p.m. above--as the Spanish say, "A good horse is never a bad color."

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: GUEST,Crazyhorse
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 01:06 PM

Amos
Graham Nash & Thomas Paine, American?

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 01:14 PM

I will live and die a peaceful white Canadian Chistian male, no amount of jingoistic posturing by under-informed or ill-educated internet posters will have any effect on me or my beliefs, except to make me more commited in the face of such cyber excrement.



Is not the above a somewhat hateful statement...or at least a bit holier than thou?

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Amos
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 01:31 PM

Thomas Paine was one of the founding lights of the Revolution, CH. As American as anyone, even if he was born abroad... ;>)

CSN was an American phenom, even if one of its members was an import. Its the spirit of the thing, you see.


A

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: GUEST,Crazyhorse
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 01:35 PM

Amos, you missed out 80% of that band; Neil Young

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 02:06 PM

"What if we had a world without silly rhetorical questions and speculation?" - Bill D

Even more disturbing than that, Bill D........what about a world without....you and me!????!!!!

It's just unthinkable.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Dickey
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 02:30 PM

I saw the play "Citizen Tom Paine" at the Kennedy Center played by Richard Thomas. Cracking.

In one scene he was trying to flick one of those sticky boogers off of his finger.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Amos
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 03:09 PM

I know how he feels. At least some of these threads make me feel that way.


A