BS: A World without America

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 11 Mar 07 - 05:46 PM

"Do people not have anything better to do with their time than produce ridiculous web videos like this? Or pass it around the Internet? It doesn't even make sense."

It's not even the right question, since it relates to the putative absence of America, which would have left sea levels drastically lower, and incidentally given Christopher Columbus' navigation skills a boost.

The question should have related, not to America, nor to the American people, but to the corrupt political Administration under which they are currently unfortunate enough to be suffering, and this has only become a serious issue in the last ten yeard or so.

I tend toward treating the whole thing as it deserves, and ignoring it. There are some irritations that are unworthy of the effort required to scratch them.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 Mar 07 - 01:57 PM

I have seen "Bound For Glory", Dickey, and I really enjoyed it. Wouldn't mind seeing it again sometime.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Mar 07 - 01:28 PM

Can a guy from anywhere
Go to sleep a pauper and wake up a millionaire

Only in America? Or any other place where there's a lottery...

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 09:39 PM

Umm - the song from West Side Story seems a little more realistic to me ...

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Dickey
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 08:50 PM

LH:

You should see the movie Bound For Glory if you haven't all ready.

Yess I realize the argument was going both ways in West Side Story. When I was writing that post I suddenly realized when I was beating on Bobert about his statement about so many American living in 3rd world conditions I dod not think about PR. There are some 3rd world conditions there but hopefully not as bad or extensive as other countries in the Caribbean.


BUT, with out America there would be no Jay and the Americans singing:

Only in America
Can a guy from anywhere
Go to sleep a pauper and wake up a millionaire

Only in America
Can a kid without a cent
Get a break and maybe grow up to be President

Only in America
Land of opportunity, yeah
Would a classy girl like you fall for a poor boy like me

Only in America
Can a kid who's washin' cars
Take a giant step and reach right up and touch the stars

Only in America
Could a dream like this come true
Could a guy like me start with nothing and end up with you

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 07:05 PM

Neither Leif Eriksen nor Columbus ever got any near the territories that later became the USA. I imahine so far as the rest of the Americas were concerend it wouldn't really have made a great deal of difference if those territories had all been under water, up until the 19th century.

Take the USA out of the picture and it would meant most of the people who emigrated, including political dissidents, would have stayed home, and Europe would have had a very different history. Imagining a world without the USA but with everything else the same - Stalin, and Margaret Thatcher is just lazy alternative history.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: RangerSteve
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 03:53 PM

Without the U.S., Canadians wouldn't be able to drive to Mexico, they'd have to fly or sail. Leif Erikson and Columbus might have just sailed right on past and into the Pacific. And the remaining Americas might not be discovered by Europeans for a long time, maybe long after Amerigo Vespucci died, leaving it to be named by someone else, possibly someone named Huffington Spootwanger. How'd you Canadians like to have to say that you lived on the continent of North Spootwanger? William Shatner might remain unknown, thereby leaving a lot of blank spaces on the Mudcat thread list. No, wait, there wouldn't be a Mudcat, and you wouldn't be wasting your time reading this carp that I just wrote, and your lives would be better for that. Ignore this.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Little Hawk
Date: 10 Mar 07 - 02:11 AM

If you watch the original West Side Story, Dickey, you will note that that song had a satirical bite to it. The Puerto Rican girls were singing merrily about the stuff they liked in America....then the Puerto Rican guys would respond, sarcastically, "for a small fee in America"...implying that things were not exactly a bed of roses for Hispanics like themselves who were rather toward the lower end of the social pecking order in America. It was a juxtaposition of the irony of being poverty-stricken in the midst of the most affluent society on Earth....and with references back to the even worse poverty they had tried to escape back home in Puerto Rico...but they found the bitter taste of it again in the slums of New York.

This aspect was completely lost on my upstate New York high school, however. ;-) I was in the chorus and we did a medley of songs from West Side Story. We sang "I Like To Be in America" totally upbeat and enthusiastic on every line....no sarcastic bite at all in the phrase "for a small fee"...no, everything was apparently just absolutely wonderful and ideal for everyone in America according to my high school. Heh! There was a real little white bread town...no slums to be seen, and no Hispanics or Black people either. I had no idea that the song had a double message until I saw the movie some years later.

This is how the sharper messages in art get watered down and de-fanged as time goes by as they are absorbed into a not very analytical mainstream. How many people still realize that "This Land Is Your Land" was originally a song of angry protest and defiance by Woody Guthrie, who sang it in defence of America's poor and disenfranchised in those hard years of dust bowl and depression?

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 11:54 PM

There's no left left in the USA...

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Dickey
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 11:51 PM

No

I like to be in America!
O.K. by me in America!
Ev'rything free in America
For a small fee in America!

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: beardedbruce
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 08:17 AM

You forgot the left and the left out...

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: GUEST,Bardan
Date: 09 Mar 07 - 08:16 AM

"It's a place of extremes--- witness how polarized our politics are"

yeah, there's the right and the really extreme right.

*prepares for righteous smiting*

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: beardedbruce
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 03:48 PM

Amos,

"Dickhead "?

Chill out.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Amos
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 03:42 PM

Gee, Dickhead, you sound a little desperate there.

A

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 03:36 PM

Exactly, Ebbie. If the companies that hired illegals were prosecuted (and punished in a meaningful way) for doing so the situation would end, at least as a major issue. They only come because they know there are jobs here.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Dickey
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 03:33 PM

No Scientology or Dianentics to keep people sane.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Ebbie
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 03:26 PM

"If you were American, you'd have to put up with Mexicans slipping across the border illegaly, working dirt cheap, ruining the labor market for legals and usurping the resources of the legal citizens." Guest/Dick

THEY are not doing it. WE are doing it. If WE didn't hire them they would not come. If WE had a clear idea of what WE want we would be consistent in its application.

But as long as WE want cheap laboUr, people will slip into this country to give it to us. Of course WE then turn around and vilify them, deport them, try to proscecute them, blame them for coming, for trying to put "food on their family", in the words of your beloved leader, and pretend that WE are blameless.

pfffffttttt

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Amos
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 03:14 PM

Your redneck voice is really dyed-in-the-wool, huh, Dickey? Pardon the mixed metaphor. I have seen a few of these (make Fox noises here) illegal immigrants (end Fox noises) and what I have seen is individuals who will work their buns off, and do, for the sake of making some headway in life and helping their mothers and wives back home. None of them has ever voiced any interest in propping up a corrupt government. None of the ones I have known had any ill-begootten funds -- every penny of it was earned with honorable sweat and usually very good work, too. I know of no resources anyof them usurped, except perhaps driving on AMerican highways and occasionally getting a glass of water. These are guys who are fighting for a decent living and doing anything asked of them to earn it honestly. They have more honor among them, in many cases, then any of the scuzzballs you worship in the halls of Gummint. And they produce value rather than destruction, unlike your lot.

A

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Greg B
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 02:45 PM

It seems to me that history will judge America as a necessary
ingredient in the political and social transformation of the
latter part of the 2nd millenium AD.

Certainly the idea of 'government by the consent of the governed'
wasn't invented over here. Equally certainly, it gained traction
here at a rate and in a way which might have been impossible or
at least very difficult in Europe due things like per-capita
resources and space, geography, and a few dozen other factors
that mitigated against the success of something like the American
Revolution. Recall that even the French Revolution faltered
significantly, and gave the world Bonaparte...

I certainly don't think that it says anything about the relative
qualities of the population of the New World vs. the Old World. It
does say a great deal about the differences in the circumstances
of those two populatons. Even after the better part of a couple
of centuries of Europeans having a toe-hold, this was very much
a 'resource rich' and 'opportunity rich' environment.

To put it another way, America has been a 'proving ground' for all
sorts of 'nutty ideas,' some of which have worked out quite well for
the world as a whole. I much prefer that way of looking at it to
some lofty idea of this being the annointed place, the home of
the brave, the patriotic, virtuous, etc.

It's a place of extremes--- witness how polarized our politics are.

A place of absolutes 'either you're with us or against us' views.

Sometimes that works favorably--- for example, Americans tend to
be quite absolutist about civil rights. Our mind-set is that 'free
speech' actually extends well past what's actually in the First
Amendment to the Bill of Rights. But especially in terms of what's
really there, it's very absolute. It's really hard to make a case
to compromise it here--- even if it's offensive speech. By the same
token, to most American minds the idea that women or girls might
not be able to wear head-scarves at work or school or in public
is just not even worthy of consideration.

Then again, many Americans also think that the Bill of Rights gives us the right (or even a duty) to own a machine gun :-)

America really is the crucible of Christian fundamentalism. They
came over here from Europe in the 15th-19th centuries and haven't
slowed down since.

It's a land of contradictions, then--- the same people who are rabid
about their constitutional freedom to practice their own religion
are equally rabid about it being okay to impose their views on what
women should do with their own wombs or to pray in schools or to
teach 'intelligent design' as an alternative to Darwin in same.

If the World didn't have an America--- they'd have to invent one.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: beardedbruce
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 02:00 PM

Well, this morning in Frederick MD (at the airport) it was 1 degree F at 6:30. By 8:30, it was 30 degrees F.

Remember, this is Maryland, south of the Mason Dixon line.

Friends in NY state had a high of 18 F yesterday.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 01:59 PM

But they're not trying to prop up a corrupt government, they are trying to do what is best for their familes, while working very hard and enduring significant risks to do it. I'll agree with you that the US government shouldn't tacitly condone the way this labor market works, and I'll agree with you that the government in Mexico is broken and corrupt - I just don't think you should have animosity or encourage animosity against individuals trying to do the best they can.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 01:40 PM

Say what? Jyou talkin' to ME, Gringo???    ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Dickey
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 01:36 PM

If you were Mexican, you would not be able to slip illegally across the border to work dirt cheap in America, ruin the labor market for your bretheren living there legally, usurp their resources and send the illbegotten money back home to prop up your own corruption ridden government.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 01:29 PM

The only thing I envy the USA for, BB, is the warmer weather in the more southerly regions. ;-) And I'm serious about that. I don't care much for cold weather.

Remember, I have lived in both Canada and the USA. All things considered, I prefer Canada. But the COLD!!!! Ouch.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 12:39 PM

If you were American, you'd get the benefit of Mexicans slipping across the border illegally to work hard, for very little, keeping costs down, while taking all the risks of arbitrary and capricious law enforcement. All while the politicians wink and nod.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 12:32 PM

Shatner at least did something to become famous. I think America is perhaps one of the few places where you can become famous for no reason.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Dickey
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 12:31 PM

If you were American, you'd have to put up with Mexicans slipping across the border illegaly, working dirt cheap, ruining the labor market for legals and usurping the resources of the legal citizens.

All with the politicians wink and nod.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: beardedbruce
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 12:24 PM

"we don't envy you, you have budweiser, anna nicole and paris hilton."

"anna nicole "

Not any more.


And budweiser is ok to boil crabs in. (Cheasapeake blue crabs, anyway)


You got me on Paris Hilton: But compared with SHATNER???

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 12:21 PM

we don't envy you, you have budweiser, anna nicole and paris hilton.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: beardedbruce
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 11:59 AM

Well, in the US we have Democrats and Republicans- Canada has Shatner.

No wonder they envy the US.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 11:56 AM

yeh if you were English, you'd have to put up with Irish - always dancing jigs and digging up the road.

the welsh singing in choirs and stopping talking when you walk in the room.

the scottish - well you've seen Billy Connolly.

AND the French - a gang of wine swigging sex maniacs.

count yourself extremely lucky.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Mar 07 - 10:53 AM

As A Canadian and a neighbour of America, I am sometimes, frightened, appalled, bored and amazed by America. However, I also admire, respect, am awed, surprised and heartened by that country. We all have faults and America is no exception but I cringe to think where the world would be without this vibrant and intriguing country. As for America as a neighbour...thank god for it when you think who it might be.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Peace
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 11:08 PM

The head goose (here's his picture) has agreed that you are gonna be in deep deep doodoo if you slag Canada again. Look at the bare spot. There was a three-bedroom house there once. The goose? HE did that. It's our only secret weapon, and it flies under the radar.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Dickey
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 10:59 PM

Where would those Geese go to crap in the winter?

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Mooh
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 08:55 PM

mg...By the way, please don't confuse offense with hate. As for holier than thou...aren't we all to some extent? The original video in question is perhaps a good example, however misdirected. But that's part of the issue, folks need to get over themselves, and get over each other, and solve the real problems.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Bert
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 08:50 PM

A World without America would be a world without Mudcat!!!

Subject: RE: BS: A World without America
From: Mooh
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 05:54 PM

mg...Now you're getting it! LOL!

Peace, Mooh.

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

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: 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: 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: 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,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: GUEST,Crazyhorse
Date: 07 Mar 07 - 01:06 PM

Amos
Graham Nash & Thomas Paine, American?

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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? ;-)