How Does The Us Think Its Perceived?

[Wertbag]

I know we have a lot of American's on these forums, so I thought I'd ask a question that came up in conversation today. How do you believe the American population thinks the rest of the world views you? I'm thinking both your personal view of your global place and your thoughts on the great unwashed masses limited thought processes...

 

Its quite wide ranging, US sports (NFL especially), politics (its in the news but we don't hear the speeches or attend the rallies), fuel prices ($100 a barrel), war in the middle east, Guantanamo Bay, gun control (and the massacres that have occured) etc.

 

I have talked to some Americans who almost appeared to not realise there was a world outside of the US, and I highly doubt would have even been able to pick their own country out on a globe. On the other side the many US members I've read on here always seem intelligent and well written (grammar seems to be such a rare thing on the net these days!).

[Kelli]

By and large I think we are viewed as self-absorbed idiots. Unfortunately, by and large I believe this is actually true.

[Grandpa Harley]

You missed out arrogant, ignorant, insular, beggars on a golden throne, only slightly less corrupt than the former Soviet Union...

 

But then, working for AT&T and Crawford & Co. makes you cynical.

[Deva]

My guess would be that people in different countries think people in the U.S. are shallow, unsophisticated and materialistic.

[Ex-COG]

How do you believe the American population thinks the rest of the world views you? I'm thinking both your personal view of your global place and your thoughts on the great unwashed masses limited thought processes...

 

It's going to depend on who you ask. Some Americans are quite aware that much of the world views us as (using Gramp's and DevaLight's accurately descriptive words) arrogant, ignorant, insular, corrupt, shallow, unsophisticated and materialistic . Others could give a shit what the rest of the world thinks because, well, they fit into those accurately descriptive words. In fact, when the average stooge on the street hears that other nations are not lining up with the American Illusion, the most likely response will not be to examine the facts and see why this is so, but to sneer, "Those idiot foreigners, what do they know? Nothing!" I try to live with few delusions, and realize that the world does not think as highly of us as most Americans would like to imagine. In fact, many no doubt think we are one of the greatest threats to stability in today's world (an apt observation, I might say).

[The-Captain]

You missed out arrogant, ignorant, insular, beggars on a golden throne, only slightly less corrupt than the former Soviet Union...

 

But then, working for AT&T and Crawford & Co. makes you cynical.

 

Ive actually been writing a few essays on how America is the "New Soviet Union", which has earned little more than glares from my pol sci professors....

 

And in reply to the op, negatively

[Thurisaz]

Can't speak for the majority of my fellow Germans (at least not with any certitude), but personally...

 

...yeah, parts of America I see as total morons (think "babble belt" ). In fact, if I had never stumbled over this site, maybe I'd think that you all are just as braindead as freddie phelps, "hoover" hovind and the rest.

 

Fortunately, whenever I drop in here I see that there are other US citizens too

[upstarter]

I wasn't going to post, not being American myself. But since other furriners are posting, I will. I think much of the time I worry, because America determines the fate of the world really. But I agree with Thurisaz, this forum and other smart Americans I have met do give me hope that there maybe are enough people to turn this ship around before we all sail off the edge.

 

All I'll say is please educate your children about the world. Please vacation with your children outside of your state and even outside of your country (if you can). Help them to understand that there is beauty and history and culture outside of your borders. They don't seem to learn this in American schools.

 

Heather

[Vigile]

I was actually surprised when I started to travel. I thought that both A) Americans were reviled as uncultured yanks, and that America was seen as something special, considering it is a hegemony and economic powerhouse. My surprise came when I realized that America wasn't really considered as anything but just another country. If I were from Brazil, Korea, or Nicaragua I don't think I would have been perceived as being from anywhere more or less unique or fascinating to those I met.

 

Most I meet abroad are either in agreement with me about America's wrong-minded (IMO) foreign policy, or they are ambivelent about it. I haven't run into any strong anti-American sentiment directed toward American citizens. I think that Americans at home worry that it exists, but what they fail to realize is that most people can figure out that what our gov does isn't what we necessarily support.

 

I suspose if I were to be brash and loud I might run into a different response. I tend to blend in well with new cultures. They fascinate me more than I fascinate them.

[bellsybop]

I think the people outside of the US probably tend to think we have the most idiotic president in history!

 

Not to mention healthcare issues for the people. Look at the other countries who have a fantastic healthcare program and we don't. That reflects a bunch of greedy political leaders.

 

My bottom line thought is that the population is probably looked at as weak for not doing something about it.

But that's my opinion.

[R. S. Martin]

You missed out arrogant, ignorant, insular, beggars on a golden throne, only slightly less corrupt than the former Soviet Union...

 

But then, working for AT&T and Crawford & Co. makes you cynical.

 

Ive actually been writing a few essays on how America is the "New Soviet Union", which has earned little more than glares from my pol sci professors....

 

This is S C A R E Y !

 

Political science professors should be among the first to self-critique their country's political position on the global radar.

 

That they're as ignorant and arrogant as Mr. and Ms Everybody on the street is NOT GOOD. That's the attitude that will blast and bomb so long as blasting and bombing material exists with which to blast and bomb. And when the ammunition is gone and the favour is reciprocated, they are outraged that anyone--ANYONE--would commit such an affront to THEIR Country. They'll blame Afghanistan. They'll blame Iraq. They'll blame Canada. Witness 9/11.

 

Just to retain some kind of peace with (read "to placate") the monster to the south we had to tighten our own security laws. My apologies to the good people of these forums. I'm talking about crazies like Doc's profs and likeminded masses. In the winter of 2002 a classmate of mine mentioned making a business call to the US and meeting with severe hostility just because he was a Canadian. Apparently we Canadians were guilty (in the eyes of a lot of Americans) for admitting the terrorists to their country. Apparently the customs officers on the American side of the border shouldn't have to work that hard if only Canadians did their job properly.

 

Then there's more beneign stuff like the time an Old Order Mennonite teacher from the US visited an Old Order Mennonite school in Ontario. My little sister was still in school at the time. The American teacher quizzed the Canadian students on things like capital cities of various states and presidents. The kids did reasonably well on the quiz but not as good as she thought they might have done.

 

EXCUSE ME? Ms Teacher did not realize she had crossed an international border. She failed to credit these Canadian children for knowing the information on their own country PLUS a lot of information on their next-door neighbour.

 

Some years later, a few of my sisters visited an Older Order Mennonite community in Indiana. They were asked where they were from. "Ontario," they answered. "Oh," said one young lady, "I know where Ontario is. When I was at Niagara Falls I saw a sign that said Ontario."

 

Yeah, yeah, we get the message.

 

The most powerful country in the world has power. Power without brains is brute power. I really feel sorry for you good people south of the border who do have brains, who see where brute power is taking your ship, but are helpless to do anything about it. Since Canada's destiny is so closely tied in with the States's destiny, I'm not sure that we're any better off.

[florduh]

I do have occasion to chat with lots of other countries, and for the most part, in my experience, they are a little afraid (less than WE are) that the president will abuse his power on a devastating scale. However, they also realize that our government doesn't represent our American people. I wish more Americans realized that.

 

- Chris

[woodsmoke]

I think Vigile's got the right of it. So long as we don't play directly into the unflattering stereotype of the obnoxious American tourist, I imagine most average citizens of other nations don't really give anymore thought to us than we do to them.

 

Pretty much in keeping with "Most people would worry a lot less about what others think of them if only they realized just how little they do."

[Vigile]

Political science professors should be among the first to self-critique their country's political position on the global radar.

 

That they're as ignorant and arrogant as Mr. and Ms Everybody on the street is NOT GOOD

 

I'm not sure that this makes the profs ignorant or arrogant. Labeling the US the CCCP is probably just seen by them as hyperbole. That's how I'd see it unless a good argument was made to back up the label and I had more context to what the Doc is actually saying.

 

I to was a poli sci major at a university in a rural red state. My professors were neither arrogant or ignorant, but rather well informed and enlightened individuals.

[woodsmoke]

Aye, it's been my experience most pol sci professors are simply optimistic and still believe strongly in American democracy. I've yet to meet one who would actually qualify as ignorant or delusional.

[Grandpa Harley]

You missed out arrogant, ignorant, insular, beggars on a golden throne, only slightly less corrupt than the former Soviet Union...

 

But then, working for AT&T and Crawford & Co. makes you cynical.

 

Ive actually been writing a few essays on how America is the "New Soviet Union", which has earned little more than glares from my pol sci professors....

 

And in reply to the op, negatively

 

There was quite an interesting essay posted here a few weeks ago (I remember not by whom) that posited the US mirrors the USSR in what happens, and was predicting some pretty nasty stuff with Balkanisation of the US... the only safe places to be would be Alaska and Hawaii...

 

A lot of people here didn't like the idea, but TBH, it had some resonance with this outsider observer...

[Grandpa Harley]

Aye, it's been my experience most pol sci professors are simply optimistic and still believe strongly in American democracy. I've yet to meet one who would actually qualify as ignorant or delusional.

There's a line between 'optimism' and 'delusional'?

[woodsmoke]

Heh, touché.

[The-Captain]

No, in fact I was very careful to make it clear that I was just pointing out trends the U.S is following that are reminiscent of the USSR (foreign policy, military/industrial complex ,citizen apathy etc). He didnt mark my grade down for it or anything, but certainly gave me a little grief over my apparent lack of patrioitism. My prof Then went further to say in more or less words that we were totally different from the soviets primarily in our nations motivations (we want democracy for all and to protect our place in the world, the commies wanted socialism for all and world prominence etc.).

 

Maybe this is just the bias of one professor, but most of my government/history/social sciences teachers have held similar views. Coincidentally most of my education has been at xian instituitons and Im currently going to a babble university in the babble belt in the heart of Texas.

Educators by and large get my respect, and like you said tend to be enlightened liberal (minded at least) folks (education will do that). But it in my experience at least they are only slightly more liberal relative to the views of their location.

[Vigile]

we were totally different from the soviets primarily in our nations motivations (we want democracy for all and to protect our place in the world, the commies wanted socialism for all and world prominence etc

 

Yeah, at a minimum I'd call that not thinking outside the box drawn by the Whitehouse press corp and ultimately intellectual dishonesty or willful ignorance as to what is behind the advertised policy of spreading democracy.

 

. Coincidentally most of my education has been at xian instituitons and Im currently going to a babble university in the babble belt in the heart of Texas.

 

There's a big part of the problem right there. I'm pretty sure there wasn't an xian in the bunch amongst my educators.

[Grandpa Harley]

Can't speak for the majority of my fellow Germans (at least not with any certitude), but personally...

 

...yeah, parts of America I see as total morons (think "babble belt" ). In fact, if I had never stumbled over this site, maybe I'd think that you all are just as braindead as freddie phelps, "hoover" hovind and the rest.

 

Fortunately, whenever I drop in here I see that there are other US citizens too

 

you've put me in mind of an American orientation film for service men occupying West Germany....

 

Don't forget, just beacuse there are some you may like, don't forget that only a couple of years ago they were shooting at you...

 

Does a handful redeem the mass?

[Vigile]

Just for Gramps (and not a thread derailer if you read and think about what the article is saying)

 

Gas Middle America

 

The eXile's Blue State Solution

By Mark Ames ( editor@exile.ru )

 

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I've been tracking the Left's reaction to Bush's horrifying election romp, and what's clear to me is that nothing has been learned. Nothing has been learned because no one on the Left is being honest. Their reactions range from bitching about the elections allegedly being stolen -- well duh! what'd you idiots expect from the Republicans?! -- to grotesque, clumsy soul-searching in the form of how Democrats need to get spiritual, get in touch with Middle American "values," or how the Democratic party either needs to move to the center, or the flip-side to this idiocy, move farther to the Left...that coastalites need start going to church more often in order to learn the ways of the savages, to be less secular-humanist, to shop less, to connect with Middle America, to understand Middle America, to allow Middle America to be Middle America, to suck Middle America's hemorrhoid-bejeweled ass and tickle Middle America's balls... What they don't have the guts to admit, once and for all, is that THE PROBLEM IS MIDDLE AMERICA. Stop blaming the victim, folks. The problem with the idiocy and lunacy are the idiots and lunatics, not their mugging victims.

 

Now that we've come out and said it, it's time to act. We at the eXile are here to solve problems. Middle America is the problem, and the eXile has the solution. It's a little extreme, and you folks will have to briefly suspend your little liberal-humanist consciences in order to get on board with us, but we think it's the only solution that'll work.

 

Gas them. Gas every red state that voted for Bush. Gas them all, and gas them now. And if that sounds a little too 1940s for you, then fine, nuke the fuckers. Nukes have come a long way since 1945, so much so that they're not even 1940s anymore. It's just that gassing them sounds so much more appropriate.

 

The awful reality is that George W. Bush won by 4 million votes. No, the awful reality is that he got any votes at all -- but he did. It doesn't matter if Bush stole 10,000 votes in this shitty Ohio county and 4,000 votes in that incest-ridden Deliverance county there -- he won the popular vote. He won a mandate. He won -- get it? Bush won! They voted for him, the stupid fucking suckers, after he gave them four years of the most shocking warp-speed national decline since Franz Josef abdicated. There is nothing normal or sane about what these Americans did. There is no way to spin that. It's just nauseating, sphincter-twisting, horrifyingly stupid and evil. So the coastal elite -- and we are an elite, thank god (what moron wouldn't want to be part of the elite? "Hey, I'm not elite, I'm akshully jus' a fuckin' stupid piece of shit chump who gits used by the elite, 'n by gum that's how's I likes it!") -- and the Democrats and everyone with a brain should stop flogging themselves or falsely localizing blame on a clique of evil Republican operatives who manipulated Middle America, and put the blame where the blame lies -- on the 59,000,000 fucks who voted to destroy America. And don't just blame those 59,000,000 fucks, but blame their families, their friends, their dogs and cats, their furniture, and everything they ever touched, smelled, peed on, or otherwise left DNA samples in. They all have to go. Every last one of 'em. We don't like the thought of all that collateral damage that nuking or gassing Middle America would bring, but...aw shit, who are we foolin' here? We LOVE the thought of all that collateral damage, we DREAM about it! We're sorry for the 30-40 percent who voted blue in the red states -- just like we're sorry about Dresden and Hamburg, and lose sleep over it every night. That is to say, if you stay there, you're no longer innocent. Collateral damage in Fallujah is depressing-- but collateral damage in Alabama, a giant welfare queen state sucking from the libera

 

l pro-Kerry states' tax dollars? A few Trident II's oughtta turn 'Bama into a Crimson Tide of Manhattan Chowder. M'm-m'm tasty!

 

The Left knows that this is the only way to rectify the electoral problem and save America, but cannot come to grips with this because so much of Leftism's humanist philosophy presupposes human goodness. The Left believes that the Masses of people are inherently Good, that they want to do what's Right for themselves and for each other. This presupposition is the Left's hugest blind spot.

 

The hardcore Christians, and the Republicans who use them, have a massive advantage over secular humanists because they know and believe that man is an evil, base creature. They see his baseness everywhere, particularly if he is enjoying himself. Evangelical Christian philosophy is based on a simple hatred of man, hatred of life, hatred of pleasure, and hatred of everything beautiful on this planet, especially animals and forests. Earth to them is a wretched test, a dreadful obstacle on the path to Heaven; only money is good, not for the sake of enjoying money, but because the wealth, and the goods wealth buys, is a sign that they have been Blessed; the more sand niggers, endangered mammals, forests, property, and earthly culture they destroy on the path to wealth, the better chance there is getting to Jesus Christ's kingdom later on. They want to go to heaven, yet they want to live until they're 100 because longevity is proof that Jesus has blessed them (also they want to draw Social Security and leave nothing for succeeding generations, all the while lecturing their grandchildren about the sin of taking handouts). They are infinitely greedy, and like the petty misers they are, they do not enjoy a single thing they possess, and hate those who do. But they're even worse than misers -- they're misers who barely get by, misers with overdrawn credit, misers who constantly vote for harder work and less pay. They're misers who make it harder and harder for themselves to mise, as it were. The stupidest misers man has ever known.

 

Middle American Christians not only hate man and life, but most of all, they hate America. In fact, no one hates America more than the hardcore Evangelical Christians, which is to say, the South and Midwest. Their hatred of New England liberals is a thinly disguised hatred of America's heart and soul, since it was in New England that America was founded; their hatred of California is a hatred of what America has become, a hatred of American culture and power, since modern American culture and technology are produced in California. Their hatred of Hollywood is the same hatred of Hollywood you find in any resentful Third World country. Middle Americans hate California and the Northeast because those are America; the South and Midwest, on the other hand, are merely a kind of Third World within America, a large free-trade zone full of gullible consumers and cheap land and labor, and they know it. They are what holds America back from progress. They are the East Germany that West Germans had to absorb, and are constantly paying the price for. They are America's Sunni Triangle, full of hate and fanaticism and destruction. They are fit for little more than cannon fodder in the armed forces and as non-union manual labor capable of assembling Japanese or German cars without making a fuss. In short, they're gullible fools. Which brings me to the next question: Who the fuck ever decided that these pieces of shit deserved the right to vote?

 

Bush II has done everything to destroy America in record time. Bush II is our Nikolai II and Wilhelm II rolled into one bumbling, violent dumbshit. Thanks to him, the mighty American empire is disintegrating before our eyes -- no wonder Putin, the Iranian mullahs and bin Laden wanted to see Bush II re-anointed. No president in history has accomplished so much destruction so quickly -- the destruction of the American armed forces, the destruction of the economy and the dollar, a record deficit ensuring our decline for decades, a huge redistribution of wealth from the middle-classes to the rich thereby ensuring social tension for decades, and encouraging the kind of cult superstition and ignorance that has made places like Iran and Saudi Arabia the beacons of cultural and technological innovation they are today. Disaster, you think? Wrong. It's perfect, if you're a Middle American who hates America with all of the passion -- in fact, with the very identical passion as his Islamic fundamentalist counterparts. Just look at the evidence: bin Laden has said that his two-pronged strategy to destroy America is aimed at both drawing it into a quagmire in the Middle East and by bankrupting it. Middle America voted back the president who has done exactly that -- drag America into a quagmire, and bankrupted its finances, causing its currency to plummet by 60% since Bush took office. They hate America, and they want it destroyed, and we need to stop them now. Not by seceding, not by hand-wringing, not by getting to understand them, but by gassing them. Or nuking them. Or both, just to be sure. Followed by salting.

 

 

Since I'm running out of space here, I'm just going to lay out a few salient points which I hope will help ease you into the mindset which says, "Yup, you're right Ames, as much as it pains me to say it, we need to gas 'em all, and gas 'em ay-ess-ay-pee":

 

Myth #1: The South and Midwest are more "spiritual" than the secular coastal states. You have to really not have lived there -- I don't mean spend time there, but I mean live there with the awful feeling in your gut that you're stuck there forever -- to believe that the Middle Americans are somehow more spiritual than coastalites. They're every bit as grotesquely consumer-driven, bargain-obsessed and materialistic as their coastal counterparts, only they don't question their consumerism because their brand of religion obviates the need to question it. Outsiders mistake their lack of self-analysis for something deeper, when in fact it's the purest expression of ignorance and shallowness. Middle Americans live for malls, Ford F-350 gas-guzzling dump trucks, and hair products. The only difference between their grotesque materialism and ours is that THEY HAVE NO FUCKING TASTE. I lived in Texas and in Kentucky; I grew up in the suburbs of San Jose, and lived in the elitist strongholds of Berkeley, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston and New York. So I have a little perspective on this. Here is what I can say about people in the South and Midwest, or the shit-kicking San Jose of my youth. THEY'RE NOT SPIRITUAL, THEY'RE JUST FUCKING IDIOTS. They can barely walk upright. They should be put in cages and injected with experimental vaccines, not given the right to vote. They're ignorant fucking morons whose brains are just crying out for someone to wash them with the most vicious, spiteful message you can throw at them. You cannot appeal to their better instincts because they have no better instincts. They don't think. They don't analyze. They simply buy, sell, consume, and listen to right-wing talk radio, and a few times a week, they hear some closet case in a powder blue suit and his hair molded tighter than a cat's ass feed them more and more hate and fear in the name of Jesus Christ. They are hooked on fear and hatred, and they cannot stand the thought of helping niggers or outsiders. No one in the world -- not in supposedly-savage Africa, not in the Balkans or Caucuses, not in the sub-continent or the tropics -- is as essentially mean-spirited as Middle Americans. Their stupidity, meanness and materialism is only bolstered, not tempered, by the religion that gives them their so-called "spirituality."

 

Myth #2: Middle Americans are "real Americans." Right. They barely even resemble human beings, with their grotesque front-butts, their cottage-cheese fat-packs and the way they squeal every time a true American from the Northeast or the West Coast appears on the airwaves -- airwaves created, controlled and beamed at them from the humanoid coastal enclaves. Middle Americans are not just stupid and ignorant, they are hideously ugly, so repulsive to behold that even body lice acquire a kind of pathos when placed next to (or on top of or inside of) them. Homo Flores, the little hobbit humanoids they recently discovered in Indonesia, has more of a claim to being a modern human than the degenerate sacks of shit who populate Bush Country. At the very least Homo Flores looks more human. Put it this way: in any bar in the world, a Homo Flores woman would get laid long before an Alabama beast would even qualify for a mercy-bang. If you could build a snowman out of artery plaque, then you would behold a typical Middle American. This evolutionary degeneracy is no accident. Consider how Middle Americans evolved. In America 200 years ago, those who could not succeed in the financial/cultural/power center in the Northeast trekked westward. Thus from the start they were already losers, but of the losers the strongest ones at least made it to the West Coast, the most beautiful land in America and perhaps the world. Those who stayed behind -- were the shit of the shit, the shit that stuck to the tip of America's ass and forgot to wipe. There are people who have lived for generations in Missouri, in Tennessee, in Kentucky and Texas, and who never saw the need, or had the nerve, to move to the West Coast, the end of the race. They couldn't go on. They were priced out genetically, brain-capacity-wise, and physically. As for the South-- these are the only Anglo-Saxons ever to get their asses kicked in warfare, surrender and be colonized...in other words, they are the special olympiads of the Anglo-Saxon race -- and they lost even that. Like hagfish sliming on the ocean floor, these Middle Americans, these losers several times over, remained in their hot, flat, ugly, humid, tornado-magnet shitholes, generation after generation, squatting on the only real estate in America that has not appreciated in value since the Battle of Midway because no other sucker is sucker-y enough to want to buy them out...and there's millions and millions of acres of this sucker real-estate that these bigoted, physically repulsive, monkey-brained fools cling to as if their spiritual salvation depended on it. The fact is, they're right not to emigrate to the West -- if they tried moving to a Blue State, they'd be on welfare faster than you can say "Applebee's." Why move there for welfare when you can just stay in your shitty red state and get welfare with every other pile of artery plaque. Which brings me to:

 

Myth #3: Middle Americans hate Big Government. The truth is that Middle Americans are Welfare Queens. White, bigoted, ignorant welfare queens. The statistics don't lie. North Dakota, which voted for Bush 63%-36%, takes in $2.03 for every dollar it pays into the federal budget, making it first among states. New Mexico just switched to Bush 50%-49%, seeing as he did such a bang-up job, and not coincidentally they're the second biggest welfare queens, skimming $1.89 for every dollar they fork over. After that, well, you can guess: Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Alaska, all welfare queen states. And don't be fooled into thinking this money goes to local minorities -- that gig ended years ago. These federal funds go to white projects -- subsidizing tobacco, big farming subsidies, bogus construction projects, bridges, roads, and every other big government project that the fat white welfare queen bigots can squeeze out of the liberal elitists. Even the few Middle Americans who "work," that is those who join the military, still have to be paid by the same "big government" they hate, even long after they retire. Middle Americans are the deficit, folks. And which states pay more into the federal budget in order to subsidize the Bush-voting welfare queens? Yup: eight of the top 10 states who pay more than they receive voted for Kerrey. Massachusetts, for example, receives just $0.79 for every dollar it gives to Bush's little government, while California and New York get just $0.81 back for each dollar they pay in. Stop paying them, you're thinking, and that'll teach 'em? Don't be a fool. Gas em, and they'll learn. Gas is the only language these baloneyheads understand.

 

 

Myth #4: Middle Americans voted for Bush because they share his values. Wrong again. They voted AGAINST Kerry because he looks and talks like an outsider. These people hate outsiders. They shoot outsiders who come onto their property. Bush has the same stupid, beady-eyed look as the rest of the red state inbreds. There is a certain pride to his ignorance that that sets their trigger-fingers at ease, even though Bush has been robbing them blind, every time they invite him in for a beer, for four straight years, and now another four a-comin'. You can literally kill their kin -- as Bush has been doing to their sons and daughters in Iraq -- and they'll still support you, so long as you've got that stupid beady-eyed look. The main thing is hatred of outsiders. That's it. Nothing deep, no riddle at all, no issue of values or spirituality. Remember that scene in Easy Rider, where the hicks shoot the hippies for looking like hippies? "They talk about loving freedom, but when they see someone who's actually free, they want to destroy him." That's pretty much what the hicks just did to all of America on November 2nd. Let's not whitewash what this election was about. It was about racism, bigotry and Fascism. In fact the South and Midwest, taken as a "nation," are the last and only Fascist state left in the white world, an incompetent and vulgar Fascism, without brains and without uniforms. Many of them are openly proud of this fact. They voted for a doomed war, against progress, against modernity and against culture. They are driven by envy and cult superstition and hate. And they want to slaughter other people to make up for the fact that they cannot produce anything of value, that they are nothing but welfare queens and cheap labor whose only consolations is that they aren't niggers, queers, spics, or...well, they don't openly hate Jews so much anymore, but their newfound bizarre embrace of Israel and Jews is every bit as sick as their former anti-Semitism.

 

Now some of you may have a problem with the gas-them-all theory, because most Middle Americans are quite nice when you meet them in person. Nicer, in fact, than city folk in the Blue States. If they saw you bleeding on the side of the road, they'd help nurse you back to health rather than run you over like in the LA or New York. But as Ash would say, "It's a trick." These people want to swallow your soul, quite literally.

 

The fact is that if these people ran America, it would have been like Bolivia, just a shitty Third World country with a resentful local population and a few big unfinished public works projects sitting idle. Middle America only exists because of the coastal states. The rest of the country provides nothing but cheap labor and farm land. But now, thanks to genetic engineering and cheap Chinese labor, we don't need you fucks anymore. So it's off to heaven with you. Fire up the crop dusters and prepare the Trident-IIs for launching, blue America. With the eXile solution, the world is about to become a better, safer, and leaner place.

[Grandpa Harley]

since that panders to all my prejudices

 

The nature of the beast is that there are good and bad... but this is about perception

[upstarter]

Oh RubySera has started a favourite pasttime of Canadians who grew up near the border (which is most of us)... telling stupid American stories. lol

 

Some years later, a few of my sisters visited an Older Order Mennonite community in Indiana. They were asked where they were from. "Ontario," they answered. "Oh," said one young lady, "I know where Ontario is. When I was at Niagara Falls I saw a sign that said Ontario."

 

I once went camping as a child with my family in Western NY. We met a family from Minnesota. The kid in this family bragged he could name all the State capitols and all the capitols in Canada. So, I said great, so could I. I ran through all the states and capitols (maybe in alphabetical order, 'cause I'm a showoff). Then I asked him to name the Canadian provinces and capitols. Suddenly he got nervous and said, "Well I know that Ottawa is the capitol of Ontario". That pretty much sums up my experience with Americans.

 

BTW, the capitol of Ontario is Toronto. Ottawa is the capitol of Canada. In case you were wondering.

[I Broke Free]

I ran through all the states and capitols (maybe in alphabetical order, 'cause I'm a showoff). Then I asked him to name the Canadian provinces and capitols. Suddenly he got nervous and said, "Well I know that Ottawa is the capitol of Ontario". That pretty much sums up my experience with Americans.

 

BTW, the capitol of Ontario is Toronto. Ottawa is the capitol of Canada. In case you were wondering.

 

I have always had a strange fascination with geography myself. I have a dozen atlases and actually read and study them for entertainment.

By the age of 15 I could also name all states (in alphabetical order of course), Canadian provinces and their capitals. If you gave me an empty map I could even place the capitals pretty close to where they are on the map.

However, I now have gripe with Canada! No matter how hard I try I can never remember how to pronounce or spell the latest territorial capital of Nunavut . Iqaluit! Are you guys crazy? It looks like someone just picked out some letters from Scrabble at random.

 

IBF