The Ugly American

[maddog]

Naso,
You seem to have justified all the bad choices your countrymen made... but the USA, evil empire... give me a break.. talk about American pride, your unabashed nationalism is a cancer... hell half your relatives probaly live in New York anyway... did they become ugly swine Americans when they got off the boat?   The only reason we have bases in Italy is to make sure the "puppet" Italian goverment doesn't nationalise the Ferrari factory..... and restrict exports...

PS; you got your revenge with the Fiat!

[Dinger]

Oh my Naso, you even managed to fit Ustica in there.
Just put it in plain English: Anyone who thinks Amurrica's foreign policy is ruled by a sense of moral uprightness is living in a fantasy world way on the other side of the Carter Administration.  People all over the world have good reason to dislike the US's meddling.

On the other hand, I would point out to our old-world colleagues that nationality is a polysemous term: what it is to be an Amurrican is generically different from what it is to be, say, an Italian.  The difference I'm getting at is that American identity is not associated with a culture or even a geographical region, except in the most loose sense imaginable.  I'm idealizing the situation a little, but I feel this is the essence of this difference.
   A couple examples to get at what I'm saying:
   Milan and New York are both big cities that have a significant portion of the population being born elsewhere.  The term "Milanese", and all the cultural baggage associated with it, I gather applies to a very small slab of the immigrants.  "New Yorker", on the other hand, is probably more often applied to people not born and and raised anywhere near NEw York.  The same for California: my understanding is that the majority of California residents came here from somewhere else (another part of the US or overseas).  Whatever else they may be, they're Californians; and while lifelong residents such as myself may occasionally boast of being "natives", in practical cultural and social terms, the difference between "resident" and "native" is nil.
     So what am I getting at? We are unimpressed by Yankee-bashing that seeks to point out that so much of what we're proud of  we owe to immigrants, to persons not born to Amurrican parents.  Hell, that's what we're proud of.  Enrico Fermi is as much an American as I am, but he's a hell of a lot more Italian.
     But again, that's the problem.  If all that makes us "Amurricans" is our citizenship, then it's that much easier to construct a national identity around the State.  We never went through the same trauma of WWII that Europe did, and consequently we don't have the same aversion to fascism or its supporters.  We still revere Henry Ford, who applied the assembly line to automobiles and built a great industry that made him rich, and, in the 1930s, allowed him to support "NAtionalist Political Movements" in far-off places like Germany.  So, through the mythology of democracy and individualism, we fill the "National Identity" vacuum with some late 19th-century notion of "Patriotism" and convince ourselves that we really do have a voice in Government, and that the US is a moral force in the world.  The government does its best -- and nobody in the world will doubt that the US government can be damn effective at getting what it wants -- to keep us fat, happy, and rich, and as long as it does so, we couldn't care less about the price of eggs in China, or a day's wages in the Dominican Republic.  Just stay out of jail.

Rambling? Contradictory? Sure. And I hope everyone in this little discussion will be pleased to find something there to agree with, and something to be pissed off about.  That's America.

[Toad]

Santa,

Does this mean that you CAN take it as well as you CAN dish it out?

So we can go on baiting each other in a cheerful, tongue-in-cheek fashion?

After all, I enjoy your America-bashing! I'm the isolationist, remember? You help my cause; I've got two sons of military service age.

[Naso]

Maddog, you miss the point  

Dinger, you got the point  

My long post was intended to show a different point of view by a different cultural subject, is'nt the absolute true.

Real world is colourful, not white and black people like maddog seem to believe.

You say "unabashed" (what's mean?) nationalism, you're wrong, i am the less nationalist you can imagine, and...
no i dont have any relative in USA, but some good friend, Italian and WASP.
Last, i dont want any revenge, i am just pissed off loking at people living with eyes and hears closed, they damage the entire world community.

Dinger, i knew what you say, these are concept i already understand, but sometime in discussion you need to enphatize and exagerate arguments to point attention on it  .

I will never stop to push people to ask theirself if they need somethink else to know, to collect more information on everythink, knowledge is the best weapon we have to defend ourselves from the big brother to come, red or blue it will be.

Speaking about italian people's feelings during the fascism, i was pointing the fact they where sure to be right, like the allied soldiers, the germans soldiers, and the US soldiers fighting in Vietnam or the russians fighting in Afghanistan.

Like the people saying "we are the force of good in this world, the others are evil unless they think like us", like the ugly american.

And quoting Dinger :
 

Rambling? Contradictory? Sure. And I hope everyone in this little discussion will be pleased to find something there to agree with, and something to be pissed off about.

I will add: in any case, something to think about

 

[StSanta]

Toad:

Of course  

This thread and others like it are great fun and an opportunity to show off one's skills in insults and mad ramblings  

It's great fun, and I must admit you American opportunist isolationist patriotic gun toting right wing Christian fanatics upholders of morality are going a good job  

 



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StSanta
JG54 "Grünherz"

[StSanta]

Dinger:

Excellent post that more succintly and eloquently expresses what I mean with ugly American than I can do myself  



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StSanta
JG54 "Grünherz"

[Toad]

Santa,

Great!

Well, you have sparked a minor
interest in Danish history and I've been doing a little reading.

One thing I haven't found though is the population of Denmark just before the war. You mentioned it was a small country, but I haven't found any data for that time period.

It's just over 5 million now, right? What was it back then?

[StSanta]

Toad: yep, right now it is about 5.3 million, or 1.4 percent of the EU population  . Of these, around 6.8% are immigrants/refugees.

In 1950 (closest date to the war I can find) it was around 4.2 million. Removing some of the babyboomers and we have something like 4 million or so.

Projected size in 2040 is 6 million.

Weather generally sucks here; we have 9 months of rain, wind and cold and then (if we are lucky) a few months of good summer weather  .

Very well developed social security system, free universities and roads as well as medical care. Huge taxes; around 41% income or so and an additional 25% sales tax.

Pitiful armed forces. Our navy, which once dominated the region a few hundred years ago  has been dismantled and consists of a few light vessels and four outdated submarines. Air force of around 90 updated F-16A's and some C130's. Pseudo conscription army (they didn't want me, for instance  ). Tough gun control laws, but in terms of punishment for crime, we're on the lenient side, with life meaning like 12 or 14 years or something like that. No huge crime problem or problems with pollution. Overall similar to Holland with a rather "allowing" view on things.

Overbureaucratized, thanks to the bloody social democrats  .

Nice, relatively safe country in which is is almost impossible to get rich due to taxes and prices of living. Rather big and strong government, but a much more open closer-to-the-roots one than in the US. Easier to administer a small democracy, I guess  

Sportswise; soccer main sport, as it should be  .

And, of course, part of the allied opportunist NATO.

 

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StSanta
JG54 "Grünherz"

[Hamish]

I've been torn between posting in this thread  or just keeping my mouth shut and letting you all duke it out over what's what, and who's right and who's wrong. i don't know how applicable my viewpoint is on all this, hell i don't even know where this thread is going but i feel i must say a few things.
    First of all, i am in the U.S. Navy, i've been in for over 6 years and will probably make a career out of it. I've been stationed on a ship out of florida for about 5 years and been on 3 6-month deployments. 2 to the Med, and 1 to the Arabian Gulf (Persian Gulf to some). In these 3 deployments i have been to many countries and had the pleasure to meet many different cultures   Some of the experiences I have had in other countries i will treasure for my entire life, some i would rather forget. I have been to the ancient city of "Petra" in the country of Jordan, and have seen the Pyramids in Egypt. I have seen poverty in some countries that makes me realize how lucky i am to be an "American" My first time in Italy, about 20 of my shipmates and I helped paint, and do minor repairs to an Orphanage that was in need of help. The joy of the children living there as we played with them after we were done i will never forget. In Cape Town South Africa, I met some of the friendliest people i have ever had the pleasure of meeting. Before we pulled in to port many of us were concerned over the stories you hear of the race difficulties in the country and we were concerned on how that would ffect our stay there. I never saw any evidence of it there. Could it be that where we were didn't have a problem? sure, but it was a great time, regardless. In Morocco, i had the distinct pleasure of being hounded by an individual who wanted to be my "guide" through the city, and despite many of my polite refusals, refused to take no for an answer. When i finally had to be rude and say "just get away from me" i was told " f**k you , you stinking American! i hope Sadaam Hussien Kills you all!" nice guy huh?
        Cartegna/Malaga/Tormelinas(sp, sorry RAM, and the rest of the Spanish flyers, i cannot remember how to spell them) are some of the most beautiful places to visit i have seen, and the people were always kind, and friendly to us "ugly Americans"
       I have spent Christmas in Trieste, Italy (damn it was cold but i learned how to Ski there!), and I spent the turn of the Millenium in Naples, Italy (nice fireworks for sure) I spent July 4th of 1996 at sea, 2 days from home and our fireworks display was a guy on another ship with us shooting flares off the helicopter deck. (July 4th is one of our most important Holidays)
   I guess what i am trying to get at in all of this rambling is that no matter where you go, you have "decent" people, as well as "ugly" people. It doesn't matter where you are from, or what your beliefs are, we are all products of our society, and how we are raised by our parents. Has the U.S. government made mistakes? yes of course they have, but so has Every government in the history of the world, for no one is perfect, and no one will ever be. For anyone to stereotype and entire country/race/whatever as "ugly" or "good" would be silly, and if my being proud to be an American, and for me to be Glad that i was born in this country makes me an "ugly american" in your eyes, so be it. You have a right to your opinion, but so do I.

P.S. Naso, the tradgedy of the american pilot clipping that wire and killing all those people was horrible, and my heart goes out to all the families that were affected by it, i was out at sea about 3 days from naples at the time of the accident, and it was not a good time to be an amercain serviceman. But, I don't believe it was a pilot joyriding, either. Could it have been carelessness on his part? sure, you and i will probably never know, did he do it on purpose? of course not, but before youpre-judge him, put yourself in his shoes, for the rest of his life he has to live with the fact that because of his flying, all those peoples lives were cut tragically short.

I'll stop rambling now, and maybe this gives you someone else's point of view.

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Hamish!
 

[This message has been edited by Hamish (edited 08-04-2000).]

[RAM]

 

Originally posted by Hamish:
Cartegna/Malaga/Tormelinas(sp, sorry RAM, and the rest of the Spanish flyers, i cannot remember how to spell them

Cartagena, Malaga...still wondering wich one is the last one     Maybe Torremolinos?  

Hamish here we dont talk wether Americans are good or bad. The "oportunist" thing is a Hristo's joke that has been running lately, being the subject of many many trolls  

The core thing of this is that USA is a good country. Bassicaly EVERY one democratic country is a good one, with good objectives and a strong desire for a peaceful future in wich all live in freedom and equality of oportunities to grow and be happy.

US has a lot of things to be proud about, what we are discussing here is that there are many US people who only see the GOOD part of their country, closing the eyes to the bad things.

Same goes with the "historic" thing. US has a past to be proud about, no doubts about it. But it has also a lot of shameful pages just as every other country has. But while a lot of people know about the good and the bad, there are people who endlessy brag about their country's past ignoring sistematically that there is a lot to be shameful about, too in that past.

Hamish...I hope you get my point. As part of the armed forces of a country you deserve my salute. Dont take this thread wrong. I am sure that when it is left back in the pages of this forum we'll all have learned a lot about it.

 <S!>.



[This message has been edited by RAM (edited 08-04-2000).]

[Toad]

Santa,

Let's see...

9 months of rain, wind and cold; 41% income tax; 25% sales tax; over bureaucratized and only soccer for sport?

Damn, no wonder you're always so petulant on the boards.....  

[StSanta]

Toad:

Oh, I forgot to mention the things that make up for it:

Young, liberated horny blonde women.

 



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StSanta
JG54 "Grünherz"

[Toad]

After flying round the world for the past 26 years Santa, let me assure you that you can find those in a lot of places with much better weather and taxes!

 

[StSanta]

Toad: come visit me for a bit. The women in this town seem especially fond of Americans, as some of my friends can attest to.

I am quite sure that they can teach even an old dog like yourself a trick or two  



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StSanta
JG54 "Grünherz"

[Hangtime]

 

Oh, I forgot to mention the things that make up for it:

Young, liberated horny blonde women.

Sounds like you guys have been "Californicated". Welcome to the joys of a free world.  

 

P.S. Naso, the tradgedy of the american pilot clipping that wire and killing all those people was horrible, and my heart goes out to all the families that were affected by it, i was out at sea about 3 days from naples at the time of the accident, and it was not a good time to be an amercain serviceman. But, I don't believe it was a pilot joyriding, either. Could it have been carelessness on his part? sure, you and i will probably never know, did he do it on purpose? of course not, but before youpre-judge him, put yourself in his shoes, for the rest of his life he has to live with the fact that because of his flying, all those peoples lives were cut tragically short.

I've seen this incident used multiple times to villify Americans; to ravage our reps, to place us in a very poor light in regards to our commitment to defense away from our shores...

Folks, that crew was cruicifed; both the front seat guys were drummed outta the service. Necessary I guess; but the mission was to train.. and those guys were flying in an attack profile that they would have to use had the real thing been going down. I offer the below quote in defense of the mission; if not the crew. That plane was a Prowler.. an ECM A/C with no defenseive capability beyond it's electronics. They train for ingress and egress nape of the earth. It's the only way the A/C has a chance of survival in a combat enviornment.

 

"I'd hate to see an epitaph on a fighter pilots tombstone that says "I told you I needed training"... How do you train for the most dangerous game in the world by being as safe as possible? When you don't let a guy train because it's dangerous, you're saying "Go fight those lions with your bare hands in that arena, because we can't teach you how to use a spear. If we do; you might poke someones eye out while you're learning"

And thats just the same as Murder.

Colonel "Boots" Boothby

That crew coulda been French; British or Italian. Had it been anyone else other than an American crew; would the furor have been the same? I wonder...

Hang



[This message has been edited by Hangtime (edited 08-05-2000).]