Arrogant bastards regard us as selfish:
Most people surveyed would welcome closer transatlantic ties, but there were barriers. In most European countries the main reason for “not engaging with the US†was Washington’s foreign policy, while the view that “Europeans are too liberal†was the main barrier cited in the US.
A separate Harris opinion poll for the Financial Times, published this week, showed many Europeans perceiving the US to be a threat. In Britain, Germany and Spain, the US was seen as the “greatest threat to global stabilityâ€Â, ahead of China, Iran and North Korea.
A British Council youth project launched on Wednesday aimed to counter this “mental widening of the Atlanticâ€Â, Lord Kinnock said.
Julian Morgan, British Council’s head of communications for western Europe and North America said the survey showed a “depth to the [transatlantic] rift that we had not expectedâ€Â.
“The survey shows that stereotypes die hard,†Mr Morgan said, noting that 62 per cent of Europeans thought US citizens were “keen consumers and 45 per cent thought they were “selfishâ€Â. In return, 34 per cent in the US said Europeans were “snobbishâ€Â.
He said the results challenged those stereotypes, for instance by showing that Americans were more willing than Europeans to take action for social or environmental issues they cared about, such as by paying more taxes.
The only areas where transatlantic co-operation was viewed overwhelmingly positively were in the fields of business and trade, and in combating diseases such as HIV-Aids and malaria.
At least 500 people were questioned in each country, with 1,019 polled in the UK and 2,001 in the US, said GlobeScan and IFF, the polling agencies involved.ÂÂ
A British Council youth project launched on Wednesday aimed to counter this “mental widening of the Atlanticâ€Â, Lord Kinnock said.
Please don’t. A wide Atlantic is a happy Atlantic I think, and there’s so much else what the British Council youth can be doing I think.
I suppose the Euro-Twits still haven’t figured out that if America had opted for their brand of “soft power” back in the 1930’s, they’d still be packing their kids off to Hitler Youth holiday camps, hustling for choice seats at the annual Nuremberg rallies, and celebrating the Fuehrer’s Birthday every April 20th.
They could shellack something belonging to the Queen, maybe. They could concoct various gloppy things and call them puddings and pour cream on top. Or like they could make little baskets of sovereignty and tie ribbons on them and send them to Brussels. That would be very thoughtful.
Of *course* the US is the greatest threat to global stability. It’s a function of *mass*. Most countries… no matter what they do it doesn’t really have the potential to affect anyone but themselves and maybe their neighbors.
I mean… Chavez right? So we sort of watch in horror as that train wreck proceeds in slow-mo. But if the end result is bad or if things reverse… it’s not really going to effect us much. Not even oil availablity issues.
But the US sneezes and… well…
So sure, people watch us and they’re worried.
But the proper response to that isn’t for us to sit in a corner rocking and sucking our thumb. I mean… it is what it is and we can’t *not* engage so…
Caving to fear, either ours or anyone else’s, isn’t really an option.
Is furriskey alive?
Yes. I have actually had a Frenchman tell me that Americans are arrogant. A Frenchman.
And I should care…because? And HF, that’s a good question. I liked his comments. I’m an arrogant and demanding American. I want furriskey to comment. NOW.
Yeah, we’re the greatest threat to global stability.
That constant warfare the Europeans used to engage in before we stuck our stupid fingers into their pies was so much better.
What a bunch of whiners.
I think furriskey’s in the process of moving shop, hf.
This takes me back to the television interview with some House of Lords guy who had been caught “driving the boat” with his secretary and he had written a book about how to come back from such a career limiting event. He was sure that Eliot Spitzer would be fine. But he was as pompous as Charles Emerson Winchester using phraseology like “you Americans” and “Americans don’t understand” and the like. I mean, he was dog-fashioning his snaggle-toothed typist and he still had the strength to talk down to us uncouth Americans. He had a comb-over. A COMB-OVER!
alp . . .
Any chance you could google that up?
Continental Drift a nice book by Russell Banks
Many reasons Euros and Englishmen look askance at Amerika is perhaps our hidebound morality. Like we wouldn’t let even a novelist enter the country for writing about his own depravity: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/books/20memoi.html Where this quote is on-line: “Mr. Horsley said he was surprised he was deported, since he had previously traveled to the United States six times, twice to visit relatives in Boston and four times to New York.
“God bless America, land of the free, but sadly not the land of the depraved,†he said. He referred to the recent resignation of Eliot Spitzer, the former governor of New York, in the wake of revelations that he had frequented prostitutes. “I’m not a politician, I’m an artist,†Mr. Horsley said. “Depravity is part of the job description.â€Â
as for Spitzer: “A useful rule of thumb in evaluating spectacular scandals around prominent public figures is to ask who might want to eliminate that person. In the case of former governor Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, it is clear that the spectacular “leak” of the government’s FBI wiretap records showing that Spitzer paid a high-cost prostitute US$4,300 for what amounted to about an hour’s personal entertainment, was politically motivated.”
My g/f won’t have anything to do with that theory. She’s hung-up on personal and sexual loyalty and such ‘traditional’ values. She’s American after all. But you can’t notice how GW’s being frisky lately even though his 60 billion dollar war is now ‘conservatively’ costing about 1.9 Trillion. Remember they fired someone for suggesting it might just cost about 200 billion?
“The only areas where transatlantic co-operation was viewed overwhelmingly positively were in the fields of business and trade, and in combating diseases such as HIV-Aids and malaria.”
The fields of business and trade and disease eradication. In other words, those fields where people work closely with one another, as opposed to just sitting in the pub or cafe or beirgarten and watching t.v. where some blow-dried turd with intellectual pretensions drones on about how awful those stupid Americans are.
The article didn’t mention it, but how deep are those feelings? Are they thoughts that consume nearly every waking hour of a person’s life or are they the type of thoughts that come across as a quick ‘those jackasses’ when the above-mentioned blow-dried turd comes on the tube and disappears before the commercial break? The intensity of the feeling and over how much time it is felt in any day are what is important, not that a feeling is there. A mild dislike is no more important than a mild liking, it is the deep visceral feelings that are important.
I suppose a way of correlating the depths of these feelings would be to see how well American commercial products and brands are doing; if there hasn’t been a great shift away from them over the past five years, then the feelings aren’t deep and are probably not going to last long or cause any real damage.
And one more thing – if it is the perception of American foreign policy that is causing this ‘rift’ then I am afraid there is little that can be done to cure it. While the opinions of other major powers are taken into consideration, they do not drive American policy. Our policy is created to promote our interests, and it just may be that our interests and the inerests of others are not in perfect alignment. In that case we all will just have to wait until the situation changes to expect any change in perceptions – no matter how many youth programs some addle-pated social worker puts together.
Sounds like your g/f is too good for you, datadave. And I hope she doesn’t read the first two sentences of your last paragraph – for your sake.
‘traditional’
Why the scare quotes on traditional values, datadave?
Who prospered from Spitzer’s demise? Paterson. Also, the citizens of the State of NY. So, your field of potential leakers (who are only bad when they leak info against a Dem, and are not leaking national security information), are quite large.
MikeyNTH – I think they called me for that poll. After a 30-minute profanity laced tirade against the French, the pollster asked me if it would be fair to say I was ambivalent about my feelings towards the yellow bellied cheese eating surrender monkeys.
Glad to hear you aren’t a ‘hater’ JD.
When did hating become such a bad thing? I know there is that whole Bible thing about not hating, but come one. Aren’t some things so vile that they deserve to be hated? For example :
France – gotta admit, getting better
Midgets
Clowns
Billy Fudge Packer
Bill “My chicklets are bigger than a horse” Walton
Rosie
Michael “I have more food in my colon than will be consumed in Ethiopia in a year” Moore
Intolerance
Just off the top of my head …
Jeffery Archer, and the book he’s pimping is A Prisoner of Birth.
Thanks Pablo,
Man I googled my ass off and came up empty. You da man Pablo….you da man.
Oh, HIM. Ugh.
Jesus did some hating himself–moneychangers in the temple.
I’d love to be a fly on the wall when Jeremiah Wright meets Jesus in person.
Hating gets in the way of too many good things – like sleep. A good hate makes it hard to fall asleep. And sometimes it gets let loose at the wrong moment, like when a child spills some milk, or a person cuts you off, or you’re running for President.
Okay – the last one is a bad example.
Think it’ll be a wall-to-wall discussion, Radish? That Jesus, he did not placate.
thx for your concern, Mikey, but I meant my ‘traditional’ values g/f also has a sense of humor too. She’s American, you know. (and I should probably watch out..but we’ve weathered a lot bigger fuck-ups than that…. being a jerk isn’t new to me. )
JD, “traditional” means having custom dictate behavior, rather than using one’s own knowledge, Hey, being in a fucking pile/up like Spitzer got himself into is just plain stupid, but if he had some uncustomary relationship with a ‘friend’ rather than a hooker, I’d not see anything wrong with it if Mrs. Spitzer didn’t mind. Hey, look at Justice Sandra O’Connor’s husband sharing time with a fellow Alzheimer’s person, “untraditional” but rather charming and wholesome.
Patterson? I don’t know if he’s gonna last his revelations…but think he will as he owned up to it fast and does have a sense of humor. That could save him, that last political factor that Elliot seemed to lack.
anyway, pretty crappy weather for outside work today….
Another good rule of thumb? Question the timing.
Nice to see that a criminal complaint containing evidence is now a “leak”.
Anytime, al, anytime. I saw that interview too. Quite the classy flame out, ain’t he?
Remember, anything that happens to a Democrat is a result of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.
Their worldview makes more sense that way.