So many reasons

Submitted by j.patrick (United Kingdom), Feb 22, 2006 at 05:10

"I really don't get what there is to be jealous about. I honestly, really don't. I love the fact here can walk my dog without the slightest fear of danger, other than speeding cars, rather than being mugged ar gunpoint in DC."

Agreed. I'd absolutely hate to live in the US, to be honest. Whenever I've read predominantly US message boards I'm saddened by the ignorance of and disinterest in the rest of the world, the aggression, the ignorance and the "me me me" attitudes that seem to run rife in the US. Perhaps it's a side effect of the high school herd mentality that haunts certain people throughout their lives. That makes them desperate to stand out - if only by constantly polluting the environment with their oversized cars, re-inventing themselves with cosmetic surgery and noisil chattering about money, consumer goods and other mundane rubbish.

At the same time, these people are endlessly navel-gazing, seeking therapy, chucking money at "evangelist" conmen, looking within themselves to wonder "who am I?"....and constantly trying to find that one product that will provide them with the answer. Finding it impossible to truly assert their individuality - primarily because they consistently fail to grasp that neither individuality nor a soul can be bought.

It is this absence of soul that the US is so swaggeringly insistent on exporting to the rest of the world. The obsession with military might, the swaggering pride in their own obnoxious attitudes and the view that America is somehow better as a consequence of being crasser and greedier...therefore justifying its insistence on swallowing up aspects of other cultures and regurgitating them as dull, formulaic crap (eg Hollywood's pedestrian and crowd-pleasing "interpretation" of great novels).

Americans ask "why does the world hate us?" but they aren't really interested in the answer. The question is asked only as an excuse to rail against its detractors and to whip up blind but noisy support from jingoistic cheerleaders. Stop bullying, crapping all over and promoting globalisation (read Americanisation) of the rest of the world, America. Start being a little humble and work on this arrogant belief that the rest of the world exists for your benefit. Then the rest of the world might stop hating you.

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