My thoughts

Submitted by sonsam (United States), Sep 9, 2006 at 02:15

First of all Americans aren't stupid, but when It comes to having any sort of intellectual curiosity as to what goes on in the rest of the world.... I would certainly concede ignorance. We have six 24 hr. news stations that all show the same dribble with little focus on the rest of the world where America doesn't have some direct involvement. Luckily you can still catch the BBC.

As a capitalistic society you can hardly blame our news stations for our ignorance as they our just a manifistation of our wants. I truly beleive Americans real desire is to be Isolationists. Of course this desire provides a real paradox when youre the only remaining superpower. I think the biggest mistake Europeans have about Americans is that we should somehow be more like them, or have a greater affinity towards Europe due to our lineage. Americans however are not European (Europeans sigh with relief), and our preceived lack of culture by Europeans is in fact our culture, and we as Americans are fine with that.

Its not by accident that we don't use the metric system or that we call football....soccer. Does it make sense? No, but we do it b/c we can. Now I'm not condoning doing something on the basis of can or can't, ( thats Bush policy) but the prior example is relativly harmless. When it comes to more pertinent matters I think Europeans and Americans are very much alike and we should never forget all those who died in both continents for those principles.

Is Bush America's Nero? Europeans and half of America know the answer is yes. The other half are the sheepish Chrisitian right , die hard partisans, and people who simply just don't get it. The United States accounts for half of all the world's defense budget. You show me a country that spends that kind of money on defense and i'll show you a country thats on the decline. Luckily we do live in a democracy and things can change...Our next election will be very telling.

I've read a lot of posts about WW2 and of course i feel i need to put in my two-cents. Personaly I think the Brits won the war when they won the Battle for Britain. This forced Hitler to turn his attention East, subsequently opening up a second front...big mistake. The Russians might have been able to beat Germany on its own, you can only speculate. Although I doubt they would of been able to do it if the Germans were able to direct their entire military force to the east. Had Britain surrendered Hitler would of had this option.

Also had Britain surrendered it would have been terribly difficult for the United States to get a foothold into Europe. Rommel had northern Africa with Italy as a buffer. France and Britain would of been occupied, and Spain wouldn't of been a very good option. Sure the British would of never been able to take an offensive stance against Germany without the help of the USA, and the Russians would of taken a greater beating if the United States/Britain/Canada weren't a viable threat in the west- dividing German forces.

So you can see how important British resolve was in winning the war. Americans should be proud of what we accomplished in WW2 but let us not forget those who fought along side us and the almost fanatical resolve of the Russians who took heavy loses in the war, and who in fact entered Berlin first. One aspect of the war and probably one of the greatest accomplishment of any society that gets overlooked was the United States ability and capacity to "produce." American industrial capacity was nothing less of a marvel. We went from having something like the 12th largest military, to becoming a military juggernaut in just a few years. Not only that but the logistics of supply in a two front war that America was fighting.... which stretched literaly across the world was probably one of the greatest accomplishments of any society ever. It was also fortunate that Hitler didn't believe in "jew physics" otherwise the Germans would have had the A-bomb first.

The Cold War to the credit of the United States and the Soviets was a bloodless battle. It was a war of ecomomic attrition which eventualy proved Capitalism as king. It was fought on the backs of American workers and American debt. This aspect I think gets overlooked by Europeans who were able thrive under the protective umbrella of the United States. We insured Western dominance and Western European prosparity (I appoligize to Eastern Europeans who we threw under the rug) with little sacrifice from Western Europeans themselves. So when Americans come across Europeans who belittle them, we take it with great insult. At the end of the day you must ask yourself what has Europe done for America and the answer is virtually nothing, Unless you want to include two world wars, and the mess that is the Middleeast and Africa....your backyard, to which you divided up with no regards to ethnicity,clan, or religous consideration. It is Americans who have payed the price for European legacy. So the next time you meet an American I would thank him not call him stupid. If we come off as arrogant we have more than justified that position, although i admit its not the best way to travel or learn about other cultures. Dump Bush!

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