This should probably be in a History Forum, but I can't post there yet. The thing is, I am currently engaged in a debate in another forum, ot the topic of AntiAmericanism. The name speaks for itself, a bunch of guys (russian speaking, presumably from the territory of the former USSR) are attempting to prove (and giving arguments for it) that Americans are, well, deficient.
Here is what they claim:
1) American education system is inferior, as proof they illustrated poor test results in middle and elementary schools.
2) Americans are NOT religious
3) American science consists 90% of imported brains, since American scientists are... rare and dificult to raise on the "rocky terrain of American education".
4) Americans are incapable of heroism. There they have a VERY high standard of what is to be considered heroism, examples being Japanese kamikadze pilots, Soviet soldiers, who purposely wrapped themselves in explosives and fell under Nazi tanks. However, a very risky mission with a strong demonstration of personal bravery would also be accepted.
5) Americans don't have a culture, they have only a substitute - their pop-culture, which promotes sex and consumerism.
6) American music consists only of rap and other such vulgarities.
7) In modern America, there are no good writers.
8) American judicial system and politcorrectness embarass the whole nation (this is where I am somewhat in consensus)
9) Americans have a hypocritical foreign policy of double standards and are sticking their noses, where they don't belong, forcing democracy on people who don't want it.(and I agree with this one, too)

I am not a real fan of America either, but I don't like it when people fling mud at an entire culture/nation. I think gifted and ethical individuals are spread pretty randomly, without too high a concentration of them in any one country, same as the unethical and intellectually retarded ones. But I'm being outspoken 4 to 1, so I need some help.
Please, don't comment on how dumb these people are, I already know that. I need examples to counter theirs. I provided some, but not enough. If I administration allows, I will post a link to that site later.
In the topic there is also a discussion about the causes of Antiamericanism taking place. You will be interested to know, that they admit a big part of it being jealousy.
What do you think are the causes of Antiamericanism? Do you think it is rational, do you agree with it?

What do you think are the causes of Antiamericanism? Do you think it is rational, do you agree with it?

Well, America is the big dog right now, king of the hill as it were, without peer as far as power goes- and, no matter where you look, a universal human trait is to knock the concieted down a "notch or two"-

I have a Russian wife and travel to Russia and Europe frequently- and, much of what they say is true- however- the bible says something about looking at the mote in others eyes while you have a beam in your own LOL

America has some serious flaws, which may tear it apart in the next generation if we don't examine ourselves and stop thumping our chest and crying "we are number one"- one reason champions lose to contenders is this very reason- they don't "stay hungry" and focused on the goal- this, to me, is what America has lost.

Russia, without a doubt, has a superior education system. I know, I will be taking my children there every year to make them competetive with Russian children.

but anti-Americanism lies really on us as a nation, plus what I said above about being the number one hound right now.

Where it lies upon us is our arrogance and self righteiousness and busi-bodyness.

It is, in fact, part of our culture. No one here minds thier own darn business LOL. It is a very unusual trait in much of the world, as a society. Probably hearkens back to our puritan days I suppose, we never seemed to outgrow our victorian roots LOL

All that being said- let he who is without sin cast the first stone! Russian has an incredibly corrupt system, and the entire culture may fall before our own does just from being overrun by foreign nationals- they can't even breed enough to protect thier own borders! -2% population growth in a country that size will be disaster.

We still had a pretty good rep prior to GW though- this is a fairly new phenomenon- there were always anti-american forces, but not nearly so bad as post-Clinton.

When travelling prior to GW- you could say "I am an American" with some pride, knowing it would garner you some respect just by that statement alone- now that is not true.

I think that is the other HUGE change in world perception. I can not think of an american leader past 1900 that has done more to hurt our world image than GW. Even worse, he stained our moral authority as well. This is what helped us prior to GW- mostly, folks respected us prior to GW due to the fact that MOSTLY we followed international law, and tried to hold ourselves to the standards we set for others. This is another huge perception change- now, America is seen as not only corrupt, but nastily imperialistic as well.

There have always been anti-american sentiment after WW2, but it really became nasty and prevelent within the last 6 years.

It is not those extremists that really bother me, I don't care what they think about America personally- but it does bother me that we radicalized former fence sitters as well.

So I will address your points as I see them:

) American education system is inferior, as proof they illustrated poor test results in middle and elementary schools.

Okay- got us on that one- we are really bad here, and it is not a system thing, but a cultural thing.
2) Americans are NOT religious

That one is just plain silly- in any place in America, churches still outnumber bars in most towns! We are every bit as religious as the Iranians or Taliban, and sometimes, more virulently so. I don't think of that as a strength at all, but a weakness. If we were not religious, I would be happier LOL

3) American science consists 90% of imported brains, since American scientists are... rare and dificult to raise on the "rocky terrain of American education".

Well, yes and no, look at nobel prize winners- the nobel prizes are not given out to americans because the commitiee likes america BTW LOL- some fields we are bad in , others we are fine. We have lost our "staying hungry" part of that equation though IMO- however, there is money in a good brain, and Americans like money, and the cream still rises to the top!

4) Americans are incapable of heroism. There they have a VERY high standard of what is to be considered heroism, examples being Japanese kamikadze pilots, Soviet soldiers, who purposely wrapped themselves in explosives and fell under Nazi tanks. However, a very risky mission with a strong demonstration of personal bravery would also be accepted.

That is just plain stupid- look at the medal of honor winners- difference is- we don't like giving our lives for our country, we like to make our enemy give THIER lives for thier country. We don't needlessly waste soldiers on the battlefield like russia did or the japanese- just because you fight smarter does not mean you are not brave! America didn't become a super power because we are not a nation of heroes!

5) Americans don't have a culture, they have only a substitute - their pop-culture, which promotes sex and consumerism.

got us on that one I am afraid- only a small portion of our art anymore is worth a darn, and that is usually from a fringe that conservative americans don't like LOL

6) American music consists only of rap and other such vulgarities.

Stupid again- why does Russia want all our music so badly then? - we have a very, very dynamic music scene, and it is evolving every day practically- if there is any sterility and lack of growth right now it would be Europe and Russia-though Russia did get away from the vulgarity of the late 80s and early 90s and start using traditional songs set to more modern beats. Still, most of Russian music right now is re-mixed European techno, or copying American music forms- I watch it on TV every day via satellite, believe me, there is no music scene in the world more cutting edge, dymanic and creative than the American scene, none.

7) In modern America, there are no good writers.

Not true at all- there are just SO MANY writers that the good ones can get lost in the crowd of mediocrity. We are a victim of our own success here, with giant publishing houses and such.

8) American judicial system and politcorrectness embarass the whole nation (this is where I am somewhat in consensus)

True, the Ameican justice system is a model of hypocrisy and lack of justice for the western world, we need to address that as a nation.

9) Americans have a hypocritical foreign policy of double standards and are sticking their noses, where they don't belong, forcing democracy on people who don't want it.(and I agree with this one, too)

Or even worse, killing democratic goverments to install folks like pinochet etc. Guilty as charged and worse in this arena. Since WW2, we have had very few success stories in our foriegn policy.

Hope that helps.

And don't forget this little chestnut when talking to your Russian debate peers- if America is so bad, why do all thier women want to marry American men? LOL

"the bible says something about looking at the mote in others eyes while you have a beam in your own" I agree completely.

"Russia, without a doubt, has a superior education system. I know, I will be taking my children there every year to make them competetive with Russian children." That's a myth, I am afraid. I went through that education system for a couple years. It has it advantages and its flaws, but any claim of superiority is unfounded. Idiots are common in both systems.

"That one is just plain silly- in any place in America, churches still outnumber bars in most towns! We are every bit as religious as the Iranians or Taliban, and sometimes, more virulently so." Their reply is something like this: "The stones can't have faith in God".

"Well, yes and no, look at nobel prize winners- the nobel prizes are not given out to americans because the commitiee likes america" I agree. However, they claim these noble prize winners are exceptions rather than the rule. I need examples, evidence, documents, somebody - please help.

"That is just plain stupid- look at the medal of honor winners" They claim the medals were given away too easily.
"- difference is- we don't like giving our lives for our country, we like to make our enemy give THIER lives for thier country." yeah, we brought that up, but they seem to think of it as a result of weakness.

"got us on that one I am afraid- only a small portion of our art anymore is worth a darn, and that is usually from a fringe that conservative americans don't like LOL" Perhaps. However, I haven't heard of any great talents born in Russia in the last decade.

"Stupid again- why does Russia want all our music so badly then?" Their reply: "It's a contagious disease". I am pretty sick of them and I really wanna win that argument. Help!

"And don't forget this little chestnut when talking to your Russian debate peers- if America is so bad, why do all thier women want to marry American men?" It must have something to do with the tan. Joking, just joking.
thanks for ur help

If that is the best they have "they give out medals too easily (you know, for dying and stuff while helping your fellow soldier) and see making the other person die for thier country as a "weakness"- I would cease the debate all together- because it is simply not a debate- it is something like the freepers or such- "You can't argue with a pig- you don't win the argument and it annoys the pig" LOL

BTW- America is the most overly religious western country in the world- that is not a strength IMO- heck, even Russia doesn't allow a version of Jerry Falwell on television LOL

Yes, idiots are common in both systems- but the Russian system does far more with far less than we do- especially in the primary education area- America does do very well in secondary education, but not in primary.

I like to imagine it is all just pure jealousy.


America has presented itself of late to be playing hard ball with the rest of the global community, I am sure that many other nations feel threatened and even frightened by the United States.

We are known as "the Devil" in some nations, I think it is for reasons, many of which are beyond America's control, that have always been. America has a rather strong economy, may not seem like it to us- but to others, yes it does.

America has a well-organized health care system, child labor laws, woman's rights, no birth regulations, freedom of religion, free speech, a vast armed forces, a peaceful homeland (on the whole), a carefully thought out system of punishment fitting the crime. I am sure the root of antiamericanism is envy, we have everything some countries do not. Our freedom has drawn the mass-immigration of millions of people and the hatred of countless others.

Actually- THAT may be the main reason for the rise of anti-americanism- this silly notion that somehow, they are "jealous" of us- the arrogance is very annoying in the very least.


I had a German friend explain it this way- we all go to work together, most of us a little older, except there is one large bully in late adolcence, that is strong, tough, not too bright, and has a gun and we all know it. He comes to work every day, telling how he is "number one"- and he definately has some strong suits. Some things he does very well, but he never addresses his problems, he seems like a guy that WANTS to do good, and demands everyone else be good, but can't quite seem to live up to his own standards, but doesn't acknowledge his failings, only the failings of others, okay, we can live with that. But he starts bullying the rest of the workplace, throwing tantrums, and then he starts beating up the other co-workers. Okay, one or two of them had it coming- but it wasn't really his place to do it- we, as his co-workers, should have the right to deal with it too. Somebody that doesn't even work there harms in some way- so, instead of going to the police and dealing with it in accordance to law- he attacks someone at work who vaguely might resemble the bad guy, that everybody hated anyway, but we really are starting to wander about the big guy- he had so much potential, a real arrogant jerk, but we still had some respect for him, but now he has gone off the deep end, and is very dangerous. many of us that were on his side are leeery of him now, and many of those that were just irritated by his behavior now actively dislike him, and those that were his enemy now are better able to make thier cases against him with folks that USED to be his friend. Eventually, every body is going to get together and do something about HIM- and the sad part, he takes no responsibility for his actions, and when someone says something to him about it- they are verbally abused, and he says they are "just jealous of my perfection"-

Ya, that makes some folks pretty much hate him at the end of the day- and 99% of that hatred of those that didn't really hate him before is purely his responsibility.

ya, eventually, pretty much everybody is "anti-the big guy"- sums it up pretty nice IMO.

Immigration isn't because we are so free- it is because we are so rich. And we aren't number one for immigration either- especially if you consider most of it comes from Mexico. 20 million muslim immigrants in Europe- not the US.

I think Antiamericanism is becoming a worldwide trend. Although in some parts of the world (i.e. the former USSR, China, the Middle East, South America) anti-american feelings have been there for a longer time, it is remarkable that nowadays also Europe has adopted a more critical attitude towards the U.S..

During the Cold War you were our only hope against the communistic threat. But after the fall of the former USSR the balance of power was lost. The U.S. remained the only superpower left and took on the role of a policing the world with support of the U.N. and Nato. During Clinton, some criticism rose about the U.S. position in the world, started in European countries, but in general everybody still had a positive attitude towards the U.S.. This has all changed from the moment George W. Bush, was dubiously elected as President. During his administration the U.S. popularity declined. People start to worry how far the U.S. is willing to go to reach her goals and consolidate her position in the world. It is obvious that the neo-conservatives are aiming for a dominant position of the U.S in the world, spreading U.S. hegomy. The attack on 9/11 abhorred everybody, but the resulting war in Iraq made everybody question the intergrity of the Bush administration.

But it is not only the war in the Middle East or the fact that the U.S. is trying to control all the major oil reserves in the world. Also the fact that legislation was made to prevent the Internatial Tribunal from inditing a U.S. soldier, the fact that U.S. is as of yet not willing to agree to the Kyoto protocol and the fact that the U.S. evades the agreements of the Geneva Convention by imprisoning suspecting Islamic jihadists in Guantanamo Bay, further contributed to a declined popularity.

People are worried that the U.S. is trying to dictate the whole world, adjusting the rules during the game, bullying other parts of the world. This new attitude, that was introduced by the Bush administration, did not help the U.S. It only widened the gap with the rest of the world.

Besides that I think a lot of people here in Europe have the feeling that America is completely at a loss. It is remarkable how easy Congress and the Senate are persuaded to spend billions and billions of dollars to warfare and are neglecting her own internal issues. All that money that has gone to the military could have been used to strenghten your social security for example or could have been used to fight poverty or improve education. These strange political choices didn't improve the view people have of the U.S.

Right there is your mistake. You are attempting to combat bigotry with reason -- an impossible task. Reason only works with reasonable people -- but reasonable people are uncommon. Even here on AD, which selects for reasonable people, we have plenty of people who simply refuse to apply rationalism to their beliefs. Such is obviously the case with the gentlemen you are encountering. The very fact that they would draw the conclusion that Americans are deficient is itself proof of their irrationality; no reasonable person would paint any large group of people with so broad a brush. We have exactly the same thing going on here on AD, with one gentleman claiming that Muslims are deficient. The adducement of mountains of contrary evidence has not caused him to adjust his claims in the slightest.

So how do you respond? First, call it what it is: bigotry. Observe that sweeping generalizations such as theirs lie outside the pale of reasoned discourse. Readily acknowledge the many deficiencies of American civilization; note that its own deficiencies are, as a whole, neither better nor worse than the deficiencies of any other civilization. Remind them that American civilization also has some impressive acheivements: the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution; Thoreau, Hemingway, and Mark Twain; the first man on the moon, computers, and the Internet; Martin Luther King, John Kennedy, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln.

I think you should also acknowledge the justifications for resentment towards current American policy. The Bush Administration has been treating the whole world with contempt; its disregard for the international community, its trampling on international treaties, its defiance of international organizations are all understandable reasons for alarm and resentment on the part of global citizens. Point out that this behavior represents a major deviation from past American practice, and that, after the next elections, America will likely revert to its traditional cooperative and non-belligerant stance.

What do you think are the causes of Antiamericanism? Do you think it is rational, do you agree with it?
Despite the piling on that is bound to occur here on VDemosthenes, who as unfamiliar with are previous debates of the subject is likely blissfully unaware that he has uttered the magic word and will receive and energetic rebuttal, I back him up in a way here.

When he mentions jealousy he does have a point, sort of.

You will note there is an (ever so slight) difference between jealousy and envy.

VD never said Europe was envious, just jealous and I agree.

To wit.

Envy is desiring to be like one's rival, and the impression I get in that Europe especially doesn't really have any desire the be like the US.

Jealousy is a vaguer notion, a bitterness because your rival has something you don't.

That is something I have seen time and time again in our debates.

The US economy grows at a clip almost unheard of in Europe.

Right now the French economy is actually stagnant i.e. no growth.

If that ever happened in America their would be mass panic among economists and we'd see a rash of suicides among stock brokers.

Europeans who have only vague notions of why this is, why America is so powerful, do what people always do, make things up.

I will say right now, that although much of US policy in objectionable (as is much European policy) most of the Anti-Americanism in the world is decidedly irrational.

I will now list the biggest problem, America has stopped being a nation, we are now a myth.

Europeans distrust of the American right has driven them (indeed much of the left worldwide) to invent some rather fanciful notions, case in point.

On every count this is simply false... and yet I suspect in much of mainland Europe it's considered common knowledge.

1. Neo-conservatives are not a defined group at all, is was a buzzword term that, when examined, turns out to be almost entirely meaningless.

I'll post a link to the thread where I demonstrated that. Link

2. America did not invade Iraq to control its or the world oil. That's just silly and downright impractical.

3. The Bush administration did not introduce unilateralism. People have short memories. The Clinton administration made repeated attacks without UN approval, indeed it was his attack, over UN objection, that resulted in the withdrawal of UN inspectors in the first place.

The world knows very little about America and so a mythology has cropped up which is based only loosely on fact.

They need an explanation for why America is so powerful and why the American right is so popular.

It "must" be something underhanded they are doing, that's the essential though process.

So your response to anti-Americanism is anti-Europeanism? If anti-Americanism is irrational, is not anti-Europeanism?

Two wrongs don't make a right. Let's not counter the intellectual sin of anti-Americanism with our own sin of anti-everybodyelseism.

At what point in my post did I condone "Anti-Europeanism"?

I said they were uinformed about American policy, not evil.

Even if the term neo conservative is more like a buzzword, one cannot dismiss the political ideology behind it. In fact we do not have to analyse all the different approaches to neo-conservatism, we just have to analyse the foreign policies of the Bush administration. (If there is one group of persons who one can label neo-conservative it is the Bush aministration)


Wikipedia Encyclopedia summarize their foreign policy as follows:



It is this somewhat arrogant attitude that's the cause of the critical stance of Europe towards the U.S.. Europeans do not dislike the American people, they dislike the foreign policy and attitude of the Bush administration.



The strongest argument for going to war against Iraq was to secure stability in the Middle East region. But besides that, economic aspects also played an important role. As you all know the U.S. is spending immense amounts of money for the war in Iraq, money that could also have been spend on other things. Because war costs a lot there has to be some economic reward at the end. (Nobody goes to war if there is no profit to gain from it!)

As we all know the U.S. ranks the list as being the worlds largest oil consumer. (http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/topworldtables3_4.html)
If a large and powerful country depends so much on oil, it is reasonable to assume that its government would do everything to secure their oil supply. (that's one of the reasons the U.S. has such close relations with Saudi Arabia, the biggest oil production country in the world). Access to the oilfields will always have been viewed as the grand benefit in the longer run for the war efforts in Iraq.

Knowing how important oil is for your country, it would indeed be "silly" if the U.S. didn't use this great opportunity to improve their access to the black gold.




Very interesting statement! I think you could be right if you state that America has become "bigger than life". This surely could cloud the views some people in Europe have about the U.S. On the other hand I also think there are a lot of Americans who began to believe in their own myth. George W. Bush is a perfect example of this.

One can and one does let's see why...


A foreign policy cannot be defined by the language it is couched in.

What are the actual goals and methods? That is what defines a policy.

When we take a look there is nothing new or unique about neo-con beliefs. Installation of democracy is not a belief it is a fact, it did happen in Japan.

Advocation of similar action in the present is no more "arrogant" than it was back then.

Besides the so-called "neoconservative" have not called for widespread efforts to install democracy by conquest.

Even if the Bush administration has chosen to do so after conflicts started for another reason, one can hardly blame them. Setting up a stable government after an existing one falls is only reasonable.

What you have is less a policy and more a foregone conclusion.

If you read the rest of Wikipedia's article on neoconservatism this becomes clear. The term has no definition, it's meaningless.


That is simply an assumption, you list not one shred of evidence of it actually occurring.

The US has not "improved access" to Iraqi oil by maintaining troops in Iraq. Iraq's oil is state-owned and that state is an OPEC member and abides by its decisions.

This is exactly what i meant by mythology growing around the country. The "war for oil" theory is simply used to portray the US as the "malicious other" to Europe and other regions of the world which do not struggle for "global domination" like Bush and his "evil neocons".

Fairy Tales.

There have been some very interesting points made in this thread, I only want to point out that although the above statement is partly true, it is also true that especially after the election in 2004 a larger number of Europeans dislikes or at least is very very disappointed with a large group of people in the US, respectively the Bush-voters. That has to do with the foreign policy, but since the guy who is responsible for this suicide-like foreign policy has been reelected by an even greater number of people, this disgust has also spilled over to the voters.
Bush and his administration may be blamed for the Iraq war, but the majority of the American voters can be blamed for a continuation of this policy.

First off, turnea, I apologize for lumping you in with the Europe-bashers; this kind of talk is so common that I mistakenly assumed that you were part of it.


I think that the word "neoconservatise" is better used as a label for a specific group of people. Certainly you cannot deny that the Bush administration has installed a number of like-minded people in positions of power. Some people call them chickenhawks, but I think that term rude. You could call them Bushites, Bushies, Imperialist Aggressors, or a wide variety of other terms. But I think that "neoconservative" is probably the best overall term, as it is not disparaging and does seems to differentiate this group from classical conservatives. You are welcome to object to the various representations as to what the term means, but I would rather use it as a label for a group of like-minded people.

The simple facts are this: since the appointment of the Bush administration the U.S. is steadily loosing her popularity in the whole world. This next link will give you all the figures.

(http://www.finfacts.com/irelandbusinessnews/publish/article_10002364.shtml)

So, what is the cause for this, somtimes radical, change? It has clearly something to do with the way the U.S. is handling international affairs at this moment.

67% of the Americans questioned agree with the statement that U.S. Foreign policy considers other country's interests. With exception of Indonesia, India and China, all other countries have a completely different perception and only a small part of those people questioned agreed with this statement







but also U.S. policy towards enviromental issues can be seen as one of the causes for the popularity drop.



It is clear that the Europeans and other nations point to the Bush administration and his attitude towards international politics as being the reason why they have such a negative view of the U.S. You cannot dismiss so easily the opinion of so many people. Europe and Asia are civilised parts of the world with a long and often bloody history in international politics.

As I argued in a previous thread which dealt with the subject in depth, the term is dispariging.

It is almost never used positively or even neatrully in any media source, Google it and you'll see exactly what I mean.

I mean calling people "reds" described a group of like-minded individuals too...

It's even worse in the foreign media, which plays to the mythological aspects even more than the domestic.

It is a media-friendly slur and it has contributed greatly to the decline of American popularity though another term would have been picked up to describe the same stories I suppose.

Three positive mentions of necons in the mainstream media, then I might be persuaded to reexamine my postion.

I am confident there will be no such challenge.

In any case nothing of the so called "neocon" postion is neo by a long shot. It's a rehash of the Cold War theory on the need for American dominance in international affairs.

The only difference is that now the dominance is a fact, not a goal. It's no coincidence these are old Reaganites.

No one called Eisenhower a neocon


Bush's attitude towards international politcs isn't particularly new. I mentioned that Clinton attacked Iraq over UN objections as well.

Going back, several American presidents have taken "unilateral" military action. It is the rule, not the exception. Bush has been rather complementary of the UN and of many of our allies.

The man was under attack well before he became president, it has little to do with his actual policies.
Link

There is nothing intrinsically disparaging in the term. It's not as if one little boy will taunt another little boy with the chant "You're just a stupid neocon!" The fact that neocons come in for a lot of serious disparagement reflects who they really are, not the label. A great many people are unhappy with the policies that have been implemented by this group, and they express this displeasure about the group. However, there are others who do not hold neoconservatism in contempt and so the term is not disparaging in their eyes. It's rather like the use of the word "liberal". There are plenty of conservatives who'll dismiss a politician as "just another bleeding-heart liberal" with a roll of the eyes. For them, "liberal" is a term of disparagement. For other people, it is not. Let's not confuse the particular use of a term by a special interest group as definitive.


I very much doubt that the term itself has contributed to the decline of American popularity around the world. I think that invading Iraq, torturing prisoners, confining people and Guantanamo, ignoring the UN, and refusing to sign the Kyoto protocols had more to do with it than the label. It's difficult for me to imagine a foreign newspaper with headlines screaming "BUSH IS A LOUSY STINKING NEOCONSERVATIVE!!!!!" and, buried somewhere on the sports page, a tiny story headlined "USA invades Iraq"


Whatever we call it, there is a political "something-ma-bob" that characterizes this group. We use the term "neoconservative", but if you'd prefer "chickenhawk", that's fine with me.

No, but politically interested adults will do just that, trust me I've heard it.


This is not the same thing.

There are people for whom the term "militant" is not disparaging, but they are few an far between.

In practice the term is almost universally pejorative.


The distrust of the US and Bush came way before the actual implementation of policies.

I've never said that there are not things in American policy that are disagreeable to some people. That is a given for any nation's policies.

This goes much farther. The examples you sight aren't referenced to call US policy misguided.

Much of the world believes the US to be evil, intentionally malicious. they have raised the spectre of imperialism where it does not apply.

The worry is not the debate, but the myth of "the Great Satan" which has taken hold well beyond the boundaries of the muslim world.

I know the word is just a front for the myth but it is an important characteristic. Such a term, without definition, is a perfect propaganda tool.


Tsk tsk.

False dichotomy is a well known debate trick, these aren't the only options. Calling them Reaganites, or Wilsonians or nationalists, or interventionists, or any other of a thousand established terms to describe this old ideology is just fine.

Neocon is simply an insult.

1) American education system is inferior.

This is true. Not really a big secret. Our students score poorly in comparison to alot of nation's students. I think this is a regional problem in some parts though and is not a national problem exactly. The US has some of the greatest colleges in the world. In fact a British Newspaper in it's ranking tables listed that the top 4 universities in the world were in the US and then after Oxford and Cambridge at 5,6 US schools rounded out the top 10 and US schools dominated the entire rankings.

American's are not religious.

We are with maybe an argument from Ireland the most religious nation in the western world. Now if you meant religiously educated? We are also maybe the most ignorant nation when it comes to religion. Even Pat Robertson says this. American's know little of the bible or of biblical figures despite going to church as often as we do and stating how religious we are.

American scientists are 90% foreign and be do not have our own stock of scientists.

True to a degree but 90% is laughable. I think I saw where 40% of the graduating class at MIT this past year were not American. That is a problem and does not look like a positive thing in regards to our future. The Roman's imported talent though (the medic's I think they were called). Any succesful nation would be wise to import great minds and this argument actually is a poor argument to try because this practice reflects well on the US and poorly on the nation's these people leave from. However, I do not think enough people feel the sense of scientific freedom in the US anymore and are choosing to go elsewhere.

That being said we are beginning to lag behind. I think the culture wars are influencing this. The US is falling behind in some fields like stem cell research and the Korean's and British are gaining and a certain restrictive feeling that outside talent at one time didnt have to deal with has been keeping some of them away I think. The US stopped looking innovative and a gradual loss of freedom in the scientific community has hurt us the last years.

American's are incapable of heroism.

Ignorant sentiment. If suicide under the order of manipulating madmen (who regard you as pawns) is heroism in former Soviet nations then we are not talking of the same word. I have a word for Kamikaze pilots and the like.....idiots. That is not heroism from my understanding of the word. Actually using past European arguments that I have had this sentiment makes zero sense. Certain Europeans like to note and reference what they see as extreme American patriotism. That we are brainwashed by the flag and whatever. Being this patriotic would probably lead to greater rates of heroism (dying for causes, ideas etc etc) in any interpretation of the word.

American's are without culture and replace it with a pop brand sub-culture that promotes sex and consumerism.

Ignorant again. America is largely a nation of immigrants. We have tons of culture but it isnt rank and file obvious like these former Soviet states because of our diversity. The United States is the most culturally diverse nation on the planet I would think. As for the promotion of sex? I always thought European's thought we were prudes who run from the first mention of sex?

American music consists only of rap and other vulgarities

I own 40 CD's and not one of them is rap. American music is eaten up in Europe. How many times do I have to see footage of Russia and see kid's in Nirvana or Tupac shirts? I mean Tatu the only internationally famous Russian group I can think of is a group of two young pop singers dressed in skimpy outfits whose whole thing is that they act like lip-stick lesbians. When it comes to music the UK and the US are Mount Everest and K2.

Modern America lacks good writers

Makes zero sense again. US books by US authors are in high demand everwhere in the world. Something even the French admit. American authors are famous in Europe. I just had a 2 hour conversation a week ago with an Estonian women about Brett Easton Ellis and Chuck Pahlniuk. As for quality? Who can judge that?

Our judicial system and political correctness makes the US look bad

Yes we have a bad judicial system I would concede that. This is a regional problem generally though. Oklahoma, Texas, Illinois (my state) and Louisianna come to mind when it comes to judicial corruption. I am not even sure how to address the political correctness issue. I really do not get what they could even be saying. That we are too PC? These are the same people that accuse us of being rash, impulsive, not sophisticated etc etc. I am not even sure how someone probably from a largely homogenous nation would have the same concept of political correctness as we do.

Americans have a hypocritical foreign policy of double standards and are sticking their noses, where they don't belong, forcing democracy on people who don't want it.(and I agree with this one, too)

This is probably undeniable. We are hyporcitical in our foreign policy. I would argue that being a super power and a major player in world bodies that our noses do belong in alot of places. I think we have a right to have our nose in say an Iran.

The US has a history (especially during the cold war) of putting its nose and messing with nations and causing more harm then good (Pinochet, Mujihadeen etc). We have a history of supporting tyrants whose position in power gave the US greater benefits. This is a legit reason why many in the world hate the US. I would argue that some of it was well intentioned but most of it backfired.

I don't understand your point here. You are prima facie incorrect in stating that the term is pejorative. Surely if you look up the word in any dictionary, you will get a rather dull discussion of political philosophy. About a month ago I went through a 50-page paper written by a friend of mine on the history of neoconservatism. I never took the word to be a slur, and neither did he. The semantic reality here is that the word has been used historically without any emotional connotations. In just the last few years, those who resent the more aggressive posture taken by the US have attributed the policies that they resent to neoconservatives. Perhaps they are mistaken in this; whatever the case, the fact is that there is a lot of resentment against US policy and the term "neoconservative" has become the shorthand for that policy; hence, the resentment of neoconservatives. That resentment is based directly on policy issues. some people don't like neoconservatives in the same fashion that some people don't like Nazis and other people don't like liberals and other people don't like animal rights advocates. We have all manner of terms that are used to express these resentments: tree-hugger, bleeding heart, superpatriot, imperialist aggressor, chickenhawk, dove, and so on. Some of these terms are intrinsically disparaging (chickenhawk being the best example); some are not. I don't see anything intrinsically disparaging in the term "neoconservative". If the term is often used to denote the object of criticism, then the term itself is not disparaging -- the disparagement is what's disparaging. If you don't like the disparagement, focus on that. Complaining about the label used is rather like changing a job title from "garbageman" to "sanitation engineer" -- you can play games with the label, but it's the underlying reality that matters.


Evil, like beauty, exists in the eye of the beholder. If people believe that America is evil (which I think overstates the reality), then that's our problem, even if they're wrong. Sure, we can complain that it's just not fair, but such complaints are a waste of time. Any losing political candidate can complain that the public simply didn't understand what he really meant, that his opponent's lies about him were given broad airing, that it's all wrong -- but we would call such a candidate a sore loser and show no patience with him. We in the USA face the same problem. Sure, we can insist that we're right and everybody else is wrong, but if everybody else thinks we're wrong, then that's the political reality that we have to live with. At some point this will come crashing home when the world stands up to us and says, "Go to hell, USA!"


Sounds like you've got a big linguistic job on your hand. You need to convince people to change their terminology. Of course, if they did, then they'd be saying the exact same nasty thing about Reaganites, etc, and you wouldn't have changed anything -- except perhaps to preserve the reputation of "true" neonconservatives, whatever they are.

It's funny you should mention that..

Ummm..what?

That's about all I could muster. The conservative response to the liberal 60's. Can't we just call that ...conservatism?

A term without meaning is a tool and this one is almost universally used to disparage.

I'll say it again. Three positive mentions of the term in the mainstream media.

Not gonna happen.


You're close with the former, but do go on...


We could say the same thing of the term "faggot" or "negro"

After all, there is nothing "intrinsiscally disparaging" about either term.

But if I heard someone on the street yelling either, I would have no illusions about the intent.

I think you have your head in the sand on this note, there is nothing positive about the usage of the term neoconservatism in recent American politics.

It's has become as denigrating as referring to blacks as "negros".


The truth counts for so little?

I believe that misconceptions are always damaging to both the owner and the target.

The world distrust of America has lead to the same kind of scampering policies in their countries as we had during the "Red Scare".

There are many countries in the world where being denounced as an "American flunky" can mean the end of a career.

Countries can throw the baby out with the bath water trying to avoid being like the US. That is the danger.


Wait, you're the same person who decried dismissal of an investigation into fraud in the last election as "irrational" correct?

The truth matters and you know it.

The majority of the world believe the US invaded Iraq to "control Iraq's oil".

That's not a mistaken policy, it's mass murder and we are the accused.

Well, then, I'll pull my head out of the sand long enough to do some quick usage research. After all, the true meaning of a word is established by its usage. So I googled "neoconservative" and got 353,000 hits. I looked at each of the first 20 hits and came up with the following set and characterizations of the term:

1. Wikipedia. Notes that the word is often used pejoratively, but is not itself disparaging.
2. Wikipedia again.
3. weeklystandard.com. A scholarly, sympathetic explanation.
4. Weeklystandard.com again.
5. Christian Science Monitor. neutral.
6. Christian Science Monitor again.
7. neoconservative.net. Definitely sympathetic
8. American Conservative Magazine. Sympathetic.
9. fightingterror.org. Sympathetic.
10 antiwar.com. Antipathetic.
11. projectcensored.org. Antipathetic
12. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. neutral
13. commentarymagazine.com Sympathetic
14. thenation.com antipathetic
15. thenation.com again
16. chronicle.com sympathetic
17. shockingelk.com antipathetic
18. pbs.org neutral
19. forward.com. antipathetic

So I count 6 sympathetic websites, 4 neutral sites, and 5 antipathetic sites. Seems like a pretty even distribution to me. You're welcome to carry out a proper lexicological analysis, but this quickie survey suggests that you're way off.


How do you know they're misconceptions? They would hold that you are the one laboring under misconceptions. You can argue all day long that you are in fact right, you can stamp your feet, you can hold your breath until your face turns blue, but the fact remains, the rest of the world thinks none too well of American policy. Call them stupid. Call them wrong. They're still there, and they're not convinced.


Yes, and and the truth of the matter will not soon be known, and you are neither its possessor nor its final arbitrer. You have your own beliefs on the matter, but I assure you that what you call truth is not the same thing that I or many others call truth. (Although, on the narrow issue of controlling oil, I believe that played an insignificant role.)

Here's the underlying issue: if the rest of the world rejects America's self-image of the noble, altruistic defender of freedom and democracy, that's the way things are. You can pout about it, you can wrap yourself in white robes and declare that the Goddess Truth favors you, but there's still a real world out there and the sooner Americans stop their self-delusions and accept some ugly realities about how the world views us, the sooner we can actually start doing something about them. Denial is only going to make the problem worse.

As America's number one critic, I'll be the first to agree and the first to disagree with these unnamed america-assailants: I'm only going to comment on points which I can offer concrete-in-your-face-talk-to-the-hand evidence that these multi-national mud-slingers are silly.

4) Americans are incapable of heroism. There they have a VERY high standard of what is to be considered heroism, examples being Japanese kamikaze pilots, Soviet soldiers, who purposely wrapped themselves in explosives and fell under Nazi tanks. However, a very risky mission with a strong demonstration of personal bravery would also be accepted.
I don't understand why someone has to die or kill others to be a hero. I thought Muhammad Ali was a hero for giving up a boxing career at his prime, in protest of what he saw as an unjust war. Martin Luther King "rolled himself under a tank" without having to kill a soul. Roberto Clemente was a hero, was he not?

6) American music consists only of rap and other such vulgarities.
Americans invented Recorded Music. The Drum Machine, American. (Where would Russia be without That?) The guitar as it is played around the globe, American. The Sousaphone, The Snare Drum, the Bass Drum, and every major instrument in a marching band, American. THE RADIO, American. The LP, American, and the CD, American.. The British get some credit in here, too, but what were the british tripping about during the 50's and 60's when all those invasion bands were forming- The blues. Punk, 50 % American; House Music, American, ("The Warehouse" was club in Detroit where that stuff began); Rock, needless to say, American. Metal, now loved in Scandinavia, birthed in the hellholes of America. Funk, Disco, Reggae the foundations of all electronica, 66.6 % American, 33% Jamaican. The Subwoofer, American. Hell, the excess of even having to listen to music in the car in the first place, American. Half the music the whole world loves is owed to American Black Men, getting down on American White Men's Instruments. From Freed slaves buying snare drums off of Confederate soldiers, to Marvin Gaye picking up a drum machine. And I happen to LOVE RAP MUSIC. These detractors have definitely never walked through the Brooklyn projects with a pair of headphones on, listening to Illmatic or Aquemini, or the esoteric rhetoric of The Wu-Tang Clan.
Illmatic- http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:wihxlfgehcqw
Aquemini- http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:8fd4vwpua92k
Wu-Tang: http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:4q68mpsd9f6o
All of the above music is as vulgar as it is beautiful as it is globally influential.

And if they want to mock us for the America presented on MTV, they should check out what MTV Russia puts out on their behalf, and realize why we haven't always been too concerned with their musical output.
http://www.mtv.de/news/news.php?id=19501

My point is that a.) they don't know what they are talking about and this is a waste of time, b.) when commerce is involved, music has never exported very well.

7) In modern America, there are no good writers.
I think that the writers for The Daily Show, The Soprano's, Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and the Simpsons have all been completely brilliant. Dr. Seuss. Truman Capote. Quentin Tarantino. This is a waste of time.
9) Americans have a hypocritical foreign policy of double standards and are sticking their noses, where they don't belong, forcing democracy on people who don't want it.(and I agree with this one
Of course we do, as all imperial powers before us have.


This topic is a waste of time.

We, the people of Europe, do not care about the the clash between political ideology in the U.S.. The struggle between leftists, liberals and conservatives is an internal problem and in general Europeans do not really have an opinion about these events.

But we do have opinions about U.S. international policies, because the way America is acting on the world stage also has profound impact on Europe. I assume I don't have to explain that Europe in other countries is viewed as one of the strongest American ally (NATO). As such U.S. foreign policy affects Europe more than we would like. (look for instance at the series of bombings in Madrid and London: the statement the attackers was clear; leave Iraq or face the consequences!) Is it hard to imagine that Europeans are tired of the aggressive and hard-lined policy of the Bush administration? After 9/11 and the military intervention in Iraq, there hasn't been any serious fundamentalistic threat in the U.S. but there has been numerous threats and even attacks in Europe. Europeans have a strong right in critizing the international policies of the Bush administration. Bush his tough approach to terrorism and his war in Iraq did not make the world safer, in fact it increased the tensions between the Muslim population and European culture. The harsh, black and white, rethoric towards Islamic believe has polarized relations in Europe and has lead some European Muslims to take on a more fundamentalistic approach.

Some people in Europe are worried that their continent could be a frontier in the struggle between Western and Islamic believes. While the Bush administration is fighting her war against terror and her war in Iraq, Europe as a result is faced with a huge problem.

The way the Bush administration is handling the terroristic threat is only one cause for the declining popularity of the U.S. in Europe. Especially during Bush' first term of office, Europeans had great objections against the way some high American officials were treating their international allies. Do you remember Rumsfeld belittled comments with regard to "Old Europe" in the period before the war broke out in Iraq? (http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/01/22/sprj.irq.wrap) The boycot of French products in the U.S. because France and Germany had strong and justified reservations against a war in Iraq? The fact that the U.S. undertook military actions without the approval of the U.N.? (http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/03/11/sprj.irq.fries)

Or perhaps the fact that during the first Bush administration the U.S 'unsigned', in other words wirthdrew itself from, the Treaty of Rome, that created an international criminal court? On the one hand the U.S. is supporting freedom and justice to the world, on the other hand they have isolated themselves from global criminal law precisely during a time that they themselves are at war. This stance is viewed in Europe as highly hypocritical, and for a good reason. (i.e. Guantanamo Bay)
(http://hnn.us/articles/1465.html)

And then there is the refusal of the U.S. to sign the agreement of Kyoto, because lowering the pollution could harm the U.S. economy. This surely did damage the popularity of the U.S. (http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,168701,00.html)

As you can see, the critical stance of Europe towards the U.S. has a direct link with the policies of the Bush administration and cannot be dismissed that easily. The arguments are not made out of thin air, and surely cannot be explained solely on a certain jealousy towards the might of the U.S. We aknowledge the fact that the U.S. has to play an important role in world events, we just do not agree with the international policies of the Bush administration. If Europe would have the chance, we would probably choose a different approach to deal with the recent problems.

I think Erasmussimo said it best when he said:

1) American education system is inferior
I'd say that the elementary and high school education system is braodly inerior to most of the rest of the developed world. The elite universities are pretty much unrivalled, with the exceptions of Oxbridge and maybe the Sorbonne, but the small-town "universities" which every American small town seems to have are not that great.
I think this is inevitable to an extent, since American has traditionally had a higher proportion of it's population studying at university level. (Though British policy has recently changed to emulate this - a mistake in my opinion)

2) Americans are NOT religious
I can't see how anyone can sensibly assert this. It may be true that the most prominent forms of Christianity in the USA place more emphasis on the Old than the New Testament, and so are less "Christian" than they say they are, but that's a theological discussion that's not directly useful here.

3) American science consists 90% of imported brains, since American scientists are... rare and dificult to raise on the "rocky terrain of American education".
There's a grain of truth here, but it's extrapolated beyond usefulness. America's economy has long been so dominant that it attracts foreign students. Most of them have always gone back home eventually, after a period where they worked inside the USA to make their money. Now, the many of the countries where students came from (China, the Indian subcontinent) are growing economically to the point where the students can build successful and lucrative careers back home, so they don't need to stay once their studies are finished.
This has been true of almost every leading world power in recorded histroy - it's no special failing of the USA (though perhaps the USA needs to urgently think about how this inevitable lifecycle stage is going to affect it at a time when the international competition gets ever more effective).

4) Americans are incapable of heroism. There they have a VERY high standard of what is to be considered heroism, examples being Japanese kamikadze pilots, Soviet soldiers, who purposely wrapped themselves in explosives and fell under Nazi tanks. However, a very risky mission with a strong demonstration of personal bravery would also be accepted.
Well, my first instinct is to pooh-pooh this one as well - surely any measure of heroism would aprove of the NYC fire department's actions on 9-11? - but again, I think there is a grain of truth in this too.
I think that most of the world measure heroism as the preparedness to die for one's ideals (one doesn't have to die, just be prepared to die). I think that American thought, or at least vocal elements of it, emphasises instead a preparedness to kill for one's ideals.
I think that a selective reading of comparative national history can then be easily constructed - Russian (and wider European) and American experiences of WWII; the US withdrawal from conflicts sold as wars of principle (Vietnam? The Sudan?) when the body count gets high - to play out the notion that Americans are relatively less willing to cash the cheques in blood that they promise to pay in rhetoric.
The exact same (skewed) evidence can be viewed in exactly the opposite way - Americans are smarter than Russians because they don't get themselves killed in huge numbers. (It's skewed because America has never had to fight a war of national survival against a technically superior enemy. Nobody knows what would happen then, and let's hope nobody ever has to find out.)

5) Americans don't have a culture, they have only a substitute - their pop-culture, which promotes sex and consumerism.
This is not only bunk, it contradict itself - pop culture may not be particulalry highbrow, but it is by definition a culture. And a very successful one.

6) American music consists only of rap and other such vulgarities.
Rubbish. Modern popular music is an American invention (which has arguably been best applied by the British)

7) In modern America, there are no good writers.
Rubbish. This criticism rest entirely on the subjective nature of "good".

8) American judicial system and politcorrectness embarass the whole nation
Money plays too mcuh of a part in the US judicial system. Poor innnocent people go to jail (or worse). Rich guilty people go free or never get to trial. This is not, however, very unique. It's a much shorter list when we try to think of countries where this does not happen. (I'm fairly comfortable that my country, the UK, would currently appear on such a list.)

9) Americans have a hypocritical foreign policy of double standards and are sticking their noses, where they don't belong, forcing democracy on people who don't want it.
I would say that this is at the root of most of the dislike for America in the world today. It's very hard to dislike (or like) a country that you never have any political dealings with - who has a grudge against Iceland or New Zealand? If America had a population or economy of comparable size to Iceland or New Zealand, it would be relatively easy to be as well-liked as they generally are.

But it doesn't have either of these things - America is big, and has a vast economy. This makes it very hard for America to please everyone, even if she is in a mood to try to do so. Having feet six times the size of everyone else means that sometimes you'll tread on toes. So this is why out-and-out anti-Americanism is ultimately futile; America is not going to go away and leave everyone else alone; it can't.

On the other hand, my bigfooted dancer anaology also helps illustrate some of the hostility to the USA. Among the people who do want to dance with America, it's just plain rude when she steps on your toes but either laughs at you or ignores you. It never hurts to say "oops - sorry". Plus it might be nice if every now and again America sits down for a minute and lets someone else take centre stage, but she's such a perfectionist and has such a high opinion of her dancing skills that nobody else is good enough to take the floor. That may be true, but nobody else will be any good without the practice.
And then there are other people who aren't in the dance hall - either they disapprove of dancing altogether, or they couldn't afford the entrance ticket. They have their noses pressed against the glass thinking "look at that big America in there. She's behaving like she owns the place.". Or "this dancing is sinful indulgence, and is clearly being instigated by the tall woman in the stars & stripes outift. Plus she's showing an indecent amount of bare flesh."

In summary, anti-Americanism is rational to the extent that it follows a rationale. But everyone's rationale is filtered by their own assumptions and experience.

My perception is that America's own rationale is, at it's core, centred on innate bad-ness or good-ness, and also desperately wants to be loved and respected - in this last respect, I think America isn't arrogant (for which read confident and secure in herself) enough. So any criticism is read as a personal insult. Much of the rest of the world, in particular Europe, has a rationale that separates innate worth from the worth of individual actions - that you are what you do. Criticisms and even intended insults are therefore either rooted in some particular event or action, or are evidence of weaknesses in the critic.

Many criticisms of America have some degree of validity, but they are all filtered through such prisms. I'd say it's about a 50:50 split between the prisms in the rest of the world distorting reality to create invalid criticisms, and the prisms in America distorting reality to negate valid criticisms because "they are just jealous"/"they hate us", etc. Some may be invalid because of that, but not all of them are.

I note your analysis includes no links to any of the actual articles you examined...

Many of these are sites I visit frequently, needless to say I disagree with your estimation of their treatment of the term.

It is dispariging, most of the time it is meant to be. You will note than not one single "neocon" is a member of this site.

Ask around.


..and their lies the problem.

These people are in conspiracy-theory mode as deep as any Holocaust deniers. The nature and depth of their belief makes them very dangerous to US interests and often to their own.


Good Heavens...

Let's kill the strawmen and talk straight, shall we?

I (as I have said repeatedly) see no danger in reasonable disagreement with American foreign policy.

I said over and over and over that US foreign policy if far from perfect and people have a right to be dissatisfied, yeah even angry about it.

It is a far cry form believing America is altruistic to believing that Americans are willing to commit was murder in order to control world oil supplies and prop themselves up as a superpower.

That is insane and that is what much of the world thinks of us.

You don't think that's a problem?

It is this sort of excuse, or perhaps qualifier that bothers me the most in discussions such as this. It is usually accompanied (and has been done so here) with the belief that this is a new phenomena..something we brought on ourselves with that war in Iraq.

It simply is not true. I have lived overseas for so much of my life and I have been involved with expatriate groups and I will tell you that it is and has been the Americans who get all the nasty comments or their children beat on at school. Iraq has just been a widely accepted excuse and basically a vehicle of legitimacy.

I also follow European news and so often the images and stories that they focus on in a negative and anti attitude towards America do not only consist of the subject of foreign policy or the Bush admin. They can't stand just the basic principles of American government or American businesses and their practices, they can't stand American media and it's prevalence, they can't stand American culture and it's outcomes, they hate our spending habits, our educational institutions, our judicial systems.. on and on. Just look at the list that was presented in this debate.

Anyone who claims that Anti-Americanism is based only on American foreign policy and George Bush is not being honest with you or themselves.

I didn't need to give the links themselves because the procedure I used was precisely defined. Go to Google. Enter the search term "neoconservative". Look at each of the first twenty links presented; I listed their sites to demonstrate my good faith. If you have doubts, repeat the experiment yourself. Don't give us this "personal hunch" stuff -- back it up with some evidence!


You would have us believe that the whole world is insane but you are sane. Moreover, the whole world is out to get you. I see.


Yes, anti-Americanism has been with us for a long time -- but we have seen a huge increase in it since the invasion of Iraq. I suggest that you read The Spread of Anti-Americanism by the Pew Global Attitudes Project. It shows just how far perceptions of the USA plummeted subsequent to the invasion of Iraq. Britain went from 83% favorability in 2000 to 58% favorability in 2004. France went from 62% to 37%. Brazil fell from 56% to 34% in 2003. Indonesia plummeted from 75% to 15%. Morocco went from 77% to 27%. The invasion of Iraq had a huge impact on global opinion.

This is the second time that you bring up the 'murder' accusations.

In an earlier post you stated:



May I ask you how you came to these statements? Because I never heard such a farfetched argument before. In general nobody in Europe views the war in Iraq as murder for oil. Perhaps they see a clear connection between the war and America addiction to oil, but they sure don't regard Americans as mass murderers. That would be illogical.

But the facts remain that since 'Dubya' came to office, Americas popularity declined sharply. It is obvious that the world community has strong moral and political objections towards the Foreign policy of the Bush administration. As a result of this the U.S. is weakened in her role as world superpower. These are the irresputable facts.

It doesn't really matter if Bush' approach toward foreign policy is in fact right or wrong. If the whole world is critizing it, he should change it, so that it is more acceptable for other countries and important allies. It isn't helping the U.S. if the whole world is against you. In this globalized world close international relations are essential elements for survival.

Sometimes you get, sometimes you give. That's internationals politics and diplomacy in a nuttshell.

Maybe a better question would be: What can the U.S. do to correct this negative view and regain popularity in the world again?

I never claimed Iraq did not have a huge impact and I honestly don't need to read a book about it to know this as I lived in a very small village in Switzerland when Bush decided to send our troops to war and my family were the only Americans that most in my village personally knew. I was in Europe during this great decline. I am from Europe and most of my family is still in Europe so having a general and long standing knowledge of how America and Americans are perceived in Europe is not something I am lacking.

I just know that the anger many express overseas about Iraq is rooted or has a much deeper source and even your link affirms this when it says..."And while much of the animus is aimed directly at President Bush and his policies, especially the war in Iraq, this new global hardening of attitudes amounts to something larger than a thumbs down on the current occupant of the White House."
The above quote was exactly what my first post was meant to address.

Also regarding the Pew Global Attitudes Project ..as I know she is the empirical data darling for all those who wish to show factual proof that the war in Iraq is bad bad bad..her most recent findings are very interesting...but somehow I do not think as popular as I have not seen them discussed much.
America's image is on the rise even while she remains in Iraq according to the new Pew Global Attitudes Project survey and the most surprising rise is in the ME and Muslim nations.

U.S. Image Up Slightly, But Still Negative American Character Gets Mixed Reviews

I'm not sure what your point is here. Clearly, the war in Iraq is the dominant factor controlling global anti-Americanism just now. There are certainly other factors at work, and they deserve consideration as well. But surely the biggest single factor is the invasion of Iraq. So, what is this other phenomenon you meant to address?


Again, I'm not sure what your point is. Do you mean to disparage or dismiss the Pew results?


I don't think that conclusion is justified from the report. It paints a complicated and spotty picture, with some favorability ratings up and some down. In particular, your statement about Muslim nations is contradicted by this statement from the report:

I think that their own headline presents the best summary of their results:

U.S. Image Up Slightly, But Still Negative American Character Gets Mixed Reviews

This is the same thing I asked you to do just a few posts ago.

I'm guessing it didn't occur to you that I had already done so.

A link to the search results Link

The Weekly Standard (not something I would consider in the mainstream media) is the single positive mention.

The CS monitor refers to them as "empire builders". There's nothing neutral about that.

The term is most commonly referred to by left-wing attack sights, very very few of those who are referred to as neoncons every refer to themselves as such. (I counted one)

That should tell you something.

If you want to filter out the noise and get what people are actually hearing, try searching the news sites through Google. Link


When Europeans and other express belief in the idea that the US government purposefully lied about their reasons for invading Iraq in order to conceal the fact that they were aiming to control Iraqi oil that is, in essence, what is being claimed.

That can be called nothing except mass murder for profit.

I do not believe it is being couched in that language yet, but the crime of "war crimes" are loud enough to tell you that this delusion is a dangerous one.

..and according to Pew it is shared by upwards of 75% of Europe.

Are you denying the existence of the sites that I mentioned as providing sympathetic comments about neoconservatism? American Conservative Magazine? fightingterror.org? neoconservative.net? commentarymagazine.com? chronicle.com? Are you denying that these sites exist, asserting that they do not say sympathetic things about neoconservatism, or just miscounting?


I will leave it to our readers to consult the actual text itself ( right here ) and decide for themselves.


OK, let's do that. I followed your link and consulted each of the first ten entries. Here's everything that they had to say relating to the words "neoconservative" or "neocon":
1. [The American Prospect]"The great neoconservative hope was that the war would create a new political dynamic in the region that would favor pro-Western democracy. In fact, we have changed politics in the region -- in favor of Iran, just at the time that country has moved toward a more conservative, hard-line, Islamic government."
2.[TomPaine.com] " A number of leading specialists signed a letter by the neoconservative Project for the New American Century asking Congress to boost the defense budget and increase the size of the military by 25,000 troops each year over the next several years. "
3.[uruknet.info, Italy] " In other words, arguing that the Iraq invasion and occupation is an untenable disaster indicates one is “incapable of rational debate” (as defined by Malkin and the neocons)"
" It is also well-established that the invasion of Iraq was pushed by the likes of neocon “think tanks” such as PNAC, as Sheehan notes, and also the American Enterprise Institute, Middle East Media Research Institute, Hudson Institute, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Middle East Forum, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, Center for Security Policy, and others less influential." (This site is subheaded "Information from occupied Iraq", so I think we can put them on the fringe.)
4. [The Madison Capital Times]"Bush's inner circle, a collection of neoconservative ideologues with an agenda of their own rather than an interest in what is best for the United States, made no effort in 2001 to steer the president's attention toward pressing matters of national security. And they remain determined to keep the woefully disengaged chief executive focused on busywork around the ranch rather than on how this country should position itself in a complex and dangerous world."
"...as opposed to neoconservative misadventuring."
"He should take a real vacation from the neocon fantasy factory of his misguided aides and sit down with someone who can introduce him to the reality of what is going on in Iraq and the world."
5. [The American Prospect, again]"So even before the debris of 9-11 had settled, Kristol -- like his longtime neoconservative compatriot Paul Wolfowitz, and, indeed, like the president himself -- saw an opportunity to take the coming war to Iraq. "
"A neoliberal rather than a neoconservative, Friedman never drank all the Kool-Aid. "
6. [IsraPundit, Israel] "Richard Perle, a leading neoconservative and former Pentagon adviser, said that Bush was too reluctant to criticise Islamic fundamentalism."
7. [Miami Herald] "Neoconservative pundits predicted that Iraq's neighbor Iran, another member of the President's ''axis of evil,'' might also undergo regime change."
8. [Center Daily Times, PA] A repeat of the Miami Herald editorial above
9. [Philadelphia Inquirer] "Murray Friedman's most recent book, published shortly after his untimely passing on May 20, has as its central premise that we are living in an age of conservatism and that the neoconservatives have been instrumental in shaping the strategies and ideas of our times. It is a first-rate history of the neoconservative movement."
" In Neoconservative Revolution, he traces the odyssey of a number of Jewish neoconservative intellectuals from their roots in the anticommunist left to their emergence as an influential voice in the administrations of both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Through this journey to the right, he argues, the neoconservatives transformed not only the conservative movement, but also the Republican Party."
"Friedman cites historian Stephen J. Whitfield's observation that, among neocons, there has been "an unabashed proclivity for intellectualism." That, states Friedman, may be what is Jewish about Jewish conservatism. Irving Kristol, the "father" of neoconservatism, defined a neoconservative as "a liberal who has been mugged by reality.""
I have to stop quoting here, because there are a few other references to the word, and they are all in the same tenor as these.
10. [Talahassee Democrat] a reprint of the Miami Herald editorial above.
11. [Scotland on Sunday]"Even if the more optimistic American timetable is correct, "it is difficult to take any comfort in this new assessment", says Gary Schmitt, executive director of the Project for a New American Century, a neoconservative think tank. "The fact is, US intelligence knows very little about what is going on in Iran.""

So let's summarize these 11 news reports that you yourself cited on the matter of disparagement of neoconservatives. There are nine unique sites, but I'll include the reprints of the Miami Herald editorial in my counts. I find two clearly disparaging sites: #3, the site "from occupied Iraq", and #4, the Madison Capital Times. Not one of the other 9 sites has anything disparaging to say about neoconservatives. There are a couple of criticisms of the policy in Iraq, but no broad-bush disparagement of neoconservatives.

Thus, the evidence you cite demonstrates that you are incorrect in stating that the word "neoconservative" is used as a term of disparagement.



Would you cite the Pew poll that says this? I don't recall reading it.

Not necessarily.

I am denying that they have a wide readership outside a very narrow group of already convinced partisans.

In the mainstream media, the perspective is entirely different.


If that is really what you think, I suppose it would be best for me to start another topic about it.

I am sure that on balance the term is used negatively a mere listing of recent references is not enough to ge the full picture.

I've been a member of this site for a long time, I've never heard neoconservatives referred to positively.


Certainly, here's a link to the PDF, it's towards the bottom. (pg 70)Link

As I was reciting from distant memory let me post the actual numbers
44% of Britons
75% of the French
54% of Germans
and 76% of Russians

Believe the US went to war to control iraqi oil.

Perhaps you should read over my posts again. The phenomenon I am addressing is the one the entire thread is supposed to be addressing...anti-Americanism. Again why are you trying to portray my argument as being a denial of the impact the Iraq war has had on the US image? I already plainly stated that I did not deny this and that I was more than aware of it since I did personally experience it.

It was claimed in here that people the world over feel this way about America because of Iraq and our government's decisions..and that it is not personally directed to the people of America...I disagree. I do think that the current opposition to the Iraq war has leant general anti-American feelings and images more legitimacy. ..but it is hardly the source as much of the anti-Americanism feelings are expressed through grievances and examples that have nothing to do with Iraq or GWB. It has become a more accepted thing to openly express and believe in because of the Iraq war ...but not THE cause of it.

For example take Germany.. one of the most anti-American nation's in Western Europe. Who also happens to be suffering economically . Who is to blame? America of course! And why? Because of Iraq and GWB? No it is much more pervasive than that..it is capitalism..but even more specific it is American capitalists. This is not something that they discuss at far left wing rallies in Germany either. It is what they show on their mainstream news shows or discuss in very affluent newspapers or news magazines...complete with graphs and assurances by public officials.

A very common image now amongst German media is Americans as insects...mosquitos to draw the bloodsucking image in and locusts in order to give the idea of a swarming death. And none of it has a thing to do with Iraq or GWB..it has to do with the VERY basics of our nation's economic systems..investors and entrepreneurs (the bloodsuckers) and capitalists (the locusts). And no one uses these images and these scapegoats in German politics to further their livelihood more so than the current government {SDP). The similarities these political tactics have to past German political demons is revolting.

We are discussing nations' attitudes who on a whole have a history of demonizing entire races or nationalities as evil, corrupt forces that are polluting the morality of our world. These are countries that have either entirely or a good portion of state controlled media and have before successfully brought about public opinion towards a particular group of identified "trouble makers" so severely that the most horrific of all government agendas were able to be achieved. Why are we not surprised that they easily are able to repeat such propaganda ploys and sway public opinion and why do you believe it is not devious in nature...but rather deserved?



Um obviously not...since I am using their findings to back up my claims.




First off I never claimed the US had made any massive recovery or improvement with it's global image. I simply stated the truth that is was on the rise and chose to highlight certain nation's in which it has risen. If I had wished to try and sugarcoat this report or distort it's findings I would not have purposefully chosen to include the entire links title. I felt I was being very honest and upfront and I resent your attempt to portray me as manipulative or unjustified.

You use examples such as .. France went from 62% to 37%. that is a 25% drop or Brazil fell from 56% to 34% a 22% drop to show that the trend of anti-Americanism and the Iraq war or as you said "perceptions of the USA plummeted subsequent to the invasion of Iraq" and yet a a favorable impression of the United States increased in Indonesia (+23 points), Lebanon (+15), Pakistan (+2) and Jordan (+16). is indicative of very little.

You care to explain this reasoning?

How do such falls or dips in one scenario have very strong meanings and yet rises and increases in another have little or none?

Also the war in Iraq's main objective according to the Bush admin is as part of the GWOT not to win a popularity contest.
The current feelings of support towards the most well known peddlers or uses of terrorism in the ME have significantly declined in most nations surveyed in the recent Pew report. For example.."violence against civilian targets is sometimes or often justified" has dropped by big margins in Lebanon (-34 points) and Indonesia (-12) since 2002, and in the last year in Pakistan (-16) and Morocco (-27). or the fact that Since 2003, approval ratings for OBL have slid in Indonesia (-23 points), Morocco (-23), Turkey (-8) and Lebanon (-12)
Do these decreases in global views have any significance too? And what could be influences for such chnages? Any guesses?

I actually do feel that our nation's foreign policy does influence our image negatively and/or positively. I just recognize both possibilities.

I think it's safe to say that the recent increase in anti-American feelings as measured by the Pew polls is attributable to recent American policies. Why else would these numbers change? Still, that leaves the underlying anti-American feelings that have been with us for the last 50 years. There are lots of reasons for this. The French bear some resentment against us because France is no longer the center of the universe. Many Islamic nations resent us for our policies regarding Israel. Other than the French case, however, I cannot imagine any country that resents us for no rational reason.

I do not believe your claims that German anti-Americanism is predicated on resentment of American capitalism. Yes, there are left-wingers who feel that way. But don't forget that the pendulum is now swinging away from the left and the upcoming elections are almost certain to produce a center-right government. In my own discussions with German friends over politics and America, they have been uniform in citing Iraq, Kyoto, and Guantanamo as their primary concerns. Not one of the four or five with whom I have spoken mentioned capitalism. We have some German correspondents here -- perhaps they will weigh in with some information straight from the horse's mouth.


I can't believe that you're talking about Germany here, so what country or countries are you talking about?


The Pew report was very clear that the increase in Indonesia was due to American aid in the aftermath of the tsunami. Also, I think your representation of the data in that report is incomplete The table shown near the top of the page presenting the results (this is the page) shows Lebanon at 35% in 2002, 27% in 2003, and 42% in 2005. Thus, it has indeed increased by 15% in the last year -- but only by 7% in the last 3 years. And for Jordan, the numbers are 25% in 2002, 1% in 2003, 5% in 2004, and 21% in 2005. So, yes, it is a 16% in the last 12 months -- but we're still 4% lower than we were before the invasion.


I would guess that the primary reason why people are taking an increasingly dim view of terrorism is seeing it play out in Madrid, London, and Iraq. When people see all those innocent people killed, they feel less sympathetic to terrorism. Would you agree?

There is no historical precedent for the majority always being right, nor is there a current one as demonstrated by the fact that 60 percent of the earth is run by oppressive or semi-oppressive governments. When the majority is blatantly wrong, I believe that the US should stand firmly with the minority. The new international dynamic may call for some policy adjustments, but capitulation in the face of legislation that is directly counter to what we stand for, and also works counter to our interests, is not the answer. Example the ICC. No sacrificing the Constitutional rights of any of our citizens to the altar of world opinion. The constitutional rights of our citizens must be protected, and no treaties endorsed which abandon any of those rights.

I agree with Turnea that the US has become a 'myth'. There are so many misconceptions based on selective truth and a lot of hype, it is exhausting and futile to address them all. I also agree with Jules that we are similar to a big, clunky dancer who steps on toes, in some instances unavoidable and in others due to careless disregard. We had a thread similar to this one a while back. Here is a link to anyone interested.

Edited to add:

Actually, I think she is speaking of Germany (it makes sense to me). Could also be Yugoslavia, among others.

While I agree that there is no historical evidence of the majority always being right (take a look at Nazi Germany, the Rwanda genocide, and the American election of former precedent Clinton (joking, joking ); but is there a shred of proof for your claim of sixty percent of countries are ran by oppressive or semi-oppressive regimes?




I'm on a Rwanda kick: granted we were silent, but we should not have been. Suppose America entered the conflict on good terms with the Hutu majority (for those of you who read this before I edited it: sorry! And no, I do not have the power to change history... yet. )(who were responsible for the genocide against the Tutsis), we would have been supporting murder and going against our ideals. It is the responsibility of the United States to protect the human rights of a minority, you are quite right Mrs. Pigpen.

The basic reasons behind Antiamericanism (in addition to what I have posted previously) is the fact that America has a very firm foundation in being the underdog. We have faced overwhelming odds from the international community, example: the American Revolution- no one thought Colonial independence was possible but with a little help, the dream of our forefathers became reality. The War on Terror- while far from a success, we have made strides in Middle-eastern freedom, the war has been denied, called illegal, and laughed at. Yet we have achieved Iraqi freedom, we have rounded up terrorists and have deterred terrorism.

Overall, the international community does not like one nation or group of people bucking their example and doing what is right.

First of all I really dislike the term anti-american as it is overly exclusive in its opposition to the United States. People who disagree with the United States usually only do so in a limited fashion, and otherwise are fine with Americans and American culture.

What do you think are the causes of Antiamericanism?

Conflicting international interests mostly. And since the U.S. has more power it often (not always) gets it's way, right or wrong. Getting its way sometimes causes resentment. I can understand that.

Do you think it is rational, do you agree with it?

Disagreeing with U.S. interests is rational as long as it's done in a peaceful fashion. If anti-americanism turns to hatred or violence then it becomes irrational and will not resolve their concerns. It rather deepens the divide and promotes isolationism on their part.

I think that is an important aspect to this. Rational disagreements are always fine, but the sort of shrill hysteria that has taken hold among some quarters is really damaging both to the US and those who hold it.

The US spent far too much time dealing with Mcarthyism and confronting the "Red menance" at home to not know how irrational fears can be dangerous.

Right now, fear of America seems to be dangling around that level.

I apologize in advance for not having the source for this information, but I can't find it online anywhere. I'll try and find something later tonight...but wanted to post while I had a chance (since those have been sporadic of late).

Read a very enlightening article yesterday in the Dallas Morning News, which examined the results of antiamerican polls from a new angle. While one would assume, as I have seen several do here in this thread, that the recent spate of antiamerican sentiment is due primarily to the current Iraq war....this article indicated that that is not really the case. The author examined the results, and then factored them not just by country, but also by age. Most countries exhibited large descrepancies in their feelings towards the US across different age groups. Further, there was no consistency across coutries for the different age groups--in some countries, younger people had a greater affinity towards the US, in other countries older groups did. Examing these discrepancies, and comparing them with that countries' or that age groups' relative experiences with the US then led to plausible explanations for the sentiments....and these explanations usually had nothing at all to do with the war in Iraq, but were due to past experiences with the US. For example, the older generation in England had a much high positive feeling towards the United States....which makes sense when considering that the US's assistance towards England during WWII would have had a profound impact on them. However, younger people in England had a much lower opinion of the US...not having that in their set of experiences with the US. The article examined several countries from this standpoint, explaining (quite reasonably, IMHO) why each had the perception of the US that they did. The author concluded that it is not the Iraq war that forms the perception of the US that most foreigners hold, but rather previous experiences. This is important for two reasons. First, it indicates that the reasons commonly understood for foreign sentiment towards the US aren't really what people think (ie, they're not directly or even mainly from the war in Iraq). Second, that the war will have an impact of the perception of the US for many people throughout their lives. The author concluded that, as many here have been claiming, the actions the US takes in any foreign interaction have very long lasting effects, and will form the basis of opinion towards the US for the affected groups throughout their lives.

I too have seen some material along those lines -- probably the same guy. While I agree with the main thrust of his argument, I don't interpret it as indicating that the sudden and precipitious drop in favorability ratings after the invasion of Iraq was due to anything other than anger at the US actions. My interpretation (assuming that we're talking about the same guy) was that he wanted to point out several factors to consider:

1. There are dramatic differences within countries, especially between different age groups.
2. There are short-term effects and long-term effects of every US action. The short term effects show up immediately, but then relax to a new level representing the long-term effect.
3. Young people worldwide are more favorably inclined toward American pop culture than old people.
4. This favorable inclination does not carry over into political attitudes. He had a wonderful photograph showing Chinese protesting American actions at a US embassy, and many of them were wearing T-shirts or baseball caps depicting American cultural icons or products.

There's no question that the effects of the invasion of Iraq will be with us for a long time. If we're very lucky, and Iraq lives happily ever after, then we'll come out well, but if (as I suspect) we depart under a cloud, and Iraq quickly reverts to business as usual for Middle Eastern countries, then we'll be paying for this mistake for an entire generation.

I am not hostile. Just sure of my argument. And now I will back it up so you can see why I feel so sure about what I say in here.



Capitalism? Nein!
Schröder and his Social Democrats rediscover Karl Marx. Alas, it's more than election opportunism.

The Year of the Locust

Germany’s Leftist challenge

Marx or Markets: German Politicians Debate the Dangers of Capitalism



Sorry I thought Germany was an obvious fit. It could also be Spain, Egypt, Jordan or Syria or any former Soviet nation.



Do you scrutinize the data that shows a decrease in hopes of disparaging it too? Fact it is it fell and fact is it has risen. All with the same foreign policy and the same president. I would have thought that if you accepted the group's data on it's initial decline you would just as easily accept their other findings no matter what political agenda they appear to support.



Hobbes I would like to see the original article if you can find it

bucket, you provide some links to sources describing the flap raised by Franz Muentefering with his remarks about a "swarm of locusts", referring to private equity firms -- what we sometimes call corporate raiders. Yes, Muentefering is pretty far to the left, and Schroder has faintly echoed some of his remarks. But characterizing the entire German nation by the remarks of two of its politicians, especially politicians who are on their way out, is neither accurate nor fair. (Indeed, even the Greens, generally considered even more leftist than the SDP, have rejected Muentefering's claims.) The person to watch is the likely future chancellor, Anglea Merkel. This lady's proposals are all in the direction of MORE capitalism: relaxation of the strict labor protection laws, higher university fees, and more private pension schemes. Moreover, she will scrap existing plans to phase out the use of nuclear power for electricity.

Thus, Germany is moving to the right on economic matters, and you are quoting only the remarks of the politicians who are on their way out. You have it backwards.


I was confused about your remarks about Germany because you inadvertently mixed your tenses in a way to suggest that Germany still demonizes Jews and still has state controlled media, both of which notions are absurd. Indeed, the way you mixed up all the various bits and pieces, I couldn't find any cogent thought in that paragraph. And lumping Spain in with Egypt, Jordan, and Syria is simply absurd. Spain is a modern liberal democracy, with a free press and an independent judiciary.


My point is that the appreciation of statistics requires the consideration of all the data. Deliberately selecting a subset of the data that support a claim that is unsupported by the entire dataset is an invalid form of statistical reasoning. All real data has ups and downs; it is possible to select the data starting with a high and ending with a low to "prove" that the trend is downward; it is also possible to select data starting with a low and ending with a high to "prove" that the trend is upward -- this is the mistake you made. The only valid approach is to look at the entire data set to draw conclusions. The data presented by the Pew foundation clearly show that favorability ratings for the USA fell sharply in the wake of the invasion of Iraq, have shown a slight overall improvement in the last twelve months, and have yet to recover to the level they were at before the invasion.

You are absolutely correct when you state that there has been no historical precedent for the majority always being right. But that wasn't the point I tried to make.

The fact is that the attitude of the Bush administration towards foreign policy has a damaging effect on the U.S.-Europe relationship. This widening gap between U.S. and Europe has profound influence on the way the rest of the world looks at the West. It is a sign of weakness in a time we should be forming one strong block against international terrorism.

Europeans have strong moral objections against the whole preemptive strike idea that Bush introduced by invading Iraq without any substantial justifications. We have objections to the fact that the U.S. is bending or trying to avoid some of the most essential international rules. (the Abu Graib scandal and Guanatanamo Bay). We are worried by the fact that the U.S. is not ready to commit themselves to enviromental issues that affect the whole world (Kyoto). We believe in the diplomatic role of the U.N. and have high regard towards international institutions as the ICC. The Bush administration clearly illustrated that they don't see those institutions and the role they should play in the same way.

The Bush administration can be seen as one of the main reasons why European love for America has cooled down. His attitude towards diplomacy and foreign policy doesn't bring the world together and isn't really helping making the world a safer place. The fact that Europe, your most important and loyal ally in the war against terrorism, is forced to take a critical stance towards the foreign policies of your president, should be seen regarded as a sign that this administration is doing more harm than good in the world even if the intentions are admireable. Sometimes one has to change his direction in order to realize his goals.

I don't think this was all the articles I posted discussed. So I am just going to pull a few quotes from the articles I linked and ask you to address them and explain to me how I have it all wrong and backwards.

"For Nolte, lurking behind the populist slogans is the beginning of a larger, long-overdue discussion about what he calls the "c-word" -- a sign of Germans' troubled relationship with capitalism. "

Nolte is a historian of the International University Bremen. Care to explain how his opinion on Germans' overall "troubled relationship with capitalism" is neither "accurate or fair"?

Mr. Nolte goes on in the article to explain..
"Nolte pointed to the fact that, in the immediate postwar years, there was a strong antipathy towards capitalism from both the left and right of the political spectrum, the roots of which date back to the 19th century. It was seen as something foreign, not part of German culture. "

Again would you care to offer some kind of argument or discussion as to why Mr. Nolte's historical political references are portraying the situation backwards ?

"Germany's role in recent years as the sick man of Europe, coupled with popular skepticism of the government's economic reform agenda has finally caused Germans' unease with the capitalist system to bubble to the surface."

Could you again please explain or substantiate your argument that these current political issues in Germany are minor and only held my a small minority?

The Swiss article was the most interesting one tho. As I personally have a very high regard for the Swiss economic model and social order. So I believe their opinions on Germany's current situation carry much value. The observation they make goes against your own completely...rather than a easy swing of the pendulum like you predict they foresee a severe break or split from the center pushing each political side farther apart. I tend to agree with their predictions.

In the article it is observed..

"Social Democrat Prime Minister Gerhard Schroeder, elected in 1998, has tried in the last years to introduce market reforms in accordance with the wishes of German entrepreneurs, but the German social and political landscape has shown signs of severe unhappiness with his policies."
Could you show how this unhappiness with Schroeder's reforms is not severe or widespread?

"However, German wealth and an excellent welfare state are inextricably linked to the twentieth century's German "social market system" - also known as "Rhine capitalism". Should such a model be dismantled - in order to increase economic competitiveness - it is fairly obvious that the social stability largely enjoyed by the country in the last 60 years would be extremely hard to maintain."
Fairly obvious eh? If these feelings towards capitalism that I have argued are not that relevant and pervasive how is it so obvious?


Yes it was mixed because I was comparing the old with the new. If you had read the articles I provided in my last post you would have known that the locust and mosquito references of Americans has in fact been criticized for it's very uncomfortable likeness to Nazi propaganda.
Michael Wolffsohn, an expert on German-Jewish history at the German Armed Forces University in Munich balked at the metaphor and accused Müntefering of drawing on anti-Semitic propaganda used by the Nazis.
"Sixty years on, human beings are again compared with animals -- a 'plague' that must be destroyed," Wolffsohn wrote in an article published in the Rheinische Post.

Also ARD and ZDF are massive TV channels in DE and are state owned.
In Germany, an independent media watchdog group, Medien Tenor, has produced a report, to be released next month, on the performance of television reporting of the conflict in Germany, Britain, the United States and other countries. It focuses notably on Germany's two main state-financed channels, finding that the United States was treated negatively
source

Spain has a nasty history I don't think I need to explain this either. And currently..in the present.. they too have some issues with the fairness and openness of their media
In spite of the proliferation of print and broadcast media, and their diverse political stances, concerns have been raised about political influence in the media, and particularly in public broadcasting.

source




Yes and exactly where did I dispute this? I recognized the decline..in fact I referred to it as a "great decline' and then I selected the more recent findings and highlighted their improvement. How have I misrepresented anything?

bucket, you have offered extensive quotes from three sources: Muentefering, Schroeder, and a professor at Bremen. That's very nice. But three sources do not speak for the entire German nation. If you want to evaluate the mood of the entire German nation, you have to assess the policies that they are embracing and the people they are voting for. The polls are very clear that Angela Merkel and the CDU are the shoo-in favorites in the election coming in a few weeks. Their policies are strongly pro-market. Here are some quotes from Merkel and the CDU:

from the official Angela Merkel website:
"Jobs are not created by protests, but only from a policy of economic growth."
"It is crucial that the incentives for employment remain high." [referring to welfare]

From the Financial Times of London:
"Angela Merkel, the leader of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union, is expected to appoint Paul Kirchhof, a proponent of flat income tax, to her campaign team today, in a signal of her intention to radically shake up the German economy if her party wins September’s election"

From The Financial Express:
(referring to Germany's social-labor economics policies)"CDU Secretary-General Volker Kauder said that such a government would produce ‘no solutions’ and that Germany ‘needs a 100 per cent change of policy’ with a CDU-FDP coalition."
"Plans by the CDU and the FDP to lower the top income-tax rate to 35 per cent from 42 per cent ‘are a light at the end of the tunnel for many companies,’ Boerner said."
"The BGA is concerned that a Social Democrat presence in government would dilute Merkel’s plans to lower unemployment-benefit contributions to 4.5 per cent of gross wages from 6.5 per cent. She also plans to ease rules protecting workers from dismissal and to permit companies to negotiate opt-outs from industrywide wage agreements."

From the official site of the CSU:
"German tax law is overly bureaucratic, hostile to personal acheivement, and restrains investment."
"Our goal: to create work by promoting growth!"

Here's a quote from a German left-wing site characterizing the political platform of the CDU:
"The Union program adopts, continues and intensifies all of the attacks on social and democratic rights which have been introduced by Germany’s current ruling SPD (Social Democratic Party)—Green Party coalition during its seven years in office. The government’s savage onslaught against the German welfare system, the Hartz IV laws, are to be retained and “optimized.” Taxes for big business and the rich are to be lowered even further, while the broad population will be subjected to a 2 percent increase in value added tax."

Quoting the people who represent the beliefs that the German people are voting out misrepresents the attitudes of the German people. The quotes I provide represent the positions of the politicians who will soon be winning the elections. You have a good case that the people who previously ran Germany might have been anti-capitalistic, but the results of their efforts have convinced the German voters that they were wrong. The current situation in Germany is indeed the opposite of your characterization.

Your vague suggestion that the Germans are somehow repeating some element of Naziism is another topic and one that, I am sure, will generate outraged and well-documented protests from knowledgeable people. I suggest that you start a new topic to air your beliefs on this matter.

As to the fact that two of Germany's television channels are partially government-funded, this is all well and good, but they happen to have a lot of television channels in Germany. Two channels doesn't come close to "government control of the media". Moreover, German political life is still dominated by the print media, which are more diverse than the American print media -- and completely beyond government control.

Lastly, your comments in the matter of comparing Spain with Syria and Jordan:

How exactly does a nasty history make a country similar to Syria, Jordan, or Egypt? England has a nasty history; so does France and certainly Germany does. The American Civil War could certainly be called nasty, so I suppose that everybody is like Syria, Jordan, and Egypt.



I urge readers to check out this link and decide, after reading it, whether Spain sounds like Syria, Jordan, and Egypt.





By highlighting a tiny recent rise as some sort of contrast with the much larger decline. You seem intent on giving this tiny change greater significance than it deserves. As I said earlier, the Pew's own headline gives the fairest overall assessment:

U.S. Image Up Slightly, But Still Negative American Character Gets Mixed Reviews

Can we please put an end to this semantic haggling and agree on this headline as the best overall representation of the Pew results?

Erasmussimo

None of my quotes were from Müntefering or Schröder. Most of what I quoted was directly from the articles I linked to that were offering an observation or analysis of the political landscape and issues in Germany.

You obviously have no desire to acknowledge the point I have made here and appear to only wish to further pull this debate away from it's intended subject. Your argument against my assertions to me is a overstatement of the obvious. I never claimed that every single person in Germany feels one way or another. I only claimed that some issues have prevalence, widespread accepted beliefs, historical reasonings and cultural ties and I stand by this argument.

You dispute this with denials of absolutism when I made none, quotes from political parties web pages (btw the CDU has only 41% approval rating in DE) and hearsay from alleged German friends.

Also we are not discussing Germany's upcoming election but I assure if, and yes it is still a if, if Merkel wins it will not be by 100%. There are people..many people... in Germany that share the opinions I have shown and that is why it is one of the most important issues this election.

My contention is that Germans, or French or Spaniards etc. don't like America for many other things than just our foreign policies or our president. That much of the anti-Americanism we see in these western European nations is directed to the very basics of what our nation represents....free markets, globalization and/or global capitalism. That is where they came up with the whole Rhine capitalism, Vs. Anglo-saxon Capitalism struggle.

It is something very real that many people in Europe identify America with and feel is encroaching their enjoyed way of life and a threat to their nation's welfare. To be honest I have no idea why you dispute this as I am completely unaware of any reason to believe otherwise and I do not feel you have provided any.


It was hardly vague.



Spain had a authoritarian gov. only until what 30 yrs. ago. Nazism existed in Germany only 60 yrs ago. Italy too has a not so distant past of a fascist regime. Sorry I think history does have influence on a nations' culture and their beliefs. Even now with slavery gone from America for well over a hundred years I certainly would not claim it was not relevant to our present nation's identity and social ills.

Syria and Jordan and the others presently are experiencing government that at one time or another many Europeans themselves experienced. That is what makes them similar. I already explained I was comparing the past with the present. I happen to believe the saying.. not everything exotic is foreign. What we see happening in nation's like Syria or Egypt is far from unique.