|
View unanswered posts | View active topics
It is currently Sat May 31, 2025 1:28 pm
| Author |
Message |
|
okenobi
Spends far too much time on here
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 6:59 pm
Posts: 4932
Location: Sestriere, Piemonte, Italia
|
  | | | | lumbthelesser wrote: I suppose that may bring up another question. 'What do we have a right to get offended about?'
I suspect that the 9/11 attacks had no actual impact on a huge majority of Americans (IE, Despite 3000 deaths, the proportion of americans who lost a relative or a friend would still be tiny). The only possible link that many could draw would be 'those that died were american. I myself am american'. If it was the loss of life they were appalled and disgusted by, there would be no way that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would have garnered the support they did. Is there something else I am missing? If not, I don't see how most Americans can justify the level of offense that americans take from all things 9/11.
I suppose, trying to be more empathetic about it, I look at the 7/7 bombings in London. Yes, the loss of life was deplorable. I did not know anyone who died or was injured in it, so I have no real emotional connection to the event. What I do get angry about regarding 7/7 is the position the government put Britain in, because I suspect, had they not so readily supported America in it's wars in the middle east, the perpetrators would have felt little need to direct an attack on Britain in the first place. I am just glad they did not use 7/7 as a reason to go and invade another country.... | | | | |
Have you ever been to the States? I don't believe you'd question their connection to the event if you had. Many people fly star spangled banners from their houses and as a nation, they feel a great deal more proud of their country than we do, on average. London could be destroyed completely in a nuclear blast and the event itself wouldn't, per se, affect me. I suspect I'm not alone in that sentiment. Americans are often Americans first and other things second. I'm a human being first and a British citizen is somewhere way down the list....
|
| Mon Sep 13, 2010 2:58 pm |
|
|
|
lumbthelesser
Occasionally has a life
Joined: Fri May 21, 2010 11:38 pm
Posts: 442
Location: Manchester
|
True.... I suppose we have just gotten over how great we are and just learned to get on with life 
_________________
According to a recent poll, over 70% of Americans don't believe Trump's hair was born in the USA.
|
| Mon Sep 13, 2010 3:02 pm |
|
|
|
okenobi
Spends far too much time on here
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 6:59 pm
Posts: 4932
Location: Sestriere, Piemonte, Italia
|
No need to be derogatory about them. They like how great they are. It's often refreshing when compared with the depressing cynicism you find in the UK. We're all just different people, with different outlooks. Personally, I love that.
|
| Mon Sep 13, 2010 3:31 pm |
|
|
|
Amnesia10
Legend
Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2009 2:02 am
Posts: 29240
Location: Guantanamo Bay (thanks bobbdobbs)
|
I do not regard myself as British, I am a mixture so regard myself as European, though not particularly strongly. The Americans wrap themselves in the flag to show support or cover up something. Remember the kerfuffle when Obama did not wear an american tie pin? The 7th July bombings were a consequence of our war in Afghanistan and a misguided few who sought revenge.
The numbers of people actually affected were small many of them were British or many other nationalities that were killed that day. Not all were American.
_________________Do concentrate, 007... "You are gifted. Mine is bordering on seven seconds." https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTg5MzczNTkhttp://astore.amazon.co.uk/wwwx404couk-21
|
| Mon Sep 13, 2010 3:38 pm |
|
|
|
big_D
What's a life?
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 8:25 pm
Posts: 10691
Location: Bramsche
|
Apart from Timothy McVeigh, this was the first major attack on American soil and the first attack by an outsider, since the War of Independence and the Revolution. This was something new for a country and a people, which thought of themselves as invulnerable at home (and forgetting Vietnam, they had never "lost" a war).
This was a total shock for them, as a country.
On 11/9, I was working on the 15th floor of an office block and staying on the 43rd floor of the Marriott hotel, on the other side of the same street, in Frankfurt. All my American colleagues (and most of the French) moved out of the hotel, moving into non-American hotels, and preferably not a spanking great tower on the flight path into the airport! The UK contingent just went back to the hotel that evening and went to bed.
We, in the UK, like Germany, Spain and many other countries around the world have lived with terrorist attacks over the decades and, whilst it is a tragedy, we have gotten to the point, where most of us don't let it affect how we live our lives. For the Americans, this was a huge shock, which changed their view of the world forever.
_________________
"Do you know what this is? Hmm? No, I can see you do not. You have that vacant look in your eyes, which says hold my head to your ear, you will hear the sea!" - Londo Molari
Executive Producer No Agenda Show 246
|
| Tue Sep 14, 2010 3:40 am |
|
|
|
Amnesia10
Legend
Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2009 2:02 am
Posts: 29240
Location: Guantanamo Bay (thanks bobbdobbs)
|
Yes but for most of them, their lives are so parochial. They barely hear of anything outside their borders, very few travel, and until recently you only needed a driving license to get to the two countries that most americans knew about and ever visited. Mexico and Canada. The problem is that much of american foreign policy has been run for the benefit of the corporations and that creates conflict. Much of the EU's former colonies have been impoverished by the US policy to support their big fruit conglomerates with major plantation interests in Latin America rather than allow them to export to their former colonial masters in Europe. That has caused problems within Europe as well. Much of Latin America also harbour resentment towards the US because of their involvement in their civil wars, funding right wing extremists all to stop the red menace.
So when they get attacked because of their foreign policy most americans are simply stunned.
_________________Do concentrate, 007... "You are gifted. Mine is bordering on seven seconds." https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTg5MzczNTkhttp://astore.amazon.co.uk/wwwx404couk-21
|
| Tue Sep 14, 2010 8:47 am |
|
|
|
okenobi
Spends far too much time on here
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 6:59 pm
Posts: 4932
Location: Sestriere, Piemonte, Italia
|
How do you know that? I'm a little annoyed at the comments here indicating how little people think of Americans as a people. Plenty of people in the UK and all over the world are illiterate, ignorant, poorly educated and insular. I've met hundreds of Americans, in several different states. Whilst many stereotypes hold true (as they do anywhere) just as many Americans are friendly, intelligent, articulate people, in my experience.
|
| Tue Sep 14, 2010 9:44 am |
|
|
|
Paul1965
I haven't seen my friends in so long
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 8:29 pm
Posts: 5975
|
I'd agree with this. Americans I've met both in the USA and here have been helpful, intelligent and kind people. I would have thought that there is a similar proportion of illiterate and ignorant individuals here as in the USA but you tend to see either the super-rich 'elite' or the low-life extremes, not the great mass in the middle. It is far too easy to sneer at the americans based on these extreme examples but having been to the USA and then come back here, the UK seems miserable and almost third world. As stated in the emigration thread elsewhere, I'd love to live and work in the USA if only it wasn't so damn difficult.
_________________
"I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet." - Stanislaw Lem
|
| Tue Sep 14, 2010 10:15 am |
|
|
|
Amnesia10
Legend
Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2009 2:02 am
Posts: 29240
Location: Guantanamo Bay (thanks bobbdobbs)
|
I have spent a month in the states and one thing that I did was watch the TV. Their definition of world news was an American from Ohio winning a wine making trophy in Europe. Americans who travel outside North America are far from your average American. They are a friendly bunch of people. Yes there are illiterate and stupid people everywhere but I was not saying that. I was saying that their world view barely extends outside their national border. It may be because they have a huge and beautiful country that means that you do not have to travel outside it but that still does not make them illiterate. _________________Do concentrate, 007... "You are gifted. Mine is bordering on seven seconds." https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTg5MzczNTkhttp://astore.amazon.co.uk/wwwx404couk-21
|
| Tue Sep 14, 2010 10:52 am |
|
|
|
okenobi
Spends far too much time on here
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 6:59 pm
Posts: 4932
Location: Sestriere, Piemonte, Italia
|
|
| Tue Sep 14, 2010 10:57 am |
|
|
Who is online |
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 37 guests |
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
|
|
