America is over the top?.... No! :rolleyes:

FYI: Cafeteria menus in the three House office buildings had changed the name of french fries to freedom fries after France refused to support U.S. :lalala: [Now this was overreacting!.]

EDIT: Bravo Lux!! You have defended US very well! :)

So Amber.....did I read wrong or you dislike so much ...to not say hate so much America ..just because it dared to "insult" your beautiful France?

Americans are may be "primitive", speaking with your vision, but may be they are able to read.....cause I think we have insulted them more than they did in all our national press.

I won't open a thread about it but I wonder why , in this forum, we've never made a "pseudo-moral-political" analyse of USSR or even Russia which became , of course, a worse country just by the fault of America....:rolleyes:

Really? I wasn't born and raised in US. But can I be any more American :no: I have adapted everything that is American (including the citizenship) except for the damn accent. :laugh:

I think it's the way you "think" which determines your "real" nationality,mentality.....more than the fact of the number of your ancestors in the same country.

I don't see the connection between the last French presidential election and the illegal invasion of another country by the US.

Anyway, what you may not realize is that if Bush was a French politician (or British, German, Dutch…), he would be considered just as extreme right as Le Pen, Bush's positions on ultra capitalism, social security (or lack of), guns, religion, etc are way too extreme for any conservative party in Europe. From a European point of view, Bush is extreme right, so yeah, an extreme right candidate got 17% in France, but the US actually elected one president.

You mean that US citizens of Japanese origin were never sent to camps during WWII and that there has never been any racial riots in the US so black people could obtain equal rights?


I disagree with the current US foreign policy which is clearly aimed at the creation of a new world empire where the US would be ruling everything and everyone.
I agreed with the US as long as the goal was to stop the expansion of the Soviet empire, this was a valid fight, but after the collapse of communist regimes, the US should have stood down, but they haven't. It is clear that a certain American elite has realized that after the collapse of communist regimes and before the future rise of China, the US was offered a unique historical 'window' of several decades where they would be the sole superpower and would have the chance to create a US empire ruling a good part of the planet, the invasion of Iraq is only a step in many more to come.

That's not true. Yes, there has always been harsh criticism of the US in the French left wing press because the US represent ultra capitalism, and there has always been harsh criticism of France in the American right wing press because France is seen as a 'socialist' country and they think socialism should be destroyed. So it was more a classic right/left capitalism/socialism opposition.

But things have changed in early 2003 when France officially opposed to the invasion of Iraq at the UN security council, from that point the French bashing in all US media became totally insane and reached a level that i had never seen before, you could not read a single newspaper or website, not watch a single news channel or TV show without seeing some French bashing, it was incredible.
And all that simply because we didn't want to invade a country to look for weapons of mass destruction that did not exist. :rolleyes:

lemme join as say this is all :blabla:

In 2003, not Just the American Government but All The Americans were absolutely ridiculed, treated as stupid by the all the Press and French Media....and even by French Political Personalities.
And as French are easily influenced by media , they were ridiculed by a lot of French people too.
If you wanted to be "in the wind" in this time, you had to joke about the stupidity of Americans and you looked immediately very intelligent and very intellectual.

It was an absolute stoning Campaign which had lasted during several months. Don't tell me it hasn't existed Amber..or it's really because we don't read the same newspapers, we don't listen the same kind of radios and we don't watch the same national TV.

And what exactly is your "American mentality" you have adapted to? :lol: Anglosaxon? Hispanic? ( Mexican? Cuban? ) Latino? Scandinavian? Polish? Jewish? Greek? African American? Irish? Chinese? :p

Or you just pledge allegiance to the flag and the consitution? Excuse my ignorance but at least European peoples ( as well as others ) have a distinct national identity and ethnicity and we consider ourselves historically European because this was our home from the very beginning. The USA is what exactly? a gathering of different peoples from the 5 corners of the world under the hospice of one flag and one constitution? when the empire they fought to gain independence from was, is and will be their biggest ally EVER? :p

Oh, I forgot it's the accent as well :rolleyes: Unless you were more curious about Cocal Cola, Mcdonalds restaurants, Microsoft or Walmart...or Hollywood. This is the very fabric that makes up America , innit?

edit: nath do you consider yourself French or U.S. of A-an? Coz if the French ridiculed the USA's trust me, the USA's did EXACTLY the same to the French. Maybe you don't have U.S. of American good ol' cable tv at home then ;)
oh about France, you may bash them as hell, they're still one of your biggest allies. You're just a bit pissed off at the moment cause they didn't follow the stupid war Bush was leading.
Trust me, it's gonna be ok soon.

Nah, it's just not the L word, that's all.

Spy...those guys were immigrants who have worked hard to success.
Do we have to consider themas 'inferior" because they don't have a "several centuries" common culture and history?

Is it because a population has a long history and was "dominant" during some times that it is better until the end of times (as Greece for exemple:heh:)?

Immigrants who have found America had nothing when they arrived there.
I think they have the merit to have built something from almost nothing and they have to be respected for that even if they don't have a prestigious History.
They were "nothing" and they have build the most powerful country.

America isn't just Mac Donald's and Coca cola or Microsoft....and even if it was the case.....personnaly, I appreciate those 3 things....
To reduce America to that is a little easy and simplistic.

Freddie, you who criticize so easily America....do you remember Tito?
I've known your country during the Tito 's period....so ...I just can say......it's so easy to criticize.....:heh:

So you guys ....you who destroy America just by pleasure...give me just ONE name.....just One name of a country which is perfect, where all is fair....just One name...please....

Ok, and before the mods start warning me about whatever, my point is this:

Stop looking at things from your own microcosm, made out of your own personal beliefs and interests and try to see the bigger picture; because some of the posts here are nothing more than an array of facts to conceal thinly disguised prejudices. You ostracised Mossopp but she did have a point. Do we really want the forum to degenerate into something like that?
Some people are doing it already but others are missing the point completely.
And no hard feelings about America; when you decide to climb off your high horses we'll still be right here. Peace.

nath, I have nothing against what you said. America was built on the notion of freedom, and the ideas of the French Revolution and humanism, on the notion of democracy. Today's America is not what its fathers envisioned. Freedom exists when you exercise it without violatating the freedom of your fellow person, freedom is not waving a gun around and playing cops and robers.

And freedom is definitely not equated with the idea of extreme consumerism. Those are ills that today's America ( the US) continue to thrive upon.

Just to comment a little bit further without an inkling of retracting from my earlier postion, there was a sense of cultural identity that all those people like the immigrants and the convicts and the pilgrims shared and makes the fabrics of what America is today. The idea of the promised land was common to all those people who started off God knows where looking for a better place.. So was the reality of hardship and violence. Such ideas were carried through to the modern America and can serve as a lesson to understand how America was shaped into what it is today; not forgetting that as one nation, America is still in the developing stages.

but shall we resort to petty and snide remarks?

and please SOMEONE delete this godforsaken thread. people aren't arguing about anything. just arguing each other, and not each other's points. it's USELESS. *scroll up 10 posts*

Why not? but if you want this thread to be deleted why don't you do it yourself so we can have some more "interesting" topics about gay life and boots and tatoos and all the rest of the "oh so important things" with a total of FIVE people participating - ok maybe 6, the sixth person just wanted to keep in touch.
Seriously I prefer to read an endless bashing of America and Europe anytime than the aforementioned "hot topics". I'm past the age of 15, you know. :rolleyes:
Speaking of the age of 15, are we getting close to tatu.us topics or not yet?

So anybody in "aggreeance" with me? :p
Oh wait I'm the only one here!!!

I suggest we keep this thread open FOREVA!

Spy, don't talk crap about boots. :nunu:

I don't agree. Insulting coolasfcuk for no reason at all is pretty immature. :rolleyes:

Atleast threads about "boots" don't end up making people mad and irritated. This thread is fucking lame.

I'll be the new Mossopp whether you like it or not. I went back from Greece to this shithole, I'm sick and this forum is getting more and more lame, it's not just this thread.

so how can i entertain myself, can you tell me? But even so, looking back at it I didn't say anything wrong at all;
and I didn't open that thread, if you can find one thread I opened that bashes America, go ahead and say it's immature. and the topic is about America, not about Americans, capito?

And last but not least: don't act like you're a guardian to other users, let them speak themselves if they want. That goes to cirrus who I can't remember I ever called him any name. I didn't insult cool , I just said what I think about the current state of the forum. If you think you're insulted by what I said then maybe there's more to it then?

And that, as they say, is that.

whatever. i'm just having someone's back. i didn't know that was so bad of me :rolleyes:

I updated my previous posting.

No, it wasn't that bad but then again it was a bit irrelevant as I didn't direct my criticism towards her person, I was just commenting on the quality of topics currently in the forum.
And don't tell me to go away if I don't like it, I've been a member since 2001 and I don't think I'll be going; but we've seen better days than this.

Yeah i know , I should make some interesting topics myself...etc.

spyretto, it's cool. i'm sorry too. :)

No worries. :)

Why US again? This country takes as much as it gives. If it wasn't for US, many world funds would never exsist. Maybe US is over the top but many well developed countries are as well. We never look around our own corner, don't we?