America

[ClaretMahoney]

Lovely signature Michelsen. Love it! Knowing that you are Norwegian and like baseball reminds me when me and some mates took our two Danish friends to the Metrodome to watch the MN Twins play...took them 9 innings so understand what the hell was going on, but the beer and booze mighta had something to do with their understanding...

[snowychap]

Nationalism and patriotism, (bar July 4th) started on Sept 12. 2001.

Why? Didn't you have a nation before?

[ClaretMahoney]

I don't recall ever, ever seeing anyone with an American flag outside their home prior to Sept 11th. I'm not saying it's a bad thing it's just a shame it took terrorism to show patriotism. (unless it was on July 4th)

[leviramsey]

And US politics is really quite ghey. Not that ours is better, I mean it's all shit, but it's the scale of stupidity and obssessive partizanship ( especially on the right ) which makes me depressed. I used to enjoy reading loads of Al Franken books and initially it was just amusing, but thinking of it seriously, definitely one of the shit elements. An extreme and more wide reaching form of tabloid columnists etc.

tbh, I've generally gotten the sense that UK politics is far more partisan than in the USA. There's definitely a lot less party discipline in the US (the fact that further-reaching health care reform will likely be defeated by a faction of the Democrats voting against it is evidence enough of this).

Stuff like Franken and Coulter and so forth exists because there's enough of a market for "politics as blood sport", but the importance of all that verges on insignificance in the scheme of things. Sure they sell a few hundred thousand copies (which is a huge hit in the publishing world), but in a country of 300 million, it's practically a drop in the ocean.

You know what Bill O'Reilly's nightly TV viewership is? 2 million people. The same number of people are willing to pay $12.95 a month just to listen to Howard Stern (who may be the most politically and socially influential entertainer in America, even if his show is not, by and large, political). Rush Limbaugh has a total of 10 million listeners, counting the number of people who only listen for five minutes (and even then PPM ratings are indicating that that figure might be substantially overstated).

The bulk of the rise of partisanship is attributable to Mr. Murdoch... and one wonders where he got it from...

[leviramsey]

Sure there are people that haven't left the country and they know better, Levi being one great example of them (iirc he hasn't been outside the USA but I'm not 100%) and yet he is very smart and not ignorant.

I've spent the night in three fewer foreign countries than I have states...

(Germany, Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Canada (Quebec... aka foreign Canada as opposed to the America Lite that is anglophone Canada)) vs. (Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Georgia)

[leviramsey]

Alaska, Vermont, Connecticut, Mass., New Hampshire, RI, and Delaware elude me still.

New England is it's own beast...

I call that beast the Pinnacle of Western Civilization

[ClaretMahoney]

Sure there are people that haven't left the country and they know better, Levi being one great example of them (iirc he hasn't been outside the USA but I'm not 100%) and yet he is very smart and not ignorant.

I've spent the night in three fewer foreign countries than I have states...

(Germany, Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Canada (Quebec... aka foreign Canada as opposed to the America Lite that is anglophone Canada)) vs. (Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Georgia)

Sorry Levi, I thought I remembered the thread of How many countries have you been to...my bad.

[LondonLax]

Why don't more (North) Americans travel through South America? I don't get it, it's right there in your time zone. Young Australians save up to go on back packing adventures on the Inca trail or the salt flats of chile or the beaches of Brazil. You don't seem to see as many from the US doing it from my understanding which seems weird.

[PB]

I spent some years in the US in the early 1990s and I found the people on the whole to be the kindest, friendliest most generous people I have ever come across.

As a place America is stunningly beautiful, such natural wonders, such "big country". Love it.

However, as a political entity? I think its fair to say I dont approve

[mjmooney]

Pretty much what everybody else wrote - nice people, crap politics (I voted "like").

Thing is, as I keep saying when posters here go on about the French, I don't like stereotyping entire nations, you have to meet a lot of individuals and judge them as such.

However, I WILL now generalise to a certain degree:

We're too worried about what people think about us because we have the preconceived notion that noone likes us.

I don't think you worry ENOUGH about what others think. The missing part of your last sentence is: "....and we don't care". And you should, you really should.

Maybe it's because comparatively few Americans venture overseas. Maybe it's the APPALLINGLY insular news media. Maybe it's the grip of the churches. But it seems apparent to me that so many Americans JUST DON'T GET IT. They cannot understand why other countries may not WANT to adopt American culture and attitudes wholesale. It's not a hatred of America or Americans as such, just a wish that they could understand a different point of view.

"Oh wad some power the giftie gie us, to see oursels as ithers see us", as oor Rabbie put it.

I've been to the US once, and I really enjoyed it. The ball games, the hotdogs, the cars. the rock'n'roll radio, the diners, the scenery, the friendliness of the people. I'm a huge fan of American music, whether it be jazz, blues, rock or country (not the current shit, obviously!) Likewise classic Hollywood movies (westerns and noir in particular). Likewise American literature - Dos Passos, Hemingway, Pynchon, Ellroy and scores of others. The cities are exciting (despite - or because of - being dangerous), the countryside is breathtakingly spectacular.

But at heart I'm a European - I was glad to get back not only to real ale and fish'n'chips, but also to French, Italian, German, etc. culture.

I like America a lot, I just don't want it to run the world - pretty much the way people felt about the British Empire 100 years ago, I expect.

[Jondaken]

Talking only of the one experience I've had in America, love it.

[Rodders]

Oh, I forgot, they JUST CANT SHUT THE **** UP

This is really true for a lot of them, maybe its a cultural thing

I lived with this guy at University, you could be sat in the comunal living room, he would walk in, start talking, cook his food, eat his food, all the time talking, you could not say a word the whole time, he would walk out of the door 30 minutes later STILL TALKING, unbelievable.

I thoguht he was mentally ill, untill a few years later I was in a band with a couple of Yanks and they used to do exactly the same thing, so who knows????

made me laugh, just the sentiment I feel occasionally as I mentioned initially. Seriously people - take a break!

I was cooking my food last night, and looking to take the plate of food up to my room, and just about got a pause long enough to take my singed chicken out the oven, but then had about ten minutes of it cooling down as I looked for an appropriate juncture to make my exit.

I've stayed longer at work by an hour or two just to minimise the chat

[snowychap]

Oh, I forgot, they JUST CANT SHUT THE **** UP

4 mins 19 seconds in:

[Awol]

Churchill had a good line: "You can always trust the Americans to do the right thing, after they have tried everything else."

[usvilla]

I live in the midwest and find the people here to be friendly & hardworking (in the majority)

im still a brit at heart but enjoy the lifestyle here and the weather !

also hate the politics and religous side of it (hopefully Obama can straighten politics a bit)

still getting used to towns with more churches than bars ? very strange

so i voted like

also totally agree with Revs statement / continent - country

[villadude]

Couldn't give a shit.

[maqroll]

And Chindie...alot of the reason why we Americans fly our flags proudly outside our houses is that exact same reason. Nationalism and patriotism, (bar July 4th) started on Sept 12. 2001.

Er, not so sure about that, CM

[maqroll]

Churchill had a good line: "You can always trust the Americans to do the right thing, after they have tried everything else."

I'm assuming he was referring to his twisting of Roosevelt's arm to get us to start cranking out ammunitions for the big fight, and then our entry into the theater itself.

Our involvement in WW2 was probably our last truly noble military endeavor. Unfortunately, when the powers that be saw what a wartime economy could do for society, it set in motion what we have today: The Military Industrial Complex, i.e. war for profiteering. It's an absolute afront to the values and ideals we as Americans are usually so keen to espouse.

[TheSufferingVilla]

I 50% love it, 50% hate it so I'm rather indifferent, lived here 6 years couldn't imagine living anywhere but NYC and no way will I raise my children here but to be fair there's never a dull moment.

[ClaretMahoney]

And Chindie...alot of the reason why we Americans fly our flags proudly outside our houses is that exact same reason. Nationalism and patriotism, (bar July 4th) started on Sept 12. 2001.

Er, not so sure about that, CM

So you're saying that prior to 9/11 people had American flags outside their homes? Don't remember that AT ALL. Unless of course it was on 4th of July.

After we were attacked everyone and their dog had an American flag on their car, their house, and their motorcycles.