Job Discussion Forums

[khmerhit]

Here's wishing a happy Independence Day to our American friends on Dave's Forum and everywhere else:

From Toronto to Paris to Moscow to Istanbul to Baghdad (sic) to Cairo to Tel Aviv to Ulaan Bataar to Beijing to Phnom Penh to Kuala Lumpur to Jakarta to Sydney to Perth to BA to Santiago to Havana to Mexico City to Palm Springs to Boise to Flin Flon and back to

Chicago

Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I
have seen your painted women under the gas lamps
luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it
is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to
kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the
faces of women and children I have seen the marks
of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who
sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer
and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing
so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on
job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the
little soft cities;

Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning
as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with
white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young
man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has
never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse.
and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of
Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog
Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with
Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

-- Carl Sandburg

[Steiner]

Thanks Khmerhit. My best friend works at the Sandburg home in North Carolina. You reminded me to reply to his emails.

[Bertrand]

Not so nice for the poor sods peppered around the globe currently being bombed by the yanks, is it?

[khmerhit]

Snore. don't start.

[Bertrand]

[Steiner]

Suggesting that one shouldn't love one's country if the government has bad foreign policy, Bertrand?

There's a whole lot to a nation other than the government. A whole lot to admire about a nation and its people whether one agrees with its government's policies or not. That's any nation, by the way, not just the U.S.

[Bertrand]

[khmerhit]

Eh bien, Bertrand. Vous insistez de foutre de la merde sur ce forum lorsque je n'avais suggere rien de plus qu'un bon anniversaire a nos collegues americains d'outre-mer. C'est vraiment pas la peine d'entrer dans une telle discussion ici-- nous avons eu plein deja pendant ces derniers mois et j'en ai marre des jeremiades anti-americains lancees de l'Europe. Personne n'a parle de la politique etrangere Americaine--- je n'ai pas envie de la defendre non plus. Ou bien, si-- je la defendrais dans un forum different mais ici ca vaux pas la peine. Dire que l'amerique c'est l'etat unique qui commis des crimes? Vous savez tout de meme que ce n'est pas correcte. Je me demande pourquoi vous vous demontrez tres doue en parlant de la langue et de la logique, mais sur ce point vous criez comme un pete hysterique?

[Steiner]

[khmerhit]

Er, including the USA.... Despite a few problems with their "media", and other things. Dont make me start quoting Lord Palmerston at you Bertrand. You wouldnt want that!

[Seth]

People also forget that Britain and Oz were bombing poor, innocent iraqis in the last war, and the force in Afghanistan is international, IE the German soldiers that were killed a few weeks ago. Not that I don't believe that the Afghanistan and Iraq war aftermaths are shaping up to be huge disasters. They, particularly Iraq, were done in very poor judgement and forsight.

I've lived in England and Scotland, you can't tell me people there aren't incredibly ignorant (and downright violent) at times. But some people are fixated on certain opinions so it doesn't really matter what I say. America and Americans are just bad, I guess.

I spent July 4 here in the US and found it surprizingly somber. I was halfway expecting, like most people here I would assume, that it would be full of overblown patriotism and barking idiots. It was pretty quiet, really. The president fumbled his way through a jingoistic speech but I don't think anyone watched and the newspapers didn't even report it. Too busy eating hot dogs and potato salad and watching cheap fireworks.

The really funny thing is that my mom spent the 4th of July weekend in Montreal. That's in Canada, for the dumb Americans. The big country above Montana. Yes, that one.

BTW, my grandma is an evil Amerinazi and must be destroyed.

[guest of Japan]

40% of America's wealth belongs to the top 1%.

90% of America's wealth belongs to the to 10%.

1% of America's wealth belongs to the bottom 40%.

Are you honestly so naive to think that American foreign policy represents the wishes of the American people?

If you would take the time to do a little in depth reading instead of blasting off at things you think you know you might find that the US has a very long history of representing the wishes of big business both domestically and internationally at the expense of the the poor both domestically and internationally.

However if you insist on spreading your anti-Americanism then please submit to us readers a country which you find to act nobly on the international and domestic stages. I'd love to hear about this modern day shangra la.

[Bertrand]

[Bertrand]

[dorum]