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BS.Dos.
Joined: 29 Mar 2007
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 Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 12:51 am Post subject: |
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Well, I think 'into' his work is being a little too generous, but the little I have read has proved to be extremely thought provoking and is helping me to question and challenge my previously held views.
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Finally, to top it all off, you approached Barack Obama's speech in such a way that it seems clear you came here looking to antagonize Americans.
And in that it seems he succeeded |
That wasn't my intention. It was the first thing I looked at this morning and the coffee was just kicking in when I posted. It was an impulsive, reactionary post and one which was deliberately loaded with cynicism. It wasn't one that was in anyway designed to enrage anyone, but if it has, well, too bad. I generally save my 'antagonize the Americans' posts for chimp forums next door. I've got too much respect for the posters in this forum to ever consider flaming in here intentionally.
Last edited by BS.Dos. on Fri Jul 25, 2008 12:55 am; edited 2 times in total |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 12:52 am Post subject: |
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| BS.Dos wrote: |
| I've no allegiance to either socialist, liberal or conservative political discourse. I'd also add that it's a result of these three approaches and their subtle manifestations that many, myself included, would like to see a departure from. |
Yes, this one of my pet peeves about this bloody forum. Some posters decide you are in this or that particular camp, and label you accordingly, and then presume to know your opinions on anything and everything!
There are posters here who have shown time and time again that they have absolutely no idea of my real view on a particular subject, but have confidently made up my own mind for me!! |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 12:55 am Post subject: |
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| BS.Dos. wrote: |
Well, I think 'into' his work is being a little too generous, but the little I have read has proved to be extremely thought provoking and is helping me to question and challenge my previously held views.
| Quote: |
Finally, to top it all off, you approached Barack Obama's speech in such a way that it seems clear you came here looking to antagonize Americans.
And in that it seems he succeeded |
That wasn't my intention. It was the first thing I looked at this morning and the coffee was just kicking in when I posted. It was an impulsive, reactionary post and one which was deliberately loaded with cynicism It wasn't one that was in anyway designed to enrage anyone, but if it has, well, too bad. I generally save my 'antagonize the Americans' posts for chimp forums next door. I've got too much respect for the posters in this forum to ever consider flaming in here intentionally. |
Oh stop being so civilised! *Doubles over and pukes* |
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BS.Dos.
Joined: 29 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 12:57 am Post subject: |
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| That's exactly what I was thinking when I posted. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 1:12 am Post subject: |
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You never responded to this, BS.Dos. If you have decided to pass it by, that is fine. But I did submit this in response to your hostile question...
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| BS.Dos. wrote: |
| Exactly. Since when did European sentiment ever influence US policy...[?][my emphasis] |
FDR pushed the British and French hard to decolonize and grant real independence to their former colonies, especially in Southeast Asia and subSaharan Africa. But the British and the French pushed FDR right back. He in fact dropped the issue in order to keep the wartime alliance together.
Score one for your noble "European sentiment" over the pernicious "US policy."
Next, following Japan's surrender to us, the British and the French, after first rearming the Japanese there, embarked on a foolish course of reconquest. We backed them. Why? That was what they wanted, even the French Socialists and Communists, and we wanted to keep France happy. The British and the French even crafted the so-called Bao Dai Solution to make it easier on us. See? An "independent" govt!
Score another.
Next, Iran, 1953. British oil interests. Whose diplomats and intelligence liaison officers in Washington systematically sold the American govt on the concept that Mossadeq represented a serious Communist threat? We got into Iran and the Middle East, BS.Dos, for our own reasons, too. But we also got into the region for British reasons -- that is, nineteenth-century imperialist reasons, to be precise. Why? To defend an ally's interests in world affairs.
And another.
What, then, is so good, BS.Dos, about "European sentiment" in world affairs? Frankly, you Europeans fucked up the world for 450 years. And most of our problems from 1945 to the present, while they remain mostly our own problems, also came to us as your problems, problems that you had created and dropped into our laps after you self-destructed in two stupid continent-wide civil wars. Then you created your smug antiAmericanism to blame us for these problems. Nice.
What is so good about listening to "European sentiment," then? "Why are European values so abhorrent?" Would you like to commission Gallup to start asking people in places such as India, Southeast Asia, and subSaharan Africa, BS.Dos? Why not start in the Congo? |
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BS.Dos.
Joined: 29 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 1:34 am Post subject: |
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Okay, how about the French and their opposition to the war in Iraq. In fact, I think I'm right in thinking that it wasn't only the French who were opposed to this, but it didn't seem to make any difference to the US. I'd construe that as being a particular example of clearly defined and explicit European sentiment that had absolutely no bearing on the US administration. You went ahead (with the UK agreed) and did it anyway. And then what happened? The French we're subjected to national ridicule etc for simply holding an opposing view and for not 'siding' up to the US.
It's one thing to quote extensively from history Gopher, but I'd ask that you keep a more contemporary focus. As I have already mentioned, anti-American feeling has only manifested itself on it's current scale over the last decade or so. Over that same time the Bush administration has displayed a disgusting indifferrence to the feelings, opinions and 'sentiments' of the wider global community, let alone the European community. My point was in respect of recent times. I am not interested in how the US may or may not have responded under different adminstrations. I am talking specifically in the here and now. I'd offer you the line about European sentiment over Kyoto too, only that would be too obvious. You'd probably just come back with the same old:
"Well, you see Europe, here's how it is. We'd really like to sign up to this Kyoto thing, only we cant. You see we've got this old consitution and we're in a bit of bind as too how we'd actually stop our people from fucking up the planet for everybody else. But hey, you guys go ahead and we'll all change our lightbulbs and stuff"
People don't buy your lame excuses and self-serving politics. It's as simple as that really. If England was subject to thesame kind of feeling from Americans', I'd be trying to understand the reasons why, not side-stepping the issue by throwing up smoke screens about what the UK has contributed to America etc. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 1:41 am Post subject: |
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I believe Kuros already addressed Kyoto, BS.Dos. Take it up with him. It might even be worthwhile. Unlike me, he seems sympathetic to your argument here.
| BS.Dos. wrote: |
| People don't buy your lame excuses and self-serving politics. It's as simple as that really. |
Not only speaking for "European sentiment and values," but also speaking for "people?"
Very well. I have read you and Europe and "the wider global community" and "the people's" position as you articulate it here. And you completely lack historical depth -- conveniently, of course. You have embraced myopia because it allows you to continue focusing on noble European sentiment and values -- we opposed the Iraqi War in 2003! -- while scapegoating and then ostentatiously slamming contemporary American politics (and with chronically bad possessives, I might add, dissapointingly, as we prefer at the very least to be insulted in good grammar, our current president notwithstanding). That same noble European sentiment that drove the noble British to respond in India in 1857 as they did, remember?
So of course you would seek to control the context by "asking me to keep a contemporary focus." And oh yeah: the last five hundred years? They remain modern history -- barely yesterday as far as historical time goes. Today's world is 1500 to the present. And Europeans and not Americans more than anyone else have constructed this world and created many of its problems.
Side-stepping the problem, indeed. Why, in your estimation, did the entire Middle East come to us in the condition it was in after 1945, BS.Dos?
In any case, congratulations. Another self-serving revisionist. Long live (disinterested) "European values" and down with the (self-serving) American imperialists!
And, finally, should you truly represent the kind of "European" the W. Bush Administration has had to deal with since taking office, I would revise my position -- I used to be critical of W. Bush for this, but, you know, people like you keep influencing my position on such matters all the time -- and wholly support his relegating all of you to irrelevance when forming policy. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 2:28 am Post subject: |
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And one more, especially annoying thing: you asked...
| BS.Dos wrote: |
| Exactly. Since when did European sentiment ever influence US policy...[?][my emphasis] |
Then, after I offered an answer, complete with multiple examples that show that, from 1945 to the present, American foreign policy catered to "European sentiment" far more often than not, you complained...
| BS.Dos wrote: |
| It's one thing to quote extensively from history Gopher, but I'd ask that you keep a more contemporary focus...My point was in respect of recent times. I am not interested in how the US may or may not have responded under different adminstrations. I am talking specifically in the here and now...not side-stepping the issue by throwing up smoke screens... |
It all seems so unfocused. It seems like any other hyperbolic antiBush/antiAmerican rant, one that, typically, you aim to control as you go along, as you continue improvising new variants on said rant.
If by employing the qualifier "ever" you meant to articulate your point "in respect of the here and now," then I must admit, I have a hard time with British English, mate, and cannot follow your position here. |
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