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WorldWide
Joined: 28 Apr 2006
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 Posted: Sun Jul 02, 2006 5:03 pm Post subject: |
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| america owes a lot more money to Saudi Arabia, Brunei and China than they have out in loans to other countries. Why do you think Saudi Arabia gets such good treatment, a promise by the CIA not to spy on them, free access to the president and many other privileges not granted to other nations??? It's because the Saudis could sink america if they withdrew their money. americans are the Saudis b*tches. |
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Apple Scruff
Joined: 29 Oct 2003
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| Posted: Sun Jul 02, 2006 6:19 pm Post subject: Re: I LOVE AMERICA |
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| laogaiguk wrote: |
| Well, actually, I don't. I think the current administration and general atmosphere of fear (not unlike the commie fear) suck. But pretty much my entire screen in the forum is filled with anti-American threads. I like to diss America as much as the next Canadian (well, actually no, I barely do and only when it really deserves it) but this is really pathetic. People need to get a grip. Anyways, there is one Canadian in particular on a bit of a rampage. It's not that I totally disagree with ce poster but it is going too far and is a little boring. Personally, I would like to hear some crap about Canada too and we can discuss that and who knows, maybe help change it for the better (fat chance, I know). I am sure there is some Aussie or Brit crap that smells just as bad, why do we never hear about that? That would be more interesting as I don't know as much about those countries... |
You're tired of hearing people bash America, so you begin a thread about people bashing America too much, which is sure to bring the topic to a grinding halt. Good work. |
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Juregen
Joined: 30 May 2006
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| Posted: Sun Jul 02, 2006 6:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
My only true regret in this life is that the Republicans weren't in control in 1945. They would have made Europe a colony and brought civilization to it for the first time since the fall of Rome. |
hum?
As i recall, most americans originate from Europe, if i am not mistaken.
It were the social rejects that went all the way  . |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sun Jul 02, 2006 6:28 pm Post subject: |
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| I am sure there is some Aussie or Brit crap that smells just as bad, why do we never hear about that? That would be more interesting as I don't know as much about those countries... |
That's like saying why do we hear so so much about John Gotti bumping people off right and left, but never anything about the low-life cokehead with the flaming skull tatooed on his arm who gunned down the clerk at a liquor store in Fort Wayne. |
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Woland
Joined: 10 May 2006
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sun Jul 02, 2006 9:40 pm Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
The current administration sucks all bags, but that said, the world is better off with American in it, than with no America. America is, despite the best efforts of Bush, a force for good in the world. I love the fact only a country like America could, at the end of WWII, have the entire world at its feet, be the only nuclear power, troops in every major nation on earth... all it had to do was squeeze its fist like the Soviets. Instead, America gave the world back to itself, with low interest loans.
The America I love is best expressed not by words but by two pieces of music by Aaron Copland: "Fanfare For The Common Man" and "Appalachian Spring".
That's the America that's been lost during the Bush administrations. |
You've written things like this before, mindmetoo; It's good that you continue to do so when topics like this come up. We could choose other examples from history, other music, but the sentiments are exactly right. Well done! |
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laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
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| Posted: Sun Jul 02, 2006 11:49 pm Post subject: Re: I LOVE AMERICA |
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| Apple Scruff wrote: |
| laogaiguk wrote: |
| Well, actually, I don't. I think the current administration and general atmosphere of fear (not unlike the commie fear) suck. But pretty much my entire screen in the forum is filled with anti-American threads. I like to diss America as much as the next Canadian (well, actually no, I barely do and only when it really deserves it) but this is really pathetic. People need to get a grip. Anyways, there is one Canadian in particular on a bit of a rampage. It's not that I totally disagree with ce poster but it is going too far and is a little boring. Personally, I would like to hear some crap about Canada too and we can discuss that and who knows, maybe help change it for the better (fat chance, I know). I am sure there is some Aussie or Brit crap that smells just as bad, why do we never hear about that? That would be more interesting as I don't know as much about those countries... |
You're tired of hearing people bash America, so you begin a thread about people bashing America too much, which is sure to bring the topic to a grinding halt. Good work. |
Actually, Octavious Hite posted a thread about Canada's aborginal problem after. Maybe it did work...??? |
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laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
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| Posted: Sun Jul 02, 2006 11:50 pm Post subject: |
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| On the other hand wrote: |
| Quote: |
| I am sure there is some Aussie or Brit crap that smells just as bad, why do we never hear about that? That would be more interesting as I don't know as much about those countries... |
That's like saying why do we hear so so much about John Gotti bumping people off right and left, but never anything about the low-life cokehead with the flaming skull tatooed on his arm who gunned down the clerk at a liquor store in Fort Wayne. |
And why don't we? Some people here come from small towns where that happens once every 100 years and is news for 200 years. Why don't we hear about that ???  |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 1:22 am Post subject: |
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| mindmetoo wrote: |
The current administration sucks all bags, but that said, the world is better off with American in it, than with no America. America is, despite the best efforts of Bush, a force for good in the world. I love the fact only a country like America could, at the end of WWII, have the entire world at its feet, be the only nuclear power, troops in every major nation on earth... all it had to do was squeeze its fist like the Soviets. Instead, America gave the world back to itself, with low interest loans.
The America I love is best expressed not by words but by two pieces of music by Aaron Copland: "Fanfare For The Common Man" and "Appalachian Spring".
That's the America that's been lost during the Bush administrations. |
Not so much lost, but been tucked into dormancy.
And by administrations, do you mean Jr. and Sr.? Because I wouldn't blame Sr. for any of this mess. |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 4:16 am Post subject: |
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It is almost July 4th. As good a thread as any to write about America.
It is a day to remember when America let forth the myth for which she will always be remembered and forever the world in her debt..............the myth and hope and archetype of FREEDOM.
America shrugged off the yolk and deemed all men created equal, all men to live with the possibility of FREEDOM and being able to live unregulated, to fulfill their inner potential.
America as a land for the individual and rugged spirit. America as a land of the boisterous and the be damned. America as a land of experiment and a land where a man could make his own way, unencumbered by the past, by his bloodline or by his government.
This is the America that still is and rests moreso in the everyday man. It is the America of Walt Whitman. It is the America of Twain and Steinbeck. Of Miller and Mailer and Paine. It is the America that is still out there.......
When I think of all the friends I have in this world OR all the people I most value, the majority of them are American. God bless her. She is beautiful at her edges. She dances without preconceived step or regulation. She is........
July 4th. I think of those moments of dissent. I think of deTocqueville, I think of Springsteen and his always tone of being FREE in the arms of his lover, of being human, being honest about what is important in our lives, to lay in our loved ones arms....wherever, the tall grass, a house of glass, wherever....I think of Springsteen and an America of peace, of long grass, of tall beers and that generosity of spirit that is the envy of all peoples.
I've driven her length and talked to her marrow. Long hours with a horse trader in Erin , S.Carolina who offered me his house for a week, if only I'd talk to him another hour. The stock traders in Houston who just smiled and laughed with me and we were as one. The longshoreman in Chicago who bought me a hot dog and said , just because, cause he liked who I was. I talked to all those and I pay tribute to them. It is this common stock from where the soil will show her real nature. I believe.
Whitman evokes this common thread of Freedom, the freedom to do (and say, which is the most important form of doing). In his song of occupations. He sings.
| Quote: |
From Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman:
1
A song for occupations! In the labor of engines and trades and the labor of fields I find the developments,
And find the eternal meanings.
Workmen and Workwomen!
Were all educations practical and ornamental well display'd out of me, what would it amount to?
Were I as the head teacher, charitable proprietor, wise statesman, what would it amount to?
Were I to you as the boss employing and paying you, would that satisfy you?
The learn'd, virtuous, benevolent, and the usual terms,
A man like me and never the usual terms.
Neither a servant nor a master I,
I take no sooner a large price than a small price, I will have my own whoever enjoys me,
I will be even with you and you shall be even with me.
If you stand at work in a shop I stand as nigh as the nighest in the same shop,
If you bestow gifts on your brother or dearest friend I demand as good as your brother or dearest friend,
If your lover, husband, wife, is welcome by day or night, I must be personally as welcome,
If you become degraded, criminal, ill, then I become so for your sake,
If you remember your foolish and outlaw'd deeds, do you think I cannot remember my own foolish and outlaw'd deeds?
If you carouse at the table I carouse at the opposite side of the table,
If you meet some stranger in the streets and love him or her, why I often meet strangers in the street and love them.
Why what have you thought of yourself?
Is it you then that thought yourself less?
Is it you that thought the President greater than you?
Or the rich better off than you? or the educated wiser than you?
(Because you are greasy or pimpled, or were once drunk, or a thief,
Or that you are diseas'd, or rheumatic, or a prostitute,
Or from frivolity or impotence, or that you are no scholar and never saw your name in print, Do you give in that you are any less immortal?)
2
Souls of men and women! it is not you I call unseen, unheard, untouchable and untouching,
It is not you I go argue pro and con about, and to settle whether you are alive or no,
I own publicly who you are, if nobody else owns.
Grown, half-grown and babe, of this country and every country, indoors and out-doors, one just as much as the other, I see,
And all else behind or through them.
The wife, and she is not one jot less than the husband,
The daughter, and she is just as good as the son,
The mother, and she is every bit as much as the father.
Offspring of ignorant and poor, boys apprenticed to trades,
Young fellows working on farms and old fellows working on farms,
Sailor-men, merchant-men, coasters, immigrants,
All these I see, but nigher and farther the same I see,
None shall escape me and none shall wish to escape me.
I bring what you much need yet always have,
Not money, amours, dress, eating, erudition, but as good,
I send no agent or medium, offer no representative of value, but offer the value itself.
There is something that comes to one now and perpetually,
It is not what is printed, preach'd, discussed, it eludes discussion and print,
It is not to be put in a book, it is not in this book,
It is for you whoever you are, it is no farther from you than your hearing and sight are from you,
It is hinted by nearest, commonest, readiest, it is ever provoked by them.
You may read in many languages, yet read nothing about it,
You may read the President's message and read nothing about it there,
Nothing in the reports from the State department or Treasury department, or in the daily papers or weekly papers,
Or in the census or revenue returns, prices current, or any accounts of stock. |
Back to Springsteen and his 69 Chevy with a 396 -- back to Freedom. God bless it and may no army, president, ceo or sycophant take it away......let's drive on a road to nowhere.....
DD
de tocqueville found at .. http://xroads.virginia.edu/~Hyper/DETOC/toc_indx.html
This little snippet tells much and de tocqueville is one who understands the American character. America's birth cries can also be found in Paine, the Rights of Man http://www.ushistory.org/Paine/rights/ , a traitor and drunk..........so often the case of those who give birth to much.....
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| I accost an American sailor and inquire why the ships of his country are built so as to last for only a short time, he answers without hesitation that the art of navigation is every day making such rapid progress that the finest vessel would become almost useless if it lasted beyond a few years. In these words, which fell accidentally, and on a particular subject, from an uninstructed man, I recognize the general and systematic idea upon which a great people direct all their concerns. Aristocratic nations are naturally too liable to narrow the scope of human perfectibility; democratic nations, to expand it beyond reason. |
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Rteacher
Joined: 23 May 2005
Location: Western MA, USA
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| Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 6:03 am Post subject: |
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Gotta love a country that reserves an official spot in its National Independence Day Parade in Washington D.C. the last twenty years for - you guessed it - the Hare Krishnas. I think that their remarkable participation exemplifies the spirit of cultural diversity and freedom of expression that have helped make America great. Here's a pretty amazing clip of last year's parade and festival on the National Mall:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1762243072653576987 |
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AbbeFaria
Joined: 17 May 2005
Location: Gangnam
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| Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 12:52 pm Post subject: |
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| Rteacher wrote: |
Gotta love a country that reserves an official spot in its National Independence Day Parade in Washington D.C. the last twenty years for - you guessed it - the Hare Krishnas. I think that their remarkable participation exemplifies the spirit of cultural diversity and freedom of expression that have helped make America great. Here's a pretty amazing clip of last year's parade and festival on the National Mall:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1762243072653576987 |
I'll be damned. I never thought I'd hear a good comment out of you about the U.S. Good thing I didn't bet on it.
�S� |
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Rteacher
Joined: 23 May 2005
Location: Western MA, USA
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| Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 2:24 pm Post subject: |
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Hey, I've said good stuff about America before (Canada too ...) I'm full of good stuff, and it justs keeps rolling out of me (like rolling stones in a landslide...  ) |
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ella
Joined: 17 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Mon Jul 03, 2006 3:35 pm Post subject: |
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| I think that clip was much, much more about being 20-something that it was about Hare Krishnas or Independence Day... |
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ddeubel
Joined: 20 Jul 2005
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| Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 2:13 am Post subject: |
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An article in today's IHT hits it bang on, for me. About America as the land where all men (women) are equal. About exporting this notion to the rest of the world. About how the real revolution was not in France but America. About how the battle against slavery was the house built on this foundation.
About how America has strayed from her roots. .................. Legally, morally, economically, especially politically.
How can we ever imagine a poor boy becoming President, again??? But still much of the roots there in America.........
DD
[quote]
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James Carroll: What we love about America
James Carroll The Boston Globe
Published: July 3, 2006
BOSTON It is better to be a half-formed and rough idea than a brilliant clich�. Such preference for the imperfect new defines America. As we Americans celebrate the birth of our nation, can we put words on the reason we love it? Let me try.
Because Europeans measured what they found here against what they had left behind, newness was the main note of the settled land. In the beginning, religiously enflamed politics had made life intolerable in the old country, a story that achieved its master form with the coming to Virginia and Massachusetts of the English dissidents.
But even the mythic 1492 had carried an implication of the New World's liberating significance, for in addition to sponsoring Christopher Columbus, the monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella chose that year to expel Jews and Muslims from Spain, establishing the totalitarian principle in Europe.
Even as Spaniards then wreaked purposeful and accidental havoc in the New World, they opened an unforeseen escape route from the old.
America, for all of its nascent idealism, began as an instance of brutal European imperialism, with the exterminating of indigenous peoples and the enslavement of Africans as essential elements.
But because that nascent idealism found articulation in the solemn compacts of the early generations - culminating first in the Declaration of Independence that we commemorate on Tuesday, then in the U.S. Constitution, then in the Bill of Rights - American imperialism contained principles of its own self-criticism. Slavery came to be seen as an abomination less in contrast to the practice of other nations than to the establishing theory of this one.
America began, that is, as a half-formed and rough idea, but that idea became the meaning against which all life in the United States has been measured ever since. That idea has been a perpetual source of newness, even as it has become more fully formed and clearly articulated.
And what is that idea? It comes to us by now as the brilliant clich� of the Fourth of July, but with stark simplicity it still defines the ground of our being: "All men are created equal."
That the idea is dynamic, propelling a permanent social transformation, is evident even in the way that word "men" strikes the ear as anachronistic now.
That Jefferson and the others were not thinking of women matters less than the fact that they established a principle that made the full inclusion of women inevitable. And so with those who owned no property, and those who were themselves owned property.
How new is this idea today? Its transforming work continues all around us.
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court faulted the Bush administration for its treatment of detainees in Guant�namo, implicitly affirming that one need not be a U.S. citizen to claim basic rights. The foundational principle extends to enemy combatants. They, too, are created equal.
And so in other areas. U.S. politics is obsessed with the question of the place of immigrants, legal and illegal. The mainstream argument takes for granted that even here liberalizing change is under way. Confronted with an "illegal" person, the law must still give primacy to personhood. And, on another front, is it an accident that American Episcopalians are the ones challenging the world Anglican body on the question of equality for gays and lesbians?
America is by definition unfinished, because it forever falls short of itself. Not that the United States is more moral than others, but its half-formed foundational ideal required a moral purpose at the start - and a moral purpose to the end.
That is both creative and creatively undermining. Born in a challenge to authority, American authority continually inhibits its own exercise (what the Supreme Court did last week in challenging the executive and legislative branches over Guant�namo). Recognitions of personal alienation inevitably open into demands for the reform of alienating systems - and in America that is the work of politics. It never stops.
Contention is essential to such a social dynamic. Much as the polarized character of national life is bemoaned, the red state/blue state acrimony reveals the genius of what the founders began, for the structures of this public order evolve within a framework that continually transforms conflict into energy for change.
The irony, of course, is that those who declare their loyalty to the brilliant clich� of an unchanging past are themselves at the service of the imperfect new. After all, to be an American traditionalist - and isn't this what Americans celebrate on July 4? - is to affirm the revolution.
James Carroll's column appears regularly in The Boston Globe. |
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Bronski
Joined: 17 Apr 2006
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| Posted: Tue Jul 04, 2006 5:56 am Post subject: |
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| ddeubel wrote: |
How can we ever imagine a poor boy becoming President, again??? But still much of the roots there in America.........
DD
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Clinton didn't exactly grow up in the lap of luxury (though I see your point):
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| William Jefferson Blythe III was born in Hope, Arkansas, and raised in Hot Springs, Arkansas. He was named after his father, William Jefferson Blythe, Jr., a traveling salesman who died in a car accident three months before Bill was born. His mother, born Virginia Dell Cassidy (1923�1994), remarried in 1950 to Roger Clinton. Roger Clinton owned an automobile dealership business with his brother, Raymond. The young Billy, as he was called, was raised by his mother and stepfather, assuming his last name "Clinton" throughout elementary school, but not formally changing it until he was 14. Clinton grew up in a traditional, albeit blended, family; however, according to Clinton, his stepfather was a gambler and an alcoholic who regularly abused Clinton's mother, and sometimes Clinton's half-brother Roger, Jr. |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_clinton#Early_life |
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