Thursday, February 22, 2007

America rules




an effort to counter increasing anti-americanism in europe.

9 comments:

TaylorStreet said...

and i don't mean to include UK citizens in the realm of "europe" i consider your crew to be a separate entity. And not nearly so much the Jew-haters as the French, German, Austrian, Spanish, Portugese, and Polish.

Oliver said...

That's another thing about you guys. You always say you're gonna be the "bigger person", but by saying that you are automatically no longer the bigger person.

Anyway, I made no negative comments about the US I just displayed the video.

Nuff said.

potunkey said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
potunkey said...

Old comment utterly senseless. And badly spelt. So:

As an utterly transparent right-wing organisation, I'm more than a little suspicious of 18 Doughty Street (makers of this well-produced tape).

See here: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/egovernment/story/0,,2015248,00.html

And here: http://www.politics.co.uk/press-releases/party-politics/party-political-funding/unlock-democracy-anti-party-funding-campaigner-supports-matched-funding-$466072.htm

And here: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/backbencher/story/0,,2007868,00.html

for exactly why.

This video is as close as you'll ever come to shooting fish in a barrel. The core argument is "the USA has done some good things".

Heavens, thanks for clearing that one up. Here I was thinking that all the US did all day was start major land wars in the middle east and cook babies.

The core concept - the sudden and (for some reason) retroactive disappearance of the USA - is so deeply hypothetical that it's not even worth entertaining.

But like all great democracies, there are numerous things in the history books (native Americans, WWII Japanese, Iraq) that America would like to forget. (I'm not saying, by the way, that my country - or any other - is any better).

If America didn't exist, the course of 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st century history would be so radically different as to preclude all presumptive thought about what merely the last hundred years (which is pretty much all this tape is talking about) would have been like. If you really want to imagine a world without America, you need to start much earlier than WWII.

"Most Europeans are latent anti-semites". Meh?

Oliver said...

Interesting point, potunky.
There is this new type of history, I'm not sure what it's called, but basically it disects a history that didn't happen, but might have, like in this vid. I'm not sure what merit there is in this approach, though.

Regarding Colin's comments, I'm as baffled as you are. I welcome evidence from Colin to substantiate his claims.

Megan said...

I can't tell how serious you are, Oli. I find phrases like "the bigger person" and "greatest country in the world" pretty funny and(I thought) obviously used them sarcastically.

Seems like it struck a nerve, I wasn't being sarcastic about the disadvantages of being ex-pat in Europe, though.

I could say some things here, but blog comments are shit forums for discussing sensitive topics between friends, as misunderstandings tend to crop up. I will say, though, that your blogs do tend to be on the anti-american side, which is what I was reacting to.

Megan said...

Having read that last comment I want to clarify that "sensitive issues" refers to political issues, not any other kind.

TaylorStreet said...

you guys are hilarious, and I assume you know that when I do something like call alll Europeans anti-Semites, I'm obviously "winding you up" or "taking the piss", or "joking."

And I agree with Dave's looong comment part: the entire idea of the ad is rather ridiculous, the notion that we can assume anything would've happened by taking America out of the equation.

May the US-UK alliance live on eternally.

Oliver said...

No offense taken, Megan. I wasn't cross with you.

I too find the comments "best country on earth" and "the bigger person" hilariously funny, but if you knew how many times I've heard those exact two comments spoken in earnest you would not be laughing, or rather, you'd be laughing OMGLOL.