Steeplerot
Lifer
So I have a second friend now attacked while overseas for being an american, I came across this letter on the net from some activist site, it is no recent thing in the past few years americans have become despised when traveling for our foreign policy and wars, even those that can't stand bush, a interesting point of view that it is not the right wing aspect of this country that infuriate people so much at this point, but our apathy.
I travel a lot in France these days, and for a long time I was irritated by the anti-Americanism when it was blindly directed toward me. After all, I thought, French people read the paper enough to know that least 50% of our population opposes Bush, the war, and so on. Then, at one point, over a beer at a highway gas station bar, an older French man said to me the following (and it's all the more compelling after the news of the repeal of the youth labor law):
"We're not upset with you because we think you support Bush," he told me. "In fact, we know that most of the Americans that come to France, in particular, don't support him. The point is, if this were happening in France, the vast majority of our students would be out in the streets protesting. Because we believe in political protest, and you don't. That's why you're such a dangerous country in the hands of Bush -- public opinion doesn't matter in your country, because you don't have the power of protest as a check against your President. Every time we see a picture of your city streets with the protesters missing, we blame America not for its idiots that support Bush. Every country has its idiots. Rather, the fact that Bush is still in office is the fault of you--" (he pointed his finger at me) "--you who know that you should be on the streets, and yet you are not."
But do we deserve all the worst things people say are happening? corporate fascism, eroding of church and state, mass corruption? Ok ok, I know some of us here actually voted for the bush, but what of the other side and those that have woken up and has been against this the whole time Have we let this all slide? How much is the media complient in this?
I travel a lot in France these days, and for a long time I was irritated by the anti-Americanism when it was blindly directed toward me. After all, I thought, French people read the paper enough to know that least 50% of our population opposes Bush, the war, and so on. Then, at one point, over a beer at a highway gas station bar, an older French man said to me the following (and it's all the more compelling after the news of the repeal of the youth labor law):
"We're not upset with you because we think you support Bush," he told me. "In fact, we know that most of the Americans that come to France, in particular, don't support him. The point is, if this were happening in France, the vast majority of our students would be out in the streets protesting. Because we believe in political protest, and you don't. That's why you're such a dangerous country in the hands of Bush -- public opinion doesn't matter in your country, because you don't have the power of protest as a check against your President. Every time we see a picture of your city streets with the protesters missing, we blame America not for its idiots that support Bush. Every country has its idiots. Rather, the fact that Bush is still in office is the fault of you--" (he pointed his finger at me) "--you who know that you should be on the streets, and yet you are not."
But do we deserve all the worst things people say are happening? corporate fascism, eroding of church and state, mass corruption? Ok ok, I know some of us here actually voted for the bush, but what of the other side and those that have woken up and has been against this the whole time Have we let this all slide? How much is the media complient in this?
