Death to America!...what for??

So as not to derail the OWS thread, starting this new one. Its about the global protests, and their anti-American nature. A quick glance at this article:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44912532/ns/world_news/?gt1=43001

Shows the following:

• They are chanting "Down with American Imperialism" in Manila.
• The Sydney protesters are against "American influence on Australian affairs"
• Tokyo's protests are similar. Down with nuclear power, and down with the U.S. led trans-Pacific free trade agreements!

So, what gives, exactly? I mean, haven't we shown most of the world friendship for the last hundred years? Take the Philippines, for example - just what does a country like America have to do to get the Filipinos to like them, anyways? Wasn't liberating them from Spanish and then from Japanese occupation enough? But somehow the country that saved them is to blame for their own problems with political corruption??

And how, exactly, is cooperation between America and Australia a bad thing? We are like siblings, siblings should get along, right?

And free trade agreements bring vast wealth to most of these countries, like Japan, but suddenly they don't want to play the game anymore? Was making all that money off of computers and cars not good enough for you Japanese?

Really, if someone could explain this to me, I'd appreciate it, because I just can't see what, exactly, America has done to upset some of these places. I get people in Iran burning the American flag, sure, we screwed them up royally in the name of cheap oil, but the Filipinos and the Aussies??

I think some people see America as the big tough bully who can do whatever it wants because of how huge and powerful (militarily speaking) it is.

We also brutally cracked down on their independence movements.

Frankly, I'm not surprised that none of them like us. It's not exactly a secret that the US is hated the world-over. The fact that you're surprised is more surprising than the fact that this is happening, really.

Yeah...the 2000-2008 era did not do alot for America's image abroad...

Yeah, but we did give them their independence after World War Two, so it's not like we took over the Phillipines. (Course, that's as much YMMV as everything else; I've heard that Filipinos love and hate us.)

I don't know why Australia's annoyed at us. Do we have any trade agreements that have gone wrong or something?

In terms of politics and relations, thats ancient history.

I mean, lets put it this way. Do you expect Americans to still hate Japan because of WWII?

A fair point. It's hard to think of anything bad the US has done to the Phillipines in recent times, or to Australia ever.

The US did take over the Philippines, Ace, in the Spanish American War.

~shrug~

If countries don't hate us because of what we've done to them, they hate us for what we've done to others, or for what we haven't done for them when we could have.

Funny because since 2008 our image is effectively no better. So the Euros aren't chanting "Death to Bush!" in the streets anymore, they still don't like us.

Did I say things got better?

I'm just making a point that the bush era saw a huge decline in our popularity with the rest of the world thanks to cowboy diplomacy.

We don't?

edited 15th Oct '11 12:14:03 PM by honorius

You don't loudly proclaim that you don't like us, but you sure don't act like you do like us...

So how exactly do you want us to act?

I think it's cultural imperialism they're railing against. Free trade rules, globaliziation, the virus of privatizing taking over everywhere. For instance, I doubt Australians lose much sleep over our military (heck, I don't), but our business leaders are squeezing the world economy hard. It's just unmitigated arrogance and unaccountability and it's frustrating as hell. Can you imagine being held at the mercy of people on the other end of the planet?

Especially since we almost destroyed the entire world economy recently thanks to that hilarious debt limit fiasco.

I don't care how Europe acts, honestly. I'm just noting it.

Yeah... it's kind of sad when you're the most powerful military on the planet and people are more afraid of your businessmen...

Well, most of them are no different from the Mafia.

Correction: When Bush was in charge, we definetly hated you. Now it's Obama, he's done some good things but old hatred(more like suspicion and mistrust than outright hatred) doesn't diappear overnight.

Way the republicans fucked up some of Obamas more popular choices and how everyone is fucked up because American economy, it's not suprised we don't excatly chant praises...

Besides, I think the "American Imperialism" here means more of an economic imperialism, not thetraditional imperialism.

...But free trade and globalization are good things.

I suppose that we could argue the scariest businessmen are the people in the military-industrial complex, since they're businessmen with guns.

~shrug~

I'd love to reform the US system, but it just isn't going to happen in the near-future. In the meantime, the rest of the world hates us.

Not much to be done about it, really.

Here's my question; why can't the countries in question create and enforce their own laws that make it harder for American businessmen to screw them over? Aren't they perfectly capable of doing that? Hell, I'm sure their own businessmen would love that.

Free trade and globalization are just Newspeak for "we're going to rob you." In practice, these systems work through cooperation and trust. That's the downside of a global market. Everybody has to show good faith. Our system works exactly the opposite. So I support free trade and globalization - the trouble is it doesn't exist.

I'd like to cut everyone that complains about us from aid for a year or two, remind them were the good guys, then give it back if they stop biting the hand that feeds and protects them. It'll have the added benifit of cutting down our debt a little.

I'd see alot of people argue otherwise.

Yes that would help our image abroad. LOVE US OR DIE!!!!! What are we, super villains?

edited 15th Oct '11 12:25:48 PM by Thorn14

C'mon Joe, you know there's no such thing as foreign aid without strings attached.