Anti-Americanism on this board

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

True. Operation Ajax, Operation PBSUCCESS and Chile 1973 all had "US interests" in mind too. For that matter these actions can backfire terribly as Ajax proved.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Folks have high expectations of the "Shining City on the Hill," and are disappointed when it falls short.

Something like that. I mean, there's a reason why Vietnam had such a catastrophic impact on the image of America over here.

And on patriotism in general in the US, which is why there's such a sharp divide when topics of extreme nationalism and jingoism come up. Iraq hasn't helped in that regard either, especially when you consider many people now associate that type of stuff with the early Bush years and the time in between 9/11 and Iraq. That type of stuff just really bugs me and others. I mean for proof look at how many people just sort of laughed off the Jeremiah Wright stuff. It wasn't just the fringe and media personalities, it was a substantial chunk of the Democratic base.

For example we might all remember when Phil had what was essentially a "Complain about Occupy Wall Street posters" megathread and posted a pic of someone stepping over an American flag on the ground taken at one of the protests for proof of how scummy they were, and then I put it in my sig. Not as an anti-American statement but more as "See how much this bothers and offends me?" sort of thing.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'd like to refer people to Antonio's signature. He clearly can make fun of the President of his country with no retaliation or being arrested. Now does this mean that conservatives don't ever use anti-French rhetoric? Or that criticism of say France's actions in its former colonies is "anti-French"?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It's possible to be both too pro-American and too anti-American (duh) but at least people who are pro-American tend to be fundamentally on the right track. Anti-Americans never commanded much respect from me. They tend to be intellectually shallow in the extreme.

That's because you don't live in the US and don't have to deal with idiotic blind jingoism and the like, yet have to deal with some idiotic knee-jerk anti-Americanism. The latter is often annoying, but harmless since it has no real influence beyond message board trolls. The former as displayed in this thread is quite disgusting.

For an analogy I'm sure most American liberals would argue that the childish anti-French crap from American conservatives ("Freedom fries" and all that junk) is worse than French nationalism because they have far more familiarity with the former than the latter. However as stupid and childish as that nonsense is, I don't think many would argue it's worse or more dangerous than Le Pen and the FN.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Vosem just proved my point.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'm glad to see that some intelligent discussion actually evolved out of this initial trainwreck of a thread.