I understand what you are saying DLBiten, but please don't take it personally. Other posts have already said that nations don't have friends, they have only interests - political, diplomatic etc etc.

Right enough, Britain was pretty good in its day: so was Spain, France and Holland to name a few others (don't forget the Romans) - all gone now and the USA is top of the pile, at present.
Somewhere in the future the USA will decline (and fall?), just as Rome did, and we will be looking at a "new kid on the block" - could be China or India or ... (fill in your own idea) ....

ps I have never really forgiven those Mongol hordes out of Asia! but, Mongolia is not what it was.

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Dave

Yeah, but what did the Romans ever do for us....apart from Aquaducts, sewers, roads.......

Andy

Andy,
I had to leave a bit of room for all credit to the Romans!
Mind, they were not very nice to this guy:-
A History of St George
who, even today, is better known and remembered in many countries of Europe, and other parts of the world, in contrast to England.

Despite the credit given previously to various other European nations, the Brits have been the best at running other countries in recent history and, arguably, in all known history: ask anyone from Malta what they think about the French who ruled them for a couple of years until the Brits kicked them out.

About St G. Things are changing, slowly:-
Branches of the Society

DLBiten,
I guess you have a sufficiently wide ranging answer to your valid question.

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Dave

I saw Jerry Springer interviewed once (quite an intelligent guy!).

He claimed his TV show could only work in the USA. When asked why - he had said no-one was paid to go on his show and there were no professional actors, so you need a population happy and willing to humiliate themselves publicly, and in his opinion only about 10% of any population would be of that ilk - and that in the USA that meant 25,000,000 people...

Just a theory...

Seriously, everyone likes to take a shot at the guy on top from time to time - in Australia we call it the "tall poppy syndrome". And it's easy to find fault in anyone's work. I think most here have nailed it on the head - the people charged with presenting an image of the USA to the world (ie the govt.) could be doing a better job. (Thank God we have a new govt ourselves...)

Personally I have some great mates from the US, and hope to get there one day - everyone I've met say the people are friendly and hospitable.

Damien

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Keep passing open windows...

You want to watch the Jeremy Kyle Show. I'm fairly sure the participants get some form of payment but they really are the dregs of society in the UK. I don't watch it often but I remember Jeremy asking one of these bagheads about how her own childhood was and she replied, "My Mum was a good parent, apart from that time when we were taken into care".

Seriously though, watching it is a kind of therapy. It makes you realise that no matter how bad life gets, there's always someone further up shit creek without a paddle than you.

The International Criminal Court (I.C.C.) located in the Hague, Netherlands can try the US.

If no one stops a crimanal he is not going to stop him self.

The US is a producer we make things when you make stuff and you your a rich wasteful git you tend pollute. Most of the US pollution is from a vary few huge companies. Making them stop will just lose the US more jobs. Posing that and you stuff your chances at reelection. As it happens If you look at Europen history at the start of the industrial revolution it was as bad as the US ever was. You had a few World Wars cleared all that junk out and moved what was left of the production to the rest of the world including the US. WE are in slow process of moving it 3rd world now allowing them the fun and health benefits of destroying there environment just like we have for 100 or so years. As far as environment Scandinavians are not saints Environmental Enemy Number 1? Reine - a Norwegian Fishing and Whaling Community had to look at the head line. But as you see Norway wont follow a no whaling ban that make Norway bad? no there following there way of life the same as most Americans.

One of the major problems the US faces is not the cold its the heat. Cooling takes more power than heating and power generation pollutes when you dont have thermal vents, hydroelectric, or clean gas we have cheap derty coal. We have hydroelectric where I live but thats not good for the environment just Co2 emissions. Here there thinking of boring in to the crust miles deep to make a man made thermal vent to try to cut down on US power emissions. Its not like we are not trying.
The population densities in the US Demographics of the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia we are spread out on the map moving an item from Seattle to Miami is about Oslo to Baghdad that trucks emishions in the US is all in the US from Oslo you get to split it up 10 times. (Think about doing this trip this year! Seattle to Miami)

Who makes the newspapers? google yellow journalism. Rich basterds looking for fools to do there derty work and pay to do it. Will not mater if its the people running the USA or the rich basterds running AL-Qaeda. Same reason same outcome.

We can use the guns on oppressive governments but to get the job done right we need a nuke you realy want a foolish Texas redneck to have one? Oh thats right never mind.

Bastardisation of the English language? old English? or one of the newer ones? seems the people in the UK do as a good job on as the US. History of the English language - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I hope people question there own press as much as I question mine. If the "freest press in the world" will lie what will yours do?

yeah I got some answer. Having lots of fun to!

I dont get UK TV here so I dont know about the TV shows

British Television is a true bastion of unbiased fact based news and well-balanced representations of public opinion........ anyone for Kilroy (unfortunately you don't get this, or at least I hope you don't!). Unfortunately as Britain is getting stupider at a semi-exponential rate its only going to get worse.

mmmm, I would worry for all of us if a Texas redneck had his finger on the button........

If you want this to be informative it could be wise to bash other countries in a separate thread. There is a lot of subjects..

It’s funny that you mention the whale-stuff. The US went out really hard on that one, before they realized they where wrong.

Well, at least it was just a boycott and bad publicity, they didn’t let the bombs fall.


I’m not surprised to see that the rest of your post proves that there is not much will to solve the problems.

as said previously, people are agains politics and the -isms like communism, capitalism, socialism... etc.. and now a days the trend is american-ism- and many people agains that actually the way that america threats. on the tele, in the newspapers we are seeing/watching how the american army act or behieve to the local people wherever they invate, or we are seeing watching how american bureaucrats manupilate the oil prices or the stock markets. if you go further you can read or see how the intelligent services of america produce and apply the conspirasy teories all over world.

people are agains the things which i have written above and not particulary american citizens. i have met lots of americans who went iran, middle east, etc. and no one had and problem. they are not agains americas richness or your wealth. they just want to have their normal life before america puts its hand on their soil or economy or people or biringing democracy.

maybe all these are the first rule of being the "world leader" just like ottomans, romans, ussr, uk (still) did earlier. i am not sure of that, but, what i am sure about this is the world we are living and there is only one world that we "must" share.

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ozhan u.
website under construction

I believe that was Lord Salisbury, Queen Victoria's last Prime Minister (8/10 for being pedantic I think?)

Some years ago I read an article based on a coversation between Clive James (Australian humourist, journalist, essayist and all round smart arse) and P J O'Rourke (US, similar). Apart from wondering what one has to do to get to wait on that table for a day, one comment from Clive James struck me; he said that any former colony or part of empire would always blame their former rulers for any problems, so some constantly half drunk occer (sp?) in a string vest who has never worked a day in his life and spends all his benefits on booze is (of course) poor because of the British, nothing to do with his own choices. He went on to speculate that there must be a similar character somewhere (probably Cappadocia), identical in all respects bar the string vest, who blames the Romans for his problems.

The US will not be top dog for ever, and when someone else takes over (I think India rather than China, but I have no better basis for that than anyone else), it will all become their fault. In the same way that the worst whingers are often the ("we") Brits, because we were last top dogs and lost our place to the Yanks*, so the US will take over as chief whingers at whoever knocks them off their perch.

*Harold Macmillan (UK PM in the late 50s) saw Britain's role as being "Greece to their Rome". Totally irrelevent, but an intersting attempt to salvage some self respect out of relegation.

Accuracy is never pedantry......but the caricature of working class people "in a string vest etc" is not pleasant, and smacks of Daily Mail editorial........?

*This was MacMillan's failed attempt at recovering dignity, I think, and very much in his patrician mode which was dying on its feet; MacMillan failed, like all his class, to read which way the wind blew. Remember at that time Britain had lost an Empire and failed to find a role. We were bankrupted by the war and had begun paying back the US for every bomb, breakfast and bullet we were supplied. Of course we liberated Europe, but we remained skint by this policy of payback until about 2 years ago...shocking really. Not that I defend Empire, neither an Imperial one nor a dollar one.

No-one I know dislikes US citizens, only their government's foreign policy, which is actually criminal.

In my defence, the quote about the string vest etc was by Clive James - I think it does succeed in capturing a character even though there is (as with all generalisations) a risk of offence. I'd present Harry Enfield's characters as similar examples.

Although I agree with you that people do not dislike US citizens, only their government, many comments are made that do not make that clear. I can't recall the context and am supposed to be working so I can't spend time searching, but I remember a comment by you that appeared to hold a Brit currently living in the states responsible for US foreign policy for no better reason than him living there. Even those who voted for Bush may have had valid reasons; the choice was between him and Gore in 2000, and one must wonder what would have happened had it gone the other way. I fear it would not have been good, probably at least as bad, but different.

I'm afraid there are also people who simply refuse to see the distinction between people and government - whether that is blaming the German people for Hitler or a Zimbabwean colleague for Mugabe. I don't know if it is possible to reach such people and I no longer try - I am old and only have so much time left. and I'd rather spend it with people who have at least a little common sense. One could argue the world would be a better place if I made the effort every time., because I might make one such see sense, and thus reduce the volume of prejudice in the world, but I am just too lazy.

Mark - the number of people whjo have little or no clue in the world seems to be rising, trying to reason with them is the classic unmovable object - no matter how unstoppable (read true) the logical and ethical argument is there is no getting through to them

I get the same thing on a smaller scale with random louts pushing me about in the street (because I currently work as a Pizza delivery driver on a moped, and am therefore visually identifiable as being on the lowest rung). I tried to reason with the last two and point out their error, but to no avail so the next one is getting a motorcross boot in the crotch.

Unfortunately there isn't a boot in the world big enough to kick the US foreign policy (which as Cam stated earlier is in clear breach of international law). Home-made nuke anyone?

If its a breach of international law why has not any one brought the US up on charges? Id like to see it then we can get some one good to vote for.
I cant vote for any one for the US president there all crap. Nuking a US city killing 100,000s of people that have done nothing wrong seems like a bad idea to me. And anyway its not the making it that the problem its the stuff to make it.

UN said alot of things but it almost never backs any of it up. Till the US backs it up. Thats on the UN not the USA. when is the last time any one else in all the Americas sent in 50,000 troops to do anything let alone Sweeden or Norway

Kyoto grate idea but the US I huge with massive population all with most cars getting under 15 MPG we cant make the quotas the writers knew that when they wrote it, a little dig at the USA auto makers. If we where as small and had a population to match we do it. Any ever see nuclear waste dumps in Europe? The Navy hears them dumping in the north Atlantic.

Have you read a few newspapers the last years? have you read the crap that the USA papers print? A hairless dog makes the front page US foreign policy is almost never even talked about. No If i want to wast my time I look at TV.
Visited some countries in the Middle East? Most wont let in some one from the US. The whole death to America, beheadings and burning people alive has me a little down about spending my money there that and my trip planing has gone to hell this last few years doller going down the pooper, losing contracts, and me being depressed.

You know how you say how the BBC is crap I watch it because its sooooo much better than the USA press I watched the US news for 2 hours and only one mention about any foreign news story about how people hate the US . Fat, stupid, and scared thats me! Ok its not im not scared.
Why is the UK paying the US back? make Germany and Japan do it.

As far as who we elect well you cant gust pick any one we only get to pic from 2 a Demcrat and a Republican. now to get to that point they had to back stab and rob there way there. The people they own favers to you will never want to meat at night. There all crooks all of them. So when this rotten sod get to point where he or she is the worst of the sods of there group they spends millions and millions to hid what they have done and buy off people if you can If they cant well you have them killed and buy off the people to say it was a suicide. Now if your worst you side can find but not smart enof whipe your own ass you win your side. now you make like your clean as winter snow and holyer than God all the while tossing poop at the other sides Sod trying to act like you hate each other when you have know each other for years and years and your spawn go to the same privet school each other (your kids go to a good school while the future canon fodder are shitted down with drugs) Then the Big Vote! Now if you have the right people owing you can gust win! Well the US people vote but do you realy think people count all the votes? do you want sit up for days counting them all no what you do feel how big the bribe in your hands that has the say on who wins. Now because it a government you dont want to trust real people you make up a Electoral College and there vote is what you realy count. Dam foolish but true. Then your crowned the Biggest Bastard Sod in all the world! But being half brain dead you get a bunch people around you that do all real decision making all this for a Job that pays a hell lot less than the one you gave up to get in to public stealing.
I have no delusions about my government.
Oh yes how I love to see the people I get to vote for!
Not all brits have bad teeth gust fun to piss you brtis off ask the French they will tell you.
I think the EU will be the new overlords. lets start now!
EU you need to fix the mid east and china and SA dam poor lot down there.