Hello, I've just been reading throught the recent postings of Patrice and Steve, and found them to be quite interesting, but also painfully obvious (feel free to disagree).
I've been quietly sitting here on my hands for days now, quietly wishing that a small handful of smug, sanctimonious individuals would just fucking TRY to remember once in a while that George W. Bush is not synonymous with "America" and imperialism/colonialism is not synonymous with "America" and McDonald's is not synonymous with "America."
Still, the monolithic view from the outside persists.
I think the last line is utterly false and that most people do infact agree with Steve's first paragraph. This has certainly been my experience in dealing with people from around the world and especially when travelling through Europe, which is what I have done most. And besides that, I think the statistics back it up. What I meet everywhere, is the exact same love-hate relationship that Steve himself seems to have. When asked, the youth in Europe state very claerly that the one country in the world where they would most like to live next to their own is USA. By a long shot. But a the same time, they are intensly skeptical about the same things as Steve are.
But to the next person who wants to flog "us" with 'Fast Food Nation' (a brutally fascinating book, BTW), please try to remind yourself that wherever you are, chances are good that someone near you chose to apply for that McDonald's franchise instead of opening a quaint little local eatery, capice? When I went to Istanbul two years ago, it was a local who insisted on treating me to a Quarter Pounder, not vice versa. And he wasn't being condescending: it was where he wanted to eat.
Gee, why does this discussion always boil down to burgers!? Cheers. _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com
Arthur Gadney:
What I meet everywhere, is the exact same love-hate relationship that Steve himself seems to have. When asked, the youth in Europe state very claerly that the one country in the world where they would most like to live next to their own is USA. By a long shot. But a the same time, they are intensly skeptical about the same things as Steve are.
Possibly this love-hate relationship is an inescapable mechanism concerning the relation between "smaller" countries and a country which dominates the smaller ones, be it culturally, technically, economically and military/politically. How not to admire American music, literature, art, fashion of the last half century? How not to buy American hi tech or to realize the American power in the political sphere? But at the same time this hurts. You somehow want to be proud of yourself, and this extends to collectives you feel to be part of, e.g. your nation. If this -- only natural -- trial to keep up your self esteem is supplemented by some -- only too human -- arrogance of the dominator, this leads to aggression. There is anti-Americanism everywhere in the world because the U.S. dominate the world. There is anti-Germanism in the Netherlands, but not vice versa. A great deal of this may be explicated by the fact that the relatively dominant or simply big country would not have to feel "threatened" by a smaller competitor. Fritz. ############################################## Fritz Feger mail@fritzfeger.de www.fritzfeger.de ##############################################
McDonalds restaurants, in Spain, are judged, by any people who loves food, nothing but garbage. In that restaurants (?), they fry hamburguers using very low quality oils or fats, with a lot of bad collesterol, dangerous for any consumer's health. Bernie. n.p. Cannonball Adderley-Them dirty blues
participants (3)
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Arthur Gadney -
Bernie hotmail -
Fritz Feger