Does Europe’s antipathy towards a group of wealthy people sound familiar? A “scapegoat people” for socialists who have a jealous hatred of capitalism? One would have to read the article to get the point of this post rather than just my little teaser here.
One note I’ll add not in the article; if anti-Americanism has nothing to do with the protests going on in Europe, and it’s just about humanitarian concerns, where were the protests during recent conflicts between: India and Pakistan, Cambodia and Vietnam, China and Vietnam, Iran and Iraq; and the situations in Sudan, Liberia, Sierra Leon, Congo, and Chechnya?
I agree that the link is a little silly. I think anti-Americanism stems largely from general American anti-everything-not-American. It’s a childish eye-for-an-eye fight on both sides.
No, but apparently someone wants you to believe that’s the case. I live in the so called Europe, does it mean that I hate all Americans? Off course not, there are other countries such as Canada and Brazil there as well. Do you follow?
Just because people don’t share the same opinions, it doesn’t mean they hate each other. By the way, who says we don’t share the same opinions? Probably the same guy that think Europe is one country.
We shall not mistrust each other, we shall mistrust the guy that says to us we have reason to mistrust each other.
Nobody in Europe has ever claimed that the Americans killed their God, and claimed that scripture gave them reason and right to exterminate them.
Nobody in Europe has ever stopped Americans buying property, running a business or raising a family.
Last time I checked, marrying an American was not something you had to be embarrassed or ashamed about.
And, contrary to popular opinion, hardly anyone in Europe believes that America is the root of all evil. America and American foreign policy has had majority support for years now. It’s only very recently that this whole “anti-american” sentiment has trickled into the mainstream at all, although it’s a damned loaded term if ever there was one. I know, and in fact, spent a lot of time face to face having politimacal conversations (of sorts), Americans who are just as critical of the current administration, the war with Iraq, Hollywood’s unbelievable cheesiness, that wierd thing you do with advertising… It doesn’t mean that they are “anti-american,” any more than people who criticise our train system are anti-British.
Was Rush Limbaugh anti-American for criticising Clinton during his presidency? No? Then the term, as applied here, has no meaning.
The simple answer is, no. Europeans have a variety of different reasons for opposing individual American practices or policies, and for general disdain toward America. Some of those reasons are based on ideals, some on self-interest, some on practicality, some on jealousy or irrational hatred, some on very different attitudes toward the world. It’s waaay too simple to dismiss anti-American feeling as equivalent to anti-semitism.
Still, I can’t dismiss the OP as easily as I’d like to. Because even when intelligent, articulate Europeans express very good reasons for opposing military action in Iraq, far too many of them display anti-semitic attitudes. I’ve lost track of how many intelligent European posters on the SDMB have written strong, persuasive arguments against the current Iraq war… and then slipped in a crude, ugly remark about how Jews control everything in America.
That kind of thing makes me VERY skeptical when anti-war Europeans claim the moral high ground, and makes me wonder if their veneer of sophistication and pacifism merely covers the same old bigotry.
I prolly ought to backpedal a little. I know this is way too simple of a comparison, and in many ways unfair. I hope you all read the article and not just what I wrote. I didn’t mean to add anything other than what Mr. Gove said. However, many of your arguments about Jews and American’s being different are not the point I was making. Of course Jews were persecuted, while American’s are not. I’d like to believe that, since I can’t say Europeans, Germany and France would treat American’s fair if they had power over them, having come a long way since WWII (I don’t think France is innocent. For example, when Germany asked for them to turn over X number of Jews, they gave them quite a few more than were demanded.) Nevertheless, it can be argued that the hatred for America comes from the same root as anti-Semitism. Again, my question about Europe’s antipathy toward wealthy groups sounding familiar was not intended to stand on it’s own, I just didn’t want to post a link and nothing else as the OP so I made a vague reference to the article. I suppose next time I’ll just post the link.