That´s not even far from the truth, cuz right now the entire world IS hating the USA :smack:, but let´s try to imagine a scenario of The World vs. U.S.A… Who wins?
I guess a Korean nuke at the center of Yellowstone´s supervolcano would be more than enough to end all threats :rolleyes:, but that´s just me…
Hey, Dick. Let me recommend doing a search for the keywords ‘America vs.’ and/or ‘America versus’.
Oh, quit bellyaching, the whole world does not hate you.
Saying so is a way of evading responsibility, i.e. the whole world hates you because of some mass insanity or conspiracy, and it’s not true that some of the world might hate you for valid reasons. If someone expresses discontent at American actions, it’s because he has a knee-jerk streak of anti-Americanism, and not because his objections might have merit.
I personally think Canadians should have standing beside the Americans and the British and staged D-Day 2 in Iraq.
Unless the Yellowstone supervolcano is anywhere near a violent eruption, a nuclear detontation as you envision would probably just relieve the pressure and reduce the chance of a violent eruption.
Seen this plan yet?
Subject: The Plan
I see a lot of people on the television yelling for peace, but I have
not heard of one plan for peace. “Books, not Bombs” won’t work. The
head mullahs won’t let anyone read them. If they do, they poke their
eyes out.
Here’s the plan:
The US will apologize to the world for our “interference” in their
affairs, past & present. You know, Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Marshal
Petain and the rest of them good old boys. We will never “interfere”
again.
We will withdraw our troops from all over the world, starting with
Germany, France, South Korea and the Philippines. They don’t want us
there. We would station troops at our borders. No more sneaking
through holes in the fence.
All illegal aliens have 90 days to get their affairs together and
leave. We’ll give them a free trip home. After 90 days the remainder
will be gathered up and deported immediately, regardless of who or
where they are. France would welcome them.
All future visitors will be thoroughly checked and limited to 90
days in America unless given a special permit. No one from a terrorist
nation would be allowed in. If you don’t like it there, change it
yourself, don’t hide here Asylum would not ever be available to anyone.
We don’t need any more cab drivers.
No “students” over age 21. The older ones are the bombers. If they
don’t attend classes, they get a “F” and it’s back home, baby.
The US will make a strong effort to become self-sufficient energy
wise. This will include developing non-polluting sources of energy but
will require a temporary drilling for oil in the Alaskan wilderness.
The caribou will have to cope for a while.
Offer Saudi Arabia and other oil producing countries $10 a barrel
for their oil. If they don’t like it, we go someplace else.
If there is a famine or other natural catastrophe in the world, we
will not “interfere”. They can pray to Allah or whomever, for seeds,
rain, cement or whatever they need. Besides, most of what we give them
is stolen or given to the army. The people who need it most get very
little, if any, anyway.
Ship the UN Headquarters to an island some place. We don’t need the
spies and fair weather friends here.
Besides, it would make a good homeless shelter or lockup for illegal
aliens.
All Americans must go to charm and beauty school. That way, no one
can call us “Ugly Americans” any longer.
Now, ain’t that a winner of a plan?
(This plan was appropriate at this time do to the OP “what would happen” if everybody hated US. Scary thought.)
Silly rhetoric aside, few people are Anti-American per se - they’re anti US foreign policy, and these days anti-Bush.
I think the thing to work around is the 97% disapproval rating for Bush in countries like Jordan.
In the UK (aka main ally) it’s only 91% disapproval - gotta work on that extra 6% in Arabia…
(All figures from the radio yesterday.)
In other words, yola, a disagreement between the US and the rest of the world will precipitate a violent lurch to the right and an ultra-isolationist withdrawal from all international participatory bodies, even famine relief, on the part of the US.
Does this sound like “play the game my way or I’m taking the ball home” to you?
18 months ago, the US had the sympathy and admiration of almost the entire world, save for a few extremists. Yet the question “Why do they (the radical Islamic fundamentalists) hate us so?” has somehow morphed into “Why does the entire world hate us so?”.
I believe careful, patient and sincere diplomacy on the part of the current US administration could have garnered support for almost any US military action anywhere from the rest of the world , and perhaps even much of the Arab world if handled with enough capable and earnest attention.
If much of the world sees the current administration’s policies as a myopic, hegemonic tantrum which might ultimately make the world a more rather than less dangerous place, then might I suggest that it is not because the Republicans have tread on a few toes but because they have stomped around the room in hobnailed boots.
Nobody wins, unless ruling a radioactive wasteland counts as winning.
You know what, I’m actually beginning to think that all this weeping and whingeing about “Anti-Americanism” might end up becoming justifiable soon. Up to now, there has been no such thing as kneejerk anti-Americanism beyond a very few people, the extreme left and the religious right of the Islamists.
But this article by Arundhati Roy was published yesterday, and contained the following passage:
I, too, have been labeled as Anti-American by some who have seen criticism as unjustified, or who have become defensive. But over the past few weeks, I have found myself explaining to people “you think you understand the average American? You don’t. You see Hollywood and Bush, and that’s nothing like the average American.” I’m a huge defender of the goodness and fire which characterises the American public. I’m a big fan of something like 84.6% of everything America does or has done, including the war of independence from us darn Brits.
At the moment, I’m beginning to agree with Jonathan Freedland more, to realise that the reason I’m so sickened off with Bush is the exact reason that people in the States are sickened off with him: he’s behaving in an un-American way. Not in the brain-tumour-induced definition which means “unpatriotic” or “disagrees with authority,” but in the way which means that there is a way that America - which is after all one of the few countries in the world founded, for all intents and purposes, on an ideal and a dream - should act, and a way which it has acted, and a way which it shouldn’t act, and at the moment, on the world stage America is behaving as it shouldn’t act. Our illusions about America are being shattered further.
But that’s me. I’ve lived in Alabama, as close to “the Heartland” as it’s possible to get. I’ve known American people, in Montgomery and Detroit and LA. I’ve travelled up the country on a Greyhound. I’ve slept on a couch in ATL airport. Most people haven’t done any of those things. Most people haven’t seen the real America, all they see is the belligerence and posturing of an administration which just looks to me like the worst bits of America all rolled up into one, with none of the good bits I know you have.
And that’s why I think we’ll start to see genuine Anti-Americanism becoming more and more prevalent in the mainstream. And I reckon that a lot of Americans will be nostalgic for the time when they could call people like me Anti-American, even though I criticise you because I love you, and they didn’t know what it was like to really be really hated by stupid, blind people who need a scapegoat for their own problems.
Good stuff, McDuff. German President adds his piece:
The 91% is a figure for Brits who don’t back the war (mainly because they think it shouldn’t have been started without UN approval).
Given that the US speaks the same language as here, offers a massive choice of popular film and TV (CSI! Law and Order!!), provides fast food and a splendid range of holiday destinations, it would be completely ludicrous to say that Brits hate the US.
Personally I worry that Bush and his immediate advisers don’t understand the World. (A major worry).
I’m not keen on the deprivation of legal counsel of the prisoners in Cuba.
And I hope the undercover narcotics cop in Tulsa gets prosecuted.
So that leaves about 300 million jolly nice chaps (and chappesses) who earnestly strive for freedom and democracy.
Jolly good show, America!*
*This is typical British understatement. We love you really!
I hereby add my voice to the chorus of Jolly Good Fellow for our friends over the pond. I cannot help but admire the fundamental positivity and creativity inherent in what I perceive as the “American spirit”.
But please, please, stop voting for morons.
Hey, I voted for Gore, as did a majority of Americans, but the antiquated electoral system here, combined with the highhandedness of the Supreme Court, managed to thrust the guy who got the least number of votes into the office.
If the Democrats had behaved the way the Republicans did and Gore had won the way Bush did, the GOP would be trying to impeach him this very minute.
BTW, glee, the 91% was “Do you approve of/like pres. Bush?” survey on the World Service - I actually thought a higher number were now “in favour” since the war had actually started.
I think another problem Bush has is that he tailors his rhetoric for “domestic” or “international” audiences, in an old-fashioned style, when of course nowadays, belligerent claptrap said at home is telegraphed round the world instantly, and he looks like a warmonger. Then when he makes more dovish speeches for world audiences, he looks like a hypocrite.
Correction ‘a higher number were now “in favour” of the war’ in first sentence.
Glee’;s figures are wrong.I think he makes them up.UK figure varies from 55% for to 55% against.It gets worse for the US every time we catch sight of Bush.
If the US doesn’t want its popularity to fall further, it should keep Bush off the TV. Seriously, he more than anything else is making the US unpopular. Even those who are all for the war start grinding their teeth when he comes on, & most of those against it are mainly so because they hate Bush. Nobody in Europe can take him seriously - even the right wingers admit he’s just a placeman for business interests.Sentient meat is right, stop voting for morons, also stop funding psycho megalomaniacs (Saddam,Osama,Pinochet,Sharon etc) -they all cause big probs in the end.You CANNOT control a loony.
Hmm, well what do you know another GWB bashing/psychic prediction thread at the SDMB.
:o
Psychic prediction? Pshaw! All you have to do is to see the depsicable behavior of the GOP during Clinton’s administration wasting millions of dollars to harrass the Clintons over a failed land deal, not to mention the despicable behavior of GOP goons physically threatening the votecounters in Florida.
Given that the GOP still uses Clinton as a whipping boy in debates, the idea that the GOP would be gracious losers if Gore had won in Florida is laughable.
As jjimm has already posted, I simply gave the wrong poll question.
So I find your suggestion that I ‘make things up’ offensive. Do you have cites to back your allegation, or are you just making this up yourself?
Oh really. :rolleyes:
I suppose you just ‘made this up’.
“The results of the tracker question on an Iraq war shows that opposition to a war has risen steadily from 37% in October to 47% now. Over the same period support for military action has fallen from a peak of 42% to only 30% now.”
Cite:
Cite?
Just give us a coalition of the willing. I’ll take two powerful island nations: the UK and Australia. Then I pick Italy and Spain and the Vilnius Group.
First move, we conquer Canada, Mexico, Central and South America to kick off the war.* Oh, and Cuba. Whee! Pretend war is like Risk.
After that we can speculate forever.
*A reasonable expectation in a total world war. Someone else suggested it first on one of the other “what if” threads, to be fair.