Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
No, it's a shame to see what US meddling in ME affairs has done to the entire ME.
The ME's history is quite long and messy, a lot of forces have meddled in that region's affairs, not only the US and Europe. It's hard to say where and when exactly the trouble started and whose fault it was.
It's the same on your side of the pond, Mexico is such a beautiful country, it is a shame to see it drowning in that whole drug mess.
The ME's history is quite long and messy, a lot of forces have meddled in that region's affairs, not only the US and Europe. It's hard to say where and when exactly the trouble started and whose fault it was.
It's the same on your side of the pond, Mexico is such a beautiful country, it is a shame to see it drowning in that whole drug mess.
Slavery is a huge stain on US history. It was Americans that held slaves in the US, not Brits or Spaniards.
Slavery is a huge stain on just about everyone's history.
The British held slaves in the thirteen British colonies that would eventually become the United States.
The Spanish, French and Portuguese held slaves in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The indigenous Aztecs had slavery.
So for that matter did Africans in Africa, Muslims in Northern Africa and the Middle East, etc.
Acting as though slavery is a uniquely American (as in "United States") phenomenon shows either stunning ignorance or dishonesty. Take your pick.
America is not notable for having had slavery, it is notable for fighting a civil war that resulted in the end of slavery.
Quote:
Wrong, there is nothing socialist whatsoever about Sweden.
If there is nothing socialist about Sweden, then please name one or more countries that you consider to be socialist.
Do not include countries that have been ruled by an explicitly communist party.
Socialism is a very broad concept, and what is "socialist" to an American might not be to a European.
Quote:
I just don't see it that way, to the contrary, the US/Nato have made wars more likely, like currently with Russia. Had Nato stayed out of Eastern Europe as agreed upon with Russia, we would not even have to deal with a nationalist Russia, nor with Putin. Russia might even be part of the EU by now. The West wasted that historic opportunity just in order to feed the weapons industry.
After being under the heel of the Soviet Union for 44 years, countries in Eastern Europe wanted to be in NATO.
It wasn't a question of America wanting them to be in NATO so much as it was a question of them wanting the same umbrella of protection that America has given Western Europe since the end of WW II.
Again, I note the ingratitude on the part of some Western Europeans.
Quote:
Indeed, I have a certain idea of high culture, and most American culture certainly doesn't fall in that category.
Most culture in Europe and elsewhere has not fallen into the high culture category. That's why it's called "high culture."
America is a young country, but it has produced its share of high culture -- especially in literature and art.
Writers such as Melville, Poe, James, Hawthorne, Irving, Twain, Dickinson, Pound, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Hemingway, Frost, Whitman, Steinbeck, London, Cooper, Borroughs, Williams, Cather, Dreiser, Miller, Stein, Cummings and Dana.
Thinkers such as Madison, Jefferson, Emerson and Thoreau.
Inventors such as Edison and Bell.
Innovators such as Ford and Watson.
Composers such as Copland, Gershwin, Glass, Reich and Adams.
Artists such as Whistler, Homer, Cassat, Eakins, Calder, Bierstadt, Sargent, Grandma Moses, Stieglitz, Wyeth, Duchamp, O'Keefe, Rothko, De Kooning, Pollock, Diebenkorn, Lichtenstein, Rauschenberg, Oldenberg, Stella and Koons.
Quote:
Britain IS Europe as well.
Not according to a lot of the British.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Neuling
Not only whites, the Chinese have invented a lot as well, often simultaneously to Europe.
Invented what?
Gunpowder?
Quote:
No, not at all. But the wrong use of terms such as socialist is typical of Americans. I don't know why that is. Maybe they are confusing social with socialist. Maybe it has to do with the McCarthy-style brainwashing Americans are exposed to from birth on.
This is just another way that you show your ignorance.
McCarthy was right, as it turned out.
When the KGB released its files, many of the people McCarthy accused were indeed Soviet spies.
The Soviet Union didn't get the atomic bomb because we just gave it to them.
They got it through espionage.
As for socialism: The U.S. was founded as a country without welfare programs. It welcomed immigrants, but they had to make it on their own.
To a traditional American, a huge welfare state is socialist.
Again, find me a true socialist country that is not run by a Communist party.
Failing to do that, you should recognize that socialism for many means a large intrusive government -- which is not at all what the Founding Fathers intended for the United States.
Quote:
The thing is, there are very few cultural heavyweights comparable to those of past centuries no matter where you go. Philosophy for instance is all but dead globally. Poetry is a luxury and faces similar problems as philosophy, namely that the human mind is only so capable, most interesting thoughts have already been thought.
I agree.
Which is why Europeans shouldn't presume cultural superiority to Americans.
The significant culture in Europe today is museum culture.
Last edited by dechatelet; 08-06-2015 at 01:01 AM..
Still, slavery was practiced in the US for about a century or so
Wrong. It was practiced from the time of independence to the end of the Civil War. That's a lot less than a century.
Quote:
What links the US to Britain is mostly the language, which is why there is also a stronger bond between the US and Ireland, which however never considers itself anything other than European.
Not just language, but law and politics.
English Common Law is the foundation of U.S. jurisprudence.
The Magna Carta might well be considered a foundation stone of U.S. governance.
From roughly 1600 to 1776, the Eastern Seaboard of today's United States was British, so there is a unique cultural and historical continuity between Britain and the United States.
Much more so than between Britain and any continental European country you might mention.
Slavery is a huge stain on just about everyone's history.
The British held slaves in the thirteen British colonies that would eventually become the United States.
The Spanish, French and Portuguese held slaves in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The indigenous Aztecs had slavery.
So for that matter did Africans in Africa, Muslims in Northern Africa and the Middle East, etc.
Acting as though slavery is a uniquely American (as in "United States") phenomenon shows either stunning ignorance or dishonesty. Take your pick.
America is not notable for having had slavery, it is notable for fighting a civil war that resulted in the end of slavery.
If there is nothing socialist about Sweden, then please name one or more countries that you consider to be socialist.
Do not include countries that have been ruled by an explicitly communist party.
Socialism is a very broad concept, and what is "socialist" to an American might not be to a European.
After being under the heel of the Soviet Union for 44 years, countries in Eastern Europe wanted to be in NATO.
It wasn't a question of America wanting them to be in NATO so much as it was a question of them wanting the same umbrella of protection that America has given Western Europe since the end of WW II.
Again, I note the ingratitude on the part of some Western Europeans.
Most culture in Europe and elsewhere has not fallen into the high culture category. That's why it's called "high culture."
America is a young country, but it has produced its share of high culture -- especially in literature and art.
Writers such as Melville, Poe, James, Hawthorne, Irving, Twain, Dickinson, Pound, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Hemingway, Frost, Whitman, Steinbeck, London, Cooper, Borroughs, Williams, Cather, Dreiser, Miller, Stein, Cummings and Dana.
Thinkers such as Madison, Jefferson, Emerson and Thoreau.
Inventors such as Edison and Bell.
Innovators such as Ford and Watson.
Composers such as Copland, Gershwin, Glass, Reich and Adams.
Artists such as Whistler, Homer, Cassat, Eakins, Calder, Bierstadt, Sargent, Grandma Moses, Stieglitz, Wyeth, Duchamp, O'Keefe, Rothko, De Kooning, Pollock, Diebenkorn, Lichtenstein, Rauschenberg, Oldenberg, Stella and Koons.
Not according to a lot of the British.
Invented what?
Gunpowder?
This is just another way that you show your ignorance.
McCarthy was right, as it turned out.
When the KGB released its files, many of the people McCarthy accused were indeed Soviet spies.
The Soviet Union didn't get the atomic bomb because we just gave it to them.
They got it through espionage.
As for socialism: The U.S. was founded as a country without welfare programs. It welcomed immigrants, but they had to make it on their own.
To a traditional American, a huge welfare state is socialist.
Again, find me a true socialist country that is not run by a Communist party.
Failing to do that, you should recognize that socialism for many means a large intrusive government -- which is not at all what the Founding Fathers intended for the United States.
I agree.
Which is why Europeans shouldn't presume cultural superiority to Americans.
The significant culture in Europe today is museum culture.
Sorry for the late reply, and I still don't have much time.
Of course there was slavery in various countries, but this thread is not about Brazil or Mexico etc. In the US even after the end of slavery, the racist mindset was continued in new ways, it was far from over, and one might say it still is not completely over.
Your whole idea of what is socialist has nothing to do with the meaning of socialism. A welfare system has nothing to do with socialism. If you don't like welfare, why not just say you are against welfare instead of saying you don't like socialism? Socialism is not a drawer where you put in everything you don't like.
Strict socialism and communism have not really existed anywhere, not even in the USSR etc. Nor modern China, which is not much different from what it has been for thousands of years. It has always had strong, pretty undemocratic leaderships, currently under the name communism. The business mentality is also the same. And they have indeed invented lots of things, there are various sites listing examples.
I don't like neither communism/socialism, nor capitalism. I am in favor of a controlled, limited market economy in an egalitarian political system, which prevents the problems created by either extreme, problems anyone can observe throughout the world today.
I don't know if you support the beginning of the US without any welfare system. I sure don't. That kind of system is not a human society, but a jungle. Which is exactly why the welfare programs were implemented later on just like here in Europe and elsewhere. It was the right thing to do.
Both the US and the Russians got their nukes and other military technology not least thanks to the know-how they obtained from the former Nazi scientists they hired without any scruples.
Again, there was no reason for Nato's expansion, they should have stuck to the agreement and rejected the requests of Poland etc. There was nothing left to fear, now there is because of that big mistake of the past. Nor would anyone have prevented Poland etc. from getting their own defense systems in order to please their paranoia.
Lots if not most of the Americans you name there have little if any importance outside the US, just like European countries have their own thinkers, composers etc., but they are also little known outside their respective countries. Interestingly, there is more cultural activity in poorer countries than in wealthy ones. High culture is mostly museum culture in both the US and Europe. when they play Beethoven in London or New York, it is museum culture.
Wrong. It was practiced from the time of independence to the end of the Civil War. That's a lot less than a century.
Not just language, but law and politics.
English Common Law is the foundation of U.S. jurisprudence.
The Magna Carta might well be considered a foundation stone of U.S. governance.
From roughly 1600 to 1776, the Eastern Seaboard of today's United States was British, so there is a unique cultural and historical continuity between Britain and the United States.
Much more so than between Britain and any continental European country you might mention.
Things have since come a long way in both countries, and they did not evolve hand in hand. Today Britain has little more in common with the US than other EU countries have. One more recent reason for that is EU membership of course. That's why many American tourists consider Britain a kind of European theme park with royals, castles, and all that kitschy crap
To get back to the topic, this whole problem is really depressing. They just showed some ways migrants are smuggled into the EU, An African adult for instance was found hidden in the engine department of a car, incredible
Found a photo of that: http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/...1117162114.jpg
And there are clashes between different groups of migrants, which does not exactly help the image of those migrants.
Americans should be happy their illegal immigrants come from the south, i.e. also Western countries, not Muslim ones.
Last edited by Neuling; 09-01-2015 at 01:53 PM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
