Zonie63
Posts: 2826
Joined: 4/25/2011
From: The Old Pueblo
Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: MadAxeman
2. No. Most people don't care. Wasting tea is an affront to any self respecting Brit.
The War of Independence was about resources. Britain wasn't willing to spend more to 'win' it.
Foreign occupation is expensive, unpopular at home and rarely successful in the long run. Sound familiar?
Yeah, it's kind of what I figured, and most Brits I've met personally don't seem to have a problem with it. It's just that on the internet, when the subject is discussed between Americans and British, I've seen some rather strong feelings expressed about it.
This is also true for discussions regarding the War of 1812.
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4. Your sporting analogy is sound, but it's more intense for us. We are harsher, funnier and we all understand it.
For example whenever England play football, BBC Scotland will find a bar somewhere that is full of sweaties (Sweaty socks = jocks) wearing replica shirts of the opposition. If these shirts can't be bought, they will make them using felt tip pens to colour them in.
We also die alongside each other in battle and will continue insulting one another while under fire.
I thought as much, although I was never really quite sure how serious or deep-seeded it was.
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5. FFS. Tread carefully Axeman. We don't see you as a colony, although it's one of my favourite terms.
You're no prodigal son. More like a fat cousin. Loud, aggressive, greedy and affectionate. The one that ends up with all the candies and toys. Quick to anger, lashing out and sudden tears when you don't get your own way or discover you're not as popular as you believed.
You mean, we're not popular? I think I'll burst into tears. 
To some extent, I agree with what you're saying, but I also know where that particular perception might emanate from. I'll touch on that shortly.
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7. Aussies are similar to Americans in some respects. proud and braggadocio, with terrible beer and dress sense.
I always enjoy the Olympics, with the swimming being interesting mainly for the Aus-U.S rivalry. The Aussies are more skilled snarkers, having had long years of practice against Britain and NZ. The U.S has a vast population to find good athletes. Australia is the most sport obsessed nation in the world.
The culture of the underdog isn't widely appreciated in America. Winning is all that matters.
Strines love sticking it up larger countries. Kudos to them for that.
Actually, I think that underdogs are widely appreciated in America, at least as far as I've seen. We've viewed ourselves as underdogs from the very beginning. We love rags-to-riches stories, such as any story about Presidents who were born in log cabins. Someone who works their way from the bottom to top is considered far more worthy and heroic than those who were handed everything since birth. We root for Charlie Brown, Gilligan, Homer Simpson, Fred Flintstone, too, even if they don't ever succeed.
It's somewhat the same with athletics. A lot of die-hard Cubs' fans out there. And with some sports, the US is definitely an underdog compared to other countries' teams, such as in the World Cup. However, I must admit that I've grown somewhat disenchanted with professional sports here in America.
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8. The rest of the world has had 60 years of movies about how America won the war. Without America finally joining in (after being attacked) the Allies would have won, but at much greater cost in both lives and resources. Ever since America won the war for us, we have been asked to absorb a twisted view of history and politics. The U.S lost just over 500,000 troops in WW2. That's tragic and their sacrifice is acknowledged and appreciated. The Russians lost over 20m, many during a brutal and heroic winter resistance that stretched Hitler's resources too thin and effectively won the war. Since WW2, which incidentally anyone in Canada, Australia, NZ and Britain can tell you began in 1939, not after Pearl Harbor, the Russians have been portrayed as cold war villains, plotting the west's downfall. Childlike. This juvenile clumsy propaganda doesn't play and has made America look dumb.
I agree with you about the propaganda, but I think a lot of it was more intended for American audiences and doesn't really play well overseas. Prior to the World Wars, America tended to be more isolationist in terms of not wanting to involve ourselves in European alliances or entanglements. Originally, it was out of self-preservation, since we were still in a weaker position compared to Europe and needed to play it rather carefully and close to the vest. But as our position grew stronger on the world scene, the rest of the world was starting to sit up and take notice. But we didn't really see it that way.
The reason why the U.S. was "late" in entering World War I and World War II was because of strong public sentiment against "foreign entanglements." We felt that it was better for our own position to remain neutral. There were some Americans during World War I who wanted to go to war with Germany sooner, but it didn't actually happen until the Kaiser made his declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare, which threatened freedom of the seas - something the U.S. has gone to war over in the past. We saw it as a threat against America. It was also helpful that the March Revolution in Russia overthrew the Tsar with promises of a new democratic government (which was itself overthrown in November that same year). But at least Wilson could then say that it was truly a war of democratic, freedom-loving nations against tyrannies. It wasn't like we were playing favorites among nations or involving ourselves in any permanent alliances; it was all about making the world safe for democracy.
Whether Wilson was telling the truth or not is beside the point. Americans believed it, at least for a time. After the war, Wilson's hope of bringing America into the League of Nations failed miserably, and since we just fought "the war to end all wars," we figured the crisis was over and Europe could take care of itself.
We just didn't want to get involved, which is why we were also late in entering World War II. And again, it was only because America was attacked. FDR may have wanted to get the US in the war sooner, but he was also facing strong political opposition to that idea. He did touch upon it in his 1941 Inaugural address when he mentioned the Four Freedoms and warned that America was threatened, suggesting that we needed to look beyond our own shores. But that involved changing the way Americans think and perceive the outside world. While other nations may have suffered more damage and loss of life than America did in World War II, it did have a profound psychological effect on how Americans see the world. And that's where the propaganda of which you speak comes into play.
Another thing I might mention in America's defense is that we didn't actually start World Wars I and II, and we didn't feel any immediate moral or political obligation to get involved. From our point of view, it was a European problem best solved by Europeans. So, in order to boost American public opinion and support for the Allied cause, they had to propagate the notion that "they (Europeans) need us." Without making Americans believe that, it would be difficult to justify sending Americans to fight on foreign soil. I think that's where a lot of that propaganda comes from. The same idea has been applied in other wars, that these different countries need us to defend them against communists, tyrants, and/or aggressive invaders. To be sure, I don't consider that America was wrong to fight communism, at least in principle, but perhaps there might have been better ways of going about it. But in all candor, we didn't really didn't have much previous experience in dealing with global issues of that magnitude and didn't really know what the communists were planning. We just didn't trust the Soviets or any of their allies or fellow travelers. The propaganda may have been childish and dumb, but I can sort of see the method behind the madness. Considering who we were facing at the time (Stalin), I think there was an understandable fear and paranoia about what he might do.
That said, I think the nuclear arms race got a bit insane, and some anti-communists did get a bit extreme. While it's softened up somewhat since the McCarthy-Nixon-Hoover era, there are still some remnants of that. Now that the Cold War has been over for 20 years, I sometimes wonder if the policymakers are on automatic somehow. They can't think of anything better to do, so they just follow the status quo they've known all their lives.
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RE: Questions for those in the UK (and elsewhere in the... - 
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