What does the world have against America?

[Exocet]

Hate is a strong word many people fling around too much these days.I can't say I hate the USA,but I certainly don't like many aspects of it.
They tend to look down on others on others and have have this wierd cult of patriotism going on.
It's almost scary to see children chanting that their country is number one over and over.

 

[Spinhorse]

A lot of hate stems from some of the transgressions commited during the Cold War (I speak for Latin America) - sketchy political practices, rumors of drugs being secretly tested on innocent people, fillibustering. Heck, even the "heroic, patriotic tale" of my land consists of our small amry driving out a group of american Fillibusters (this guy specifically: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walker_(filibuster)). A lot of left-over hate from Big-Stick policies of the early 90s too.

The present day "hate" is a a bit of an anachrony. (EDIT: the hate stemming from the above cited reasons, there are still plenty of other things to dislike the US for). Still, it is generally "fashionable" to dislike the US with all the communist vibe going around.

I personally dislike a lot of things about the US, but most haters are short-sighted and generally sheep.

If you would like a glimpse of the US from the latin american point of view, I recommend reading a short story by Miguel Angel Asturias titled "Weekend en Guatemala"

Also, Cuba EDIT: and Vietnam.

 

[Adrian Neyland]

I think people hate the effect that America has on the rest of the world.
I think it is less about the citizens and more about the government and the
way it has impacted other countries. As an Australian I can definitely feel the
effect of the GFC, an event that originated in America but greatly dented the economy
of the rest of the world. as well as America's war's, which my county participates in an of which I have friends and relatives serving in.

I have no problem with America's people, some of my good friends are American, and they are perfectly nice people. But I do see the country as a giant tyrant with allot of power over every aspect of every other country in the world.

 

[The Lugz]

america is a big place, nobody really hates you.. too much.. but you'll see allot more complaints than from a smaller country just on sheer numbers

plus, "america $^&* yeah!!"
really gets old fast stop saying it seeeriously

 

[Philol]

I don't hate all Americans, in fact I would say I hate very few Americans, but it does annoy me when yanks act very prideful, and make comments that demean the rest of the world and promote themselves, it seems so self indulgent. Don't get me wrong, I know I just sounded like a ****, but I generally don't have a problem with America, just certain Americans.

 

[Naeras]

I'm a Canadian as well, and I don't hate America.

I am just really, really terrified of their particular brand of ultra-Neo Conservative wing rhetoric and the slavish worship from said political wing to the concept of American Exceptionalism/Just World mentality. And unfortunately, this group also tends to be the most obnoxious and vocal of all Americans in your media and foreign affairs..

Pretty much this.

 

[malmodir]

The general animosity is not about the individual US citizen. The hatred is about the imperialistic, short sighted and egoistic actions and behavior of the USA and that the country is directly and indirectly responsible for the two major international "crimes" of the last 60 years.

Namely: Illegaly invading a middle east country under false pretences so that they could steal their natural ressources and implement permanent military bases.
And: Putting third world countries into unfathomable depths so they can steal their natural ressources, destroying their culture and implementing them into the global banking system.

On top of that it seems like the majority of the US people think this is good.

 

[Starke]

To us in England, a lot of us are personally jaded towards the US, since they act like the spokesperson for the English-speaking West, and we do not like that. But for some reason, our leaders insist on sucking up to the States, even if we're well aware it makes no sense. Now we end up with Muslim extremists on our own soil, lumping us in with the Americans, despite the fact we're only in their countries because our leaders weren't man enough to tell the US to stop being such dicks.

Are you sure they're taking revenge on the US? I mean, really sure? Did you ask them? Maybe they were objecting to the occupation of Iraq, you know, from the League of Nations Mandate. The same time your French buddies shelled Damascus. Could also be an objection to British Petroleum being the flashpoint for the coup that ousted the democratically elected leader of Iran and installed a western friendly dictatorship. Now, granted, that WAS the CIA that did it, but, hey, MI6 asked for a favor, and what are friends for, right?

I mean, really. Shooting Pakistani soldiers? Encroaching on Pakistani sovereign soil, and the moment they tell you to fuck off, you suddenly find ibn-Laden there? America, you ARE disgusting.

Well, to be fair, we learned how to deal with Pakistan from the best. And what better teachers than the State that occupied, exploited, and "civilized" it for 150 years. Granted, there's been a change in management since you left, but still, we should turn to you, and ask you for advice in dealing with Pakistan.

Your advice, turns out, was "kill them all", which I'm sure sounded like good advice, but we couldn't do that, so we had to scale things back just a touch.

You've imposed a sanction on buying Iranian oil, because Iran are supposedly developing nukes.
Well. You have nukes. I wouldn't be surprised if Iran is worried about a joint Israeli/American invasion. Wouldn't put it past you.

Well, in point of fact, Iran is afraid of being nuked off the face of the earth by the Israelis. Funny story there. You see, it turns out England wanted Egypt back, the French may have wanted Syria back, I'm not sure, either way they both decided it would be a good time to start a proxy war with Egypt using Israel. Then, when the big bad US decided to show it's true colors we sided with the Soviet proxy. So, yes, I guess in cold war terms we must be evil. In a fit of pique, the French decided to give Israel a few nukes as going away presents. Not nuke them, after all, they're civilized, not barbarians. But, give operational nukes to a rogue state that had just been involved with a war of aggression with the middle east, at the behest of the British government, with French help.

Oh, and the Iranian caught with radioactive contraband and Moscow International - what exactly are you trying to pull here? I'm fairly sure that if Iran wanted nuclear supplies, they wouldn't need to send a civilian via commercial airline.

...And, as I'm sure you know, we have absolute control of everything that occurs in Russia. Because when we talk about "Russian Nationalism" what we really mean is US proxy.

And of course there's the Lockerbie bomber incident in the past. Scotland had no evidence with which to try the suspect, but did the Americans care? Nope. They wanted to put somebody away so they could swing their dicks at the public and say "Look what good anti-terrorists we are."

I feel for you here, I really do, after all it must be a terrible burden having your culture and society imposed upon by outsiders. Truly, you should release the Scots and grant them back their sovereignty, after all, this never would have happened if Scotland was a sovereign state.

After all, who better to learn from than the country who's men think the best counter-terrorism response to a suicide bomber is drag him out of a burning car, while on fire, and kick him in the nuts. After that, the terrorists learned one very important lesson, stay the fuck out of Glasgow. We should all be so blessed.

I feel so bad for the American people. In the Middle East, there are people that would happily burn you and rape your family due to the actions of your government. I know a lot of you are stupid, a lot of you are ignorant, and a few are completely insane, but you're really not bad people. 99% of the Americans on this site certainly don't fit into the above groups, but thanks to your leaders, you're the Infidel now.

To be fair, we only learned from the best, the League of Nations Mandate, the occupation of Egypt, the East India Company, Mercantilism, and of course, Empire. Say, how's that workin' out for you now? Oh, right, the middle east hates you... hmm, tough break, we'll let you know if we figure out a way to deal with that, though if you have any more advice, we'd be glad to hear it.

 

[Asuka Soryu]

My only problem with America is the stupid stereotypes that almost every show they have depicts. Ugh, but my feelings towards the people? I judge you individually. I have American friends, I don't hate them. But the obnoxious American's stand out more then the decent ones.

 

[Blow_Pop]

As an American I can only tell you why I personally hate Americans.

- The obnoxiously loud/ignorant people are the ones who give the whole country a bad name. They are the ones who get put in the media. Hell some of them are in our bloody government.

- Congress would rather debate stupid shite (like pizza being a vegetable...really congress? that's one of the stupidest moves you've pulled in a while) rather than more important things that our tax dollars go into to fund said debates (national health care would be nice or doing something to either lower the cost without insurance just for a bloody visit...I shouldn't have to pay $100 just for a bloody visit.....or to do a health care/insurance help thing)

- We can't keep our noses (figuratively) out of the rest of the damn world's business. Because getting involved in every other countries affairs are just so much more important than dealing with our own problems.

- Which, on that topic, we throw our problems out to the world. Its like that couple that fights about EVERYTHING in public. Always in the same spot. So if you go there regularly you'll hear their whole life story pretty regularly.

- Our immigration/employment problem(especially out here in Cali). I'm going to use Cali as an example. My area is damn near impossible to find a job unless you a)know someone, b)will kiss their ass, c)have 10 or more years experience in that field, which won't even guarantee you getting an interview, just means they consider your application more including in entry level jobs(I mean seriously how are people suppose to get the experience if no one is willing to train?????), d)have a bachelors/masters degree in something related to the job. I've been looking for almost a year. Fast food out here won't even hire because of how bad our unemployment is. And on that note, unemployment offers NO help for people actively looking for work. Not even help on resumes. (I should add I believe my particular problem with finding a job is that since I grew up here a lot of people know me from schooling and that may be working against me and my last job I got fired from may be slandering me. I need to find out by having one of my friends call from a blocked number so that I know if I need to take legal action against them since slandering someone's name is intent to keep them unemployed and illegal).

- How damn happy everyone is to sue. I know in my last point I mentioned taking legal action against a company. I am not sue happy. I would love to NOT have to get to that point. IF it happens though, that is going to be one of many things I am going bring up. I am also going to get the Better Business Bureau in on it on the WHY of me getting fired since I know they didn't handle it correctly and a lot of people there shouldn't be working there either according to the companies rules.

- No one cares about how a president is going to affect our country. Everyone just pays attention to the media and makes decisions off that. We have the internet at our disposal to research. Does anyone? Not really. Very few people of our population do.

- Unfortunately, stereotypes about Americans usually are true. And instead of you know trying to get some positive lights out of our country we feed into those stereotypes.

- Our education system sucks ass. If it doesn't concern America, it isn't taught much. Or if it is, it is taught incorrectly.

/end rant about own country

Soon as I can I'm moving out of the country and getting citizenship somewhere else. I hate being lumped into American stereotypes when I don't fall into them. And honestly if SOPA passes I'm really not going to want to live in this country any more. With all the ignorant fucks who think it is a good idea. Even though it caters more to corporations than anything else.


EDIT: Also our patriotism. Seriously. Some of our country is way to overly patriotic. And the "America fuck yeah" bullshit is way over the top. It is annoying and gets brought up way too much.

 

[lRookiel]

I just hate the idiotic americans, and I mean the REALLY FUCKING STUPID AMERICANS that I come across while playing video games, I always get stuck with the moron who wants to confront the English guy

And you all know what kind of people I'm on about, and because I'm English they bring in the American revolution to argue with me some more for some reason, stupid, stupid people -.- who I have no patience for so I just shut them down, block them and move on to the next idiot because apparantly they like to bring their friends into the argument as well.

So yes I hate SOME Americans for just being plain thick!

Also the accent is very irritating as well.

 

[Gnoekeos]

What is there about us to like?

 

[SiskoBlue]

The main reason, plain and simple is because everyone knows America. They have won the cultural war. The UK and the rest of Europe, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa. These are the predominant "western" cultures and have their influences in our global culture.

But the most popular music, the most popular films, the most popular games all typically come from America. We know who your president is, we know the names of dozens of your cities, we know your catchphrases, your accents, your landmarks, your major historical events. America's policies affect the whole world. Where they choose to trade, who they choose to aid/invade/embargo. Whatever national debate is occurring suddenly it's a global debate (the UK has had gay marriage for a while now, so why are people in the UK debating it? Because the US is).

Like it or not America is a beacon to the world. Good or ill.

Now reverse that and ask the average American what they know about another country. I doubt most of them know who our leaders are, what our landmarks are, our history. I'm not saying Americans are uneducated, probably the opposite but their education seems largely internally focused on American culture and history.

So when non-Americans see America make decisions which are good for them and bad for the rest of us, it rankles (carbon footprint anyone?) It gets us mad. When America holds itself as the "world leader" and does things we don't like we call them a bully. When they do something good we say "they should have done it earlier if they think they're so damn amazing".

It's tall poppy syndrome, you are attacked because you are the biggest, and the loudest. But here are two facts;
1) Every western country has things to be ashamed of. The UK effectively dragged the US into Iran in the 50's which has caused most of these terrorist problems. The French have a terrible reputation with their colonies and Germany, well we all know what Germany did. And Russia. But none of these countries is screaming their successes and power from the rooftops like Americans do. Maybe they would if they could but as I said American culture rules. So we see everything they do.

Americans are largely ignorant of things outside America, also largely dismissive. It makes me laugh the way politicians are getting attacked over the global financial crisis. Think about it. GLOBAL financial crisis. No country has escaped, certainly no western countries. So how can a politician who only has power in his country be held responsible for GLOBAL occurrences. So here's the other fact, 2) America is not as powerful as it thinks it is. It has military might but what good is that these days? You can't use it where every you like and it costs you billions. Other than that they are suffering the same as the rest of us but still say "Greatest country on Earth". It's not all about you, despite what movies, TV, games and music seem to say.

So in my mind it's all about what we see, hear, watch and play. Few people express opinions about stuff they don't know and we all know America.

 

[thespyisdead]

my personal bone to pick with the US, is the fact that they simply couldn't care less about their ever growing debt.

 

[silenticecream]

From an Irish/ pseudo U.K. perspective...people hate gobshites. I mean, if my home town of 20 odd thousand was in the middle of america, I guess that I would have the same perspectives on life. Similarly, if I was born a few miles down the road to the west, you know, I may be a raving xenophobe. Conclusion: people and nations need self-awareness. My hero is Ozymandious. I am very very drunk

 

[Robert Ewing]

The wars. The politics. The violence. The religious fanatics. The patriotism fanatics. The nukes. The pig ignorance of the majority of the populace. The pig ignorance of pretty much everyone in office. The rudeness. The justice system. The racism. The prejudice. Hollywood. Xenophobia aaaaaand... Erm... I think that about covers it.

Now I'm gonna get a load of Americans shouting at me saying we're not all like that. And i don't doubt for a second that that is true. Some Americans are freaking awesome.

But majority rules, eh America?

 

[everythingbeeps]

I can only imagine how bad our country looks to the rest of the world, because from within it's a fucking disaster. Corrupt government, even more corrupt corporations, a holier-than-thou attitude which has us gallavanting all over the world trying to "save" everyone else and help them "find democracy". We're hypocrites (we can have nukes, you can't), we have huge entitlement issues, we act like we think we're the best country in the world, we're still far too morally conservative in general...I could go on and on. This place is fucked.

Though to be fair, many of these problems exist in plenty of other countries as well. But the spotlight is always on the US. Our problems get magnified.

The richest country in the world should not have all these problems.

 

[OmniscientOstrich]

The American government I do indeed loathe as I do any government (necessary evil though they may be), so that's nothing particularly personal. The American people on the other hand strike me as being massive isolationists. When you have the concept of seperate states; when you have large tribes of people that ensconse themselves within their own provinces, with their own individual and wildly fluctuating legislation, cultures, economy and of course their attitudes towards religion/morality and other such bollocks what have you (it's a joke, don't lose your shit). When you have that kind of disparity and such an ardent desire to shut yourself off from the environments within the supposed united nation that you dissaprove of, I just find it all the more amusing when people drone on about how they love their country when what they mean to say is 'I love this particular state and any other sates that happen to share my values.' So I don't believe I can judge American people as a whole, I merely assume that their are certain states and environments that will likely be filled with people I would deem unpalatable, there is no guarantee this is the case and there will certainly be at least some people within the most conservative of states that I would have no qualms with, but the likely majority would not make a pleasant environment. Basically I don't hate American people as that term is far too vague to educe any semblance of identity, I just find that their are certain states whose attitudes I find objectionable.

 

[zefiris]

If you invade countries, depose the elected rulers and install dictators, cause thousands to die because you refuse to let a country produce AIDS medicine because of patents (and yet force companies to hand over Anthrax medicine patents for free cause six americans die, exposing your hypocrisy to all), preach democracy and yet support oppression, torture and mock the law YOU YOURSELF PUSHED, people tend to hate you.

It's that simple, really. It's not just one country where the United States kicked the elected government to put a brutal dictator in place. There's several. Many dictatures only survived because of US support.

And see, the people affected by this tend to be unhappy. I for example live in a country where a NATO organisation actually actively supported right-wing terrorism to make us fear the left, since the left got blamed for this terrorism.

THis is documented, as are many of the things the United States did. I don't see how you can be surprised that someone is unhappy with this. The surprise is that there are so many people that still like the US, not the other way round.


And yes, Russia is different because Russia actually did *less shit than this*. Seriously. Russia is a brutal dictatorship even today, Russia is committing genocide in a country right now (why does nobody care about this, by the way? Western allies sure don't seem to give a damn), and they still weren't as bad as far as historical facts go :/

The "west" only doesn't care about the US being nasty because the US is mostly nasty in South America/Africa, so nobody gives a damn since it's "just" brown people dying.

 

[Pearwood]

They mispronounce the word "aluminium".