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View Full Version : Эх, Америка - куда ты катишься?! Глядя из Швейцарии. (split)



Сергей Забугорный
02-23-2005, 10:10 AM
... смеётся тот кто паранджу не снимает. Перо ему с пожеланием добра. Не в обиду сказано. :twisted:

(Из под паранджи)

В продолжение увядшего было разговора и в связи с приездом вашего главного гангстера в Европу «замиряться» решил вывесить здесь у вас ответ моего американского друга, коренного техасца. Для контраста, так сказать. Я уже давно получил его, но ведь Бог велел делиться с ближним, вот я и внял его призыву. Лучше поздно, чем never. Такой «крутой антиамериканщины» я уже давно ни от кого не слышал, а самокритика всегда похвальна. Впрочем, „думайте сами, решайте сами» - соглашаться с ним или нет. Переводить я не стал, оставил как есть. По прежнему опыту знаю, что кое-кто на этом форуме ещё слабоват в английском, но уж пардоньте.
Ответ очень большой – почти 3 убористых страницы. Так что, я разобью его на две части. Если кому лень читать длинный анализ, лучше и не начинать. Пока всё. Если будут интересные комментарии, присылайте - отвечу и «за себя и за того парня» (кстати, этому «парню» уже за 60, так что определённый жизненный опыт у него имеется), а на «базарные разборки», как в прошлый раз, у меня нет времени...
Лучшие перешлю дальше автору. Правда, по-русски он не читает, так что, пожалуйста, на английском или же русском - я переведу, если аргументация покажется мне интересной. Только, пожалуйста, грамотно - другого я не понимаю и не принимаю.
Сергей Забугорный
Hi Sergej,

Yes, you may quote me on anything I've said about the US election results. I hope people elsewhere in the world realize that not all Americans are like Bush. Forty nine percent of the voters voted against Bush. Even in Texas there were a lot of Kerry supporters. Travis County, which is largely the City of Austin, voted 62 percent for Kerry.

I was disgusted by the election results. It's embarrassing that so many Americans are so gullible or so selfish that they would vote for Bush. I've never voted for Bush Junior (I voted for his daddy once). I have voted against the current Bush twice for Texas governor and twice for president. I've done my ineffective part to stop the stupid, closed-minded jerk.

There are quite a few policies of the Bush Administration that I and millions of other Americans don't like at all.

1. I don't like the Bush Administration arrogance toward the rest of the world. All of the countries on the planet need to work together. I find it disgusting when the US government says, "This is what we intend to do and the rest of you are either with us or against us."
On the other hand, most other countries take selfish positions that are not in the best interest of the world as a whole. I can't think of a case where a country took a position that was contrary to their own economic interests unless they had made a deal to trade off one economic interest for another. Some of the positions the Bush Administration takes are just part of the economic haggling that all countries do, but I still don't like the arrogant way the Bush people do it.

2. Contrary to what the Bush Administration seems to believe, I have no confidence that democracy or freedom can be imposed by military invasion or any other form of military attack. The current US attitude of offensive military action simply legitimizes guerilla fighters. I believe armed guerilla forces can only be defeated by eliminating the support they receive from the population as a whole. I believe high-tech military attacks increase the support the civilian population gives to guerilla fighters. I can not understand why the US military doesn't understand that basic principle. That's how the US was defeated in Vietnam and in the end had to withdraw.
In the same way Israel has had no success with defeating Palestinian guerilla fighters. The Soviets certainly had the same experience in Afghanistan. The British have never defeated the Northern Ireland guerilla fighters either, but at least they have been sensible enough to not use escalating weapon sophistication to try to defeat them.
US history includes other demonstrations of the principle that guerilla fighters supported by a sizeable percentage of the population can not be defeated. It was American guerilla fighters who defeated the British army, the most powerful army in the world at that time, to win independence in the late 1700s. How many examples does the US military need to experience before they realize that sophisticated military power is powerless over a determined population. The US generals probably don't read much of the history of Britain, France and the other colonial powers of the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries, but those histories show countless times that a population can not indefinitely be subjugated by superior military weapons. Didn't the Soviet Union break up similarly? I believe violence can only end when most of the people believe it's in their best interest (safety and economic) to not support guerilla fighters. The people have the final say. Those who want to stop war should work on convincing the population.

3. I believe US policy in the Middle East is entirely too one sided, but I believe it wouldn't be much different with the Democrat Party in power. I believe peace in the Middle East is only possible after the Israelis and Arabs come to terms. I believe that can occur when world powers put pressure on Israel to compromise. The US has the most power over the Israelis, but there are other world powers that could serve this role too. The European Union is also well positioned to pressure Israel to give up dogmatic positions. As long as no Western countries take a strong hand in negotiating from the Arab perspective, I see no hope for outsiders to have any influence in the Middle East. The other way peace could arise in the Middle East is if the Palestinian and Israel people became so tired of the deaths that they arose in spite of their political "leaders."

4. I'm appalled that religious fundamentalists have acquired so much power in the US. I believe the US was one of the first countries founded on the principle that government doesn't control religious institutions and religious organizations do not control the laws and courts. In other words, I thought the US Constitution assured that people of any religion were free to practice their beliefs without government interference. But in the last few decades the Christian fundamentalists of the US have entered the political arena from the local to the national level. They are not a dark conspiracy, they state their goals openly. They want to impose their beliefs by laws and court decisions onto all of the citizens of the US. I find that no different than what the Talaban did in Afghanistan and the religious leaders did in Iran 25 years ago. In fact all over the world there are people who want national boundaries to enclose only people of one "ethnic" group. Usually that means they want people only of one religion within their country. History is full of that.
Medieval kings specified what religion their subjects were to participate in. But now all progressive countries have a growing population of people who are ethnically different, whether they like it or not. I see news stories on how various countries in Western Europe are struggling to find a way to assimilate the increasing number of people from other cultures. As an American I sometimes smile smugly because that's what has been occurring in the US since wooden sailing ships first arrived with European settlers. A lot of the people who initially populated what is now the US took the risks of crossing the ocean in order to get away from the state sponsored religions of various European countries. It saddens me that the Christian fundamentalists in the US have forgotten why our ancestors left Europe and established the country several hundred years ago. I feel strongly that the freedom those ancestors risked their lives for applies to every person of every religion (as well as those without a religion) from where ever in the world his or her ancestors originated. The fundamentalists have become politically clever and sinister. They put their people onto local school boards and text book selection agencies to modify the education of young people so that they do not learn anything about other religions and cultures or about any science that they feel violates the science expressed in the Bible. So a generation of kids grows up that is ignorant of other ideas and they become voters. The fundamentalists campaign for legislators who will push laws that impose their beliefs on the rest of the population. During political campaigns they exploit the tribal instinct in humans, it's "us" against "them." They bring out little issues and make them important, to enhance the divide between "us" and "them." The uninformed hear just enough to identify with the "us" and vote against the "them." Then their politicians select judges who will interpret the Constitution in accordance with fundamental Christian beliefs. These methods aren't different than those used by Hitler, Stalin and the Talaban, except that they are doing it slower, not within the time span of one government administration. In my view, the packing of the courts with fundamentalist judges is the largest danger of the Bush Administration. There will be quite a few vacancies in the Supreme Court during these next four years. I fear that the next several decades will be dominated by Christian fundamentalist Supreme Court decisions. I fear that the American citizens will lose 50 years of progress and freedom.
Bill H
см. окончание

Сергей Забугорный
02-23-2005, 10:11 AM
Окончание:
5. Contrary to Bush Administrations actions, I do not believe what is good for Wall Street is usually good for the population as a whole. There were several huge financial scandals during the first Bush term, Enron being only the most publicized. The Bush Administration rhetoric was mildly condemning of financial abuse.
But as far as I know, few reforms have been carried through to curb the power of financial manipulators to cheat ordinary citizens out of money. I view much of what Wall Street people do as gambling. Professional gamblers need herds of amateurs to be the fools who provide their winnings. I'm not opposed to the stock markets or any other form of gambling, I just don't think the professionals in that field should establish government policy. I feel the role of government is to provide and enforce regulations so that the citizens aren't financially abused by the Wall Street professionals. The Bush administration utters sentences that sound good to naive voters, but their actions are to enhance the income of financial people.

6. The financial industry highlighted above is but one business where the Bush Administration is becoming less responsive to the needs of the population as a whole. So that people don't notice that they are favoring business to the detriment of consumers, the Bush Administration is slowly dismantling the government regulations that force businesses to be responsible to their consumers, employees and the environment that all citizens need for health and recreation. I haven't personally tracked the slow elimination of regulations. I suspect some of the changes are the result of excess enthusiasm on the part of the original rules and ideas that didn't work out as originally intended. In other words, I believe some of the regulation relief is justified, but I suspect most of the rule changes will hurt the population in the long term. I do not favor government running businesses at any level, because I believe that's an economic and innovation disaster for the consumers. I even favor local garbage collection being done by competing garbage collection companies. I believe the role of government is to make and enforce rules that each garbage collection company must follow, for the financial and health protection of consumers. To generalize, I feel that government is responsible for providing negative consequences for any person or business that abuses a citizen. Government should be the advocate of the people against the wealth and power of other people and corporations. No system of government has ever fully achieved that goal, but I feel the the Bush Administration is slowly taking away freedoms and protections US citizens have had for decades. The reason is clear. People and corporations with money invest in the campaigns of politicians and then expect and get changes in laws and regulations. The politicians of the Democratic Party are only somewhat less guilty than Republicans.

Well, when I started writing I didn't intend to do an essay on what's wrong with US policies and politics. But the above are some of the reasons that I voted against Bush in November, along with over 60,000,000 other American voters.

I feel I have the right to have strong feelings on the US political situation, since I voted. Had I not expressed my beliefs via my vote, I don't feel I would have the right to complain. When I'm in a country where I'm not a citizen, I try to suppress my opinions. If I do express my feelings, I try to do so respectful of the citizens of that country. It's not my country, I'm not a voter. The responsibility and blame falls on the citizens. I'm but an outside observer. I'm in Britain quite a bit. There are some things I believe the British government is doing poorly. There are areas where I feel they are overlooking basic principles, they don't understand. But since I'm not a British voting citizen I don't feel I have a right to express my views strongly.

Seeing that the current US government is making mistakes and the current British government is also making what I feel are mistakes, encourages me to glance elsewhere. That allows me to notice, for example, that the current French, German and Russian governments are making serious mistakes too, as far as I can tell. That shows me that governments are people, they overlook things, they make mistakes. And governments are made up of politicians and bureaucrats, who on average are not the brightest and most innovative people in a society. So all of the governments of the world are the same, they are messing up some things for their own citizens.

That brings me full circle. It's we the citizens of a country that are ultimately responsible for the progress and the mistakes our government makes. When our government goes down the wrong road, eventually our collective voice ends that mistaken journey. As an example, the people of the Soviet Union eventually ended the communist experiment.

I think each of us individuals has a responsibility to speak up where we have the right to do so, where we vote. When we speak up we are making a small contribution toward improvement. Politicians are almost always followers not leaders -- they follow public opinion. Its rather rare for a politician to lead by educating public opinion. So we have to wait for true leaders to arise, to educate the public on what's wrong.

There are US newspaper columnists who often write against Bush Administration policies. If you are interested, their articles can usually be found on the web. My favorite is Molly Ivens. She lives in Austin and has cynically watched Bush's political career since he first ran for Governor. She has also written a couple of books, which expose Bush. As I said at the beginning not all Texans like Bush.
Bill H

SpaceMarine
02-23-2005, 10:39 AM
Сергей, почему бы вам не пригласить вашего друга к нам на форум? Мы его не обидим, честное слово... Мы тоже можем по-английски общаться, хоть некоторые из нас и "выходцы из народа" (по-вашему определению). Слабо?

цепной_кот
02-23-2005, 10:51 AM
Сергей, придерживайтесь правил. Цитированию длинных текстов в "Серьёзных Разговорах" не место.

LaFemmeGavrila
02-23-2005, 08:04 PM
сирожа апят гнет палчики. Сирожа эта нивежлива нет-нет. Гарячий швицарский хлопчик. сичяс мы фсе бросим и примимса писать атвет амириканцу. с прозьбами "сирожа, сирожа, прасти нас ниграматных, толка пиривиди. ради фсево свитова ага."