Cousin's Perspective: No Longer American

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In summary: According to Tony Blair's book Cheney wanted to Remake the entire middle east after 911. That included attacking Syria, Iraq...
  • #1
Ivan Seeking
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I had a rather strange conversation with one of my cousins last night. It was great as we hadn't talked in a long time, but he lives in France now and has all but lost his American roots. He hasn't lived in the US now for about twenty years, but we were close as kids, so it seemed very strange to have to explain things that we in the US take for granted; everyday things, major events, political trends, social trends... Often, he would struggle to translate from French to English. And he was always worried about insulting me poltically. His perspective has been skewed to the point where he no longer understands the diversity of the American culture. He had a tendency to lump all Americans together; not the least of which was the assumption that I supported and still support the war in Iraq! He really had no concept of the deep and wide void between people who supported Bush, and those who didn't. When I explained that Tsu and I had made a serious effort to leave the country when Bush was relected, he was shocked [He shouldn't have been!]. Interestingly, at that time, he completely revoked his US citizenship. So we still have a lot in common, but the veil of culture has forced our frames of reference to drift apart; shockingly so in some cases.
 
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  • #2
I have dealings with the French Embassy and groups in France that organize a lot of the ceremonies commemorating the US involvement in World War 2.

I know what you mean. They avoid directly commenting about American politics and their views, but at the same time they make subtle points. We take their subtle points as backhanded insults and I know they are not meant that way. Most are trying to avoid insulting us.

It is interesting. But I see it from the side of how appreciative they are of our help. I think they are frustrated by the fact that most Americans don't understand how much France has helped us.
 
  • #3
I feel that if the world population as a whole was more informed of the diversity of viewpoints and the extreme political struggle within the US we'd be respected a little more and despised a little less.
I wonder if there have been any serious efforts to do so, or if attempts at advertising the TRUE American multi-faceted culture would me merely ignored or scorned as propaganda.
 
  • #4
Hepth said:
I feel that if the world population as a whole was more informed of the diversity of viewpoints and the extreme political struggle within the US we'd be respected a little more and despised a little less...

The recent business with Qur’an burning comes to mind - one nutjob defines America in the eyes of at least some of the Muslim world.
 
  • #5
I don't think the rest of the world realizes just how reserved a response the Iraq/Afghanistan war was. I do believe after 9/11 we were ready to invade the whole Middle East
 
  • #6
Ivan Seeking said:
The recent business with Qur’an burning comes to mind - one nutjob defines America in the eyes of at least some of the Muslim world.

They really don't need an incentive to be anti-american. If it were not the nutjob then it would be the protesting the Mosque in NYC. Or that we support Israel.

You really can't have it both ways with this stuff. If one person has freedom of speech, then we all do. I am not for a lot of the nonsense various groups do. People do because they can, but it does not mean that they should do it.
 
  • #7
Hepth said:
I feel that if the world population as a whole was more informed of the diversity of viewpoints and the extreme political struggle within the US we'd be respected a little more and despised a little less.
Agreed, but how naive does one have to be to believe that the politics in the US is homogenous? Politics isn't homogenous anywhere.
 
  • #8
airborne18 said:
You really can't have it both ways with this stuff. If one person has freedom of speech, then we all do. I am not for a lot of the nonsense various groups do. People do because they can, but it does not mean that they should do it.

Again, I think this comes back to culture. I'm not sure if those who threatened violence over the Qur'an burning understood that this is not representitive of America, or if they condemn our entire culture for allowing it.
 
  • #9
cronxeh said:
I don't think the rest of the world realizes just how reserved a response the Iraq/Afghanistan war was. I do believe after 9/11 we were ready to invade the whole Middle East

According to Tony Blair's book Cheney wanted to Remake the entire middle east after 911. That included attacking Syria, Iraq and Iran.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2010/09/05/2010-09-05_tony_blair_on_dick_cheney_he_wanted_to_remake_middle_east_after_911_invade_iraq_.html

Luckily at least some sanity prevailed.
 
  • #10
I wonder why he left for France in the first place.
 
  • #11
edward said:
According to Tony Blair's book Cheney wanted to Remake the entire middle east after 911. That included attacking Syria, Iraq and Iran.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2010/09/05/2010-09-05_tony_blair_on_dick_cheney_he_wanted_to_remake_middle_east_after_911_invade_iraq_.html

Luckily at least some sanity prevailed.

I think the next legdown would be Iran attacking Israel, and after that we will simply be forced to join in the fray. You can almost see overnight the distillation of all the thoughts and fears of those Middle East nations as they take the position and align themselves with us or against us - if Iran nuked Israel
 
  • #12
humanino said:
I wonder why he left for France in the first place.

The business culture. He has lived in Holland, Belgium, and France, but likes France the best.

Currently, he owns a company that employs about fifty people.
 
  • #13
I have friends and older relatives in Canada, and they are pretty blown away by some of the crap that comes out of AM radio and "conservative" news outlets. They are not fooled by the slant, but are somewhat puzzled as to how such viewpoints can be tolerated and are not opposed by the mainstream media.

I have a couple of friends who each lost spouses to cancer (the couples were friends for years) and married each other. She is Canadian, and he is a US citizen. The US government is putting her through hell as she tries to gain citizenship. Really! She is a retired schoolteacher and her late husband was a career officer in the RCMP. Not much of a security risk there. I tell my male friend that he should sell his properties in Maine and Florida and move to NB. He lives in Machias, and the climate in coastal NB is no less forbidding than NB.
 
  • #14
russ_watters said:
Agreed, but how naive does one have to be to believe that the politics in the US is homogenous? Politics isn't homogenous anywhere.

By no means is he naive, so I have to assume that his views are a reflection of the information he receives.
 
  • #15
Ivan Seeking said:
By no means is he naive, so I have to assume that his views are a reflection of the information he receives.
The problem to me may be different : at the scale of the gap between french and US political cultures, what one may perceive as different, another might perceive as very slight nuances. Remember how about half of french people are such socialists ? :rolleyes:

turbo-1 said:
I have friends and older relatives in Canada, and they are pretty blown away by some of the crap that comes out of AM radio and "conservative" news outlets. They are not fooled by the slant, but are somewhat puzzled as to how such viewpoints can be tolerated and are not opposed by the mainstream media.
I am getting used to this "freedom of speech", but I still sometimes think a concept of "crime against democracy" might some day be useful(1).

(1) I expect some outrage from that opinion
 
  • #16
humanino said:
The problem to me may be different : at the scale of the gap between french and US political cultures, what one may perceive as different, another might perceive as very slight nuances. Remember how about half of french people are such socialists ? :rolleyes:

Can you elaborate?
 
  • #17
humanino said:
I am getting used to this "freedom of speech", but I still sometimes think a concept of "crime against democracy" might some day be useful(1).

(1) I expect some outrage from that opinion
When I hear that Obama is a Kenyan anti-colonialist, that he is not a citizen, that he is a socialist AND a Nazi trying to ruin our economy, etc, etc, I wonder how far the neo-con spin-cycle can possibly go. My Canadian friends and relatives are flabbergasted by this kind of crap. I shouldn't be surprised, but when I talk to them, it always brings me back to how far the GOP has strayed from true conservatism, and how far down that path the Democrats have followed them.
 
  • #18
My wife and I are considering moving to Canada or France once we earn our undergraduate degrees. Our main concern is not the political discourse spewed by professional politicians but the target audience of said message. It seems the target audience is willing to lend an ear to that message and a few of them accept that message as fact, despite evidence to the contrary. Wife and I do not expect conditions to improve significantly unless somehow the US economy manages to create 30 million+ jobs in the next decade.

At the lower socioeconomic level we are, the situation is dire. Recently, our neighborhood has experienced a significant uptick in gang activity and this forced the NYPD to deploy a large force of police officers in our area. Closer to home, there is a nightclub very close to our residence, and about 3 weeks ago. somewhere around 2am, a 16 year old boy was stabbed to death inside the nightclub. Obviously, we will find crime anywhere we go, yet we feel things in the US will get worse before they get better.

*We are also tired of paying $800/mo for a crap apartment*
 
  • #19
Mathnomalous said:
My wife and I are considering moving to Canada or France once we earn our undergraduate degrees. Our main concern is not the political discourse spewed by professional politicians but the target audience of said message. It seems the target audience is willing to lend an ear to that message and a few of them accept that message as fact, despite evidence to the contrary. Wife and I do not expect conditions to improve significantly unless somehow the US economy manages to create 30 million+ jobs in the next decade.

At the lower socioeconomic level we are, the situation is dire. Recently, our neighborhood has experienced a significant uptick in gang activity and this forced the NYPD to deploy a large force of police officers in our area. Closer to home, there is a nightclub very close to our residence, and about 3 weeks ago. somewhere around 2am, a 16 year old boy was stabbed to death inside the nightclub. Obviously, we will find crime anywhere we go, yet we feel things in the US will get worse before they get better.

*We are also tired of paying $800/mo for a crap apartment*
So, you live in a bad area. You don't think that moving to a bad area in another country will be as bad? Are you not aware of the car burnings in Paris? Nothing like that has ever happened in the US, no matter how bad the area. Inner city violence in America is very contained and limited to a very small area in some large cities and mild compared to violence in similar areas other countries.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article607860.ece

Why 112 cars are burning every day

FLAMES lick around a burning car on a tiny telephone screen. Omar, 17, a veteran of France’s suburban riots, replayed the sequence with pride. “It was great. We did lots of them and then we went out and torched more the next day.”
Omar, whose parents immigrated from Mali, was savouring memories of the revolt that erupted 12 months ago from his home, the Chêne Pointu estate in Clichy-sous-Bois, in the eastern outskirts of Paris. “We’re ready for it again. In fact it hasn’t stopped,” he added.

Before next week’s anniversary of the Clichy riots, the violence and despair on the estates are again to the fore. Despite a promised renaissance, little has changed, and the lid could blow at any moment.

The figures are stark. An average of 112 cars a day have been torched across France so far this year and there have been 15 attacks a day on police and emergency services. Nearly 3,000 police officers have been injured in clashes this year. Officers have been badly injured in four ambushes in the Paris outskirts since September. Some police talk of open war with youths who are bent on more than vandalism.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1869392,00.html

For much of the world, they became iconic of France's worst social ills: the burned-out carcasses of thousands of cars set ablaze during nearly three weeks of nationwide rioting in 2005. But as yet another orgy of automobile arson on Wednesday demonstrated, the torching of cars in France has not only become an everyday event; it's also now a regular form of expression for disenfranchised suburban youths wanting to make sure the rest of the country doesn't forget they exist. And their fiery presence is never felt so strongly as it is each New Year's Eve — the day of France's unofficial festival of car-burning.
 
  • #20
Ivan Seeking said:
Can you elaborate?
For instance, one of my history teacher described the situation as this : in the US a rich family has two sons, the successful one does business, the failure one goes into politics. Rich traditional families used to do quite the opposite in France's past (now I do not think this applies anymore). This teacher was very provocative, and actually repeated we had a lot to learn from the US about how to make business. He also was a regular member in the mayor offices for decades, elected as a right party member (the closest to what can call republican in France). From his times, the only way to get a serious position in a french government was to go through ENA ([URL [Broken] Nationale d'Administration[/url]). Although elitist and declining, this system still keeps us rather safe from a Palin or a O'Donnell (until Royal comes back).

edit
Please do not think of me as misogynist from my mentioning 3 women as counter examples in my last sentence. It is incidental. I have a very high opinion of Merkel for instance.
 
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  • #21
Actually, the area where we currently reside is considered one of the relatively "ok" areas in NYC.

You are correct. Moving to another area in another country will probably be worse; we are still studying this option. What we definitely want to do is leave NYC; we do not mind moving to the less urban areas of upstate NY, PA, NJ, or MA preferably somewhere close to universities (where one may find a good amount of rational people).
 
  • #22
humanino said:
For instance, one of my history teacher described the situation as this : in the US a rich family has two sons, the successful one does business, the failure one goes into politics...

:rofl::rofl::rofl: I don't know if his objections are that fundamental or not.
 
  • #23
Mathnomalous said:
preferably somewhere close to universities (where one may find a good amount of rational people).

They did a South Park episode on people like you
 
  • #24
Office_Shredder said:
They did a South Park episode on people like you

:rofl:

The fart sniffing one?


Mathnomalous, dude, no matter where you move you will run into 'that group of people'. You know exactly who I'm talking about.
 
  • #25
Ivan Seeking said:
By no means is he naive, so I have to assume that his views are a reflection of the information he receives.
I certainly believe the information he's getting tells him that, but those two issues are not mutually exclusive. I think that's a common problem though, not seeing-through the bias in the media. Still, whether left or right or left of our left or whatever, homogenaity doesn't exist anywhere, so regardless of what view the media gives, it shouldn't ever be believed to be a unanamous opinion. I mean heck - if Bush enjoyed absolute popularity, how could we possibly have a Democratic President and Congress today?

...so I still see naive as being an appropriate description.
 
  • #26
Ivan Seeking said:
Can you elaborate?
Not exactly what humanino was getting at, but a related effect is that Franch is to the left of the US politically, and so even if your cousin is in the center of France's political spectrum, he could see 75% or more of the US to his right, making it seem like 'all americans are conservative'.
 
  • #27
airborne18 said:
It is interesting. But I see it from the side of how appreciative they are of our help. I think they are frustrated by the fact that most Americans don't understand how much France has helped us.

I think it's clear many Americans (perhaps most) aren't aware there would not be an America had it not been for France.

I think most Frenchmen do realize there would not be a France if it weren't for America.
 
  • #28
mugaliens said:
I think it's clear many Americans (perhaps most) aren't aware there would not be an America had it not been for France.

I think most Frenchmen do realize there would not be a France if it weren't for America.

Depends on what you call "France." The land and ethic heritage and language is the same, but they've had several revolutions involving the adoption of completely new systems of government since they last ensured our continued existence. Their present Constitution was only adopted in 1946.
 
  • #29
humanino said:
I am getting used to this "freedom of speech", but I still sometimes think a concept of "crime against democracy" might some day be useful(1).

(1) I expect some outrage from that opinion

Care to elaborate?

(Is there an echo in here?)
 
  • #30
A distant cousin of mine just moved to the US from Mexico. She couldn't take the drug war down there and decided to leave family, friends, and job and head for the safety of the drug war here. I'd have helped her pack her bags too, but she was able to manage without me. I'll meet her Sunday for the first time and we'll talk about these matters. I'll let you know how it turns out.
 
  • #31
Hepth said:
I feel that if the world population as a whole was more informed of the diversity of viewpoints and the extreme political struggle within the US we'd be respected a little more and despised a little less.
I wonder if there have been any serious efforts to do so, or if attempts at advertising the TRUE American multi-faceted culture would me merely ignored or scorned as propaganda.

I'm sorry, but this post made me laugh out loud. If the rest of the world made a serious effort to be better informed about the US? Hee! You're kidding, right?

Particularly on the Internet, it never ceases to amaze me how well "the rest of the world" understands the US and how much about the US "the rest of the world" knows, and how blatantly uninformed so much of the population of the US is about "the rest of the world".

There's an irony in someone from the US lamenting about "the rest of the world" making serious efforts to get to know y'all better. Seriously.
 
  • #32
airborne18 said:
I think they are frustrated by the fact that most Americans don't understand how much France has helped us.

In 18th century?
 
  • #33
Borek said:
In 18th century?

Help is help. If it weren't for America, France wouldn't exist.

Now, you can say that "that was over 200 years ago!". If that's the case, then we should stop acting as if France should bow down and worship us. After all, when did we help them? "Over 50 years ago!" The only difference is scale, yet we expect far more from France than France expects from us.

Note that this reply isn't necessarily towards you, Borek.
 
  • #34
Hepth said:
I feel that if the world population as a whole was more informed of the diversity of viewpoints and the extreme political struggle within the US...

Possibly related to Turbo’s comments, some outside the US might consider that its two major political parties offer only right wing choices, which wouldn’t appear especially diverse.
 
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  • #35
CRGreathouse said:
Care to elaborate?
Journalism is an important component of democracy. The question raised is how to ensure people receive decent amount information. In France it's quite easy because there are only a few television channels(1). The television media in the US to me is just broken. In particular, there are too many people calling themselves journalists and not selling journalism. Because some people can not tell the difference, in the long term it can become a challenge to democracy.

(1) so one single team of people can entirely watch, survey, analyze and compare the information propagated by those different channels
 
<h2>What is the main message of "Cousin's Perspective: No Longer American"?</h2><p>The main message of "Cousin's Perspective: No Longer American" is to shed light on the struggles and discrimination faced by immigrants and their families in America. It also highlights the importance of empathy and understanding towards different cultures and backgrounds.</p><h2>What inspired the author to write "Cousin's Perspective: No Longer American"?</h2><p>The author was inspired to write "Cousin's Perspective: No Longer American" after witnessing the challenges and discrimination faced by their own cousin, who immigrated to America. They wanted to share their cousin's story and bring attention to the experiences of many other immigrants in the country.</p><h2>What are some examples of discrimination faced by the author's cousin in "Cousin's Perspective: No Longer American"?</h2><p>The author's cousin faced discrimination in various forms, such as being treated differently because of their accent, facing job discrimination, and being subjected to racial slurs and stereotypes. They also faced difficulties in obtaining basic rights and opportunities due to their immigrant status.</p><h2>How does "Cousin's Perspective: No Longer American" contribute to the current conversation on immigration?</h2><p>"Cousin's Perspective: No Longer American" adds to the current conversation on immigration by providing a personal and relatable perspective on the challenges faced by immigrants. It also highlights the need for change and understanding in the way immigrants are treated in society.</p><h2>What can readers take away from "Cousin's Perspective: No Longer American"?</h2><p>Readers can take away a deeper understanding and empathy towards the experiences of immigrants in America. They can also be inspired to take action and advocate for change in the way immigrants are treated and perceived in society.</p>

What is the main message of "Cousin's Perspective: No Longer American"?

The main message of "Cousin's Perspective: No Longer American" is to shed light on the struggles and discrimination faced by immigrants and their families in America. It also highlights the importance of empathy and understanding towards different cultures and backgrounds.

What inspired the author to write "Cousin's Perspective: No Longer American"?

The author was inspired to write "Cousin's Perspective: No Longer American" after witnessing the challenges and discrimination faced by their own cousin, who immigrated to America. They wanted to share their cousin's story and bring attention to the experiences of many other immigrants in the country.

What are some examples of discrimination faced by the author's cousin in "Cousin's Perspective: No Longer American"?

The author's cousin faced discrimination in various forms, such as being treated differently because of their accent, facing job discrimination, and being subjected to racial slurs and stereotypes. They also faced difficulties in obtaining basic rights and opportunities due to their immigrant status.

How does "Cousin's Perspective: No Longer American" contribute to the current conversation on immigration?

"Cousin's Perspective: No Longer American" adds to the current conversation on immigration by providing a personal and relatable perspective on the challenges faced by immigrants. It also highlights the need for change and understanding in the way immigrants are treated in society.

What can readers take away from "Cousin's Perspective: No Longer American"?

Readers can take away a deeper understanding and empathy towards the experiences of immigrants in America. They can also be inspired to take action and advocate for change in the way immigrants are treated and perceived in society.

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