On 28 Oct 2004, at 00:52, Stan Shebs wrote:
Jens Ropers wrote:
On 27 Oct 2004, at 22:56, Stan Shebs wrote:
Jens Ropers wrote:
With the possible difference being that a
complaint that others are
biased against you just sounds so much more convincing if you're
not engaged in an illegal war at the same time.
Careful on the nationalism thing
Huh?
What nationalism thing???
And why should I be careful about it??
Nationalism is when you treat every member
of a nation as being
equivalent to the nation's government, to the point of treating
the government's political opponents as they were supporters. It's
like saying Tutu and Mandela must be in favor of apartheid because
they didn't renounce their South African citizenship and move to
another country. Wikipedia is already over-politicized by people
who are smart enough to know better.
I fail to see how your charge applies to what I did and I feel you're
quoting me out of context.
I wrote my above single sentence in reply to this:
I find this issue of semantics is kind of annoying,
because although
I'm a strong Bush opponent, I tend to agree with Ed's phrasing. It is
not *in principle* "anti-US" or "anti-US-military" bias, but I'd
argue
that *in practice* many people do have an anti-US bias that leads them
to look for and promote stories that make the US look bad. This has
nothing to do with anti-Bush bias---it was the same people doing the
same thing when Clinton was president and bombing Kosovo.
-Mark
This concerned how the US as a whole is perceived and I did not set
that scope. I merely responded to Mark.
That said -- and this is just a ''general'' point -- yes, one may be
opposed to what other people in charge are doing but attempts to claim
exemption only go that far. There comes a point where a sufficiently
nasty stain will rub off on everybody and like it or not unless one is
actively resisting the associated wrongs, one will likely have to
shoulder the collective guilt as well. I'm German born and bred so
trust me, I do know something about collective guilt.
I hate Bush as much as anybody, but if Europeans and
USians
are not in agreement, it's as much a failure of the Europeans
to sell their ideas in Iowa as it is of the US to sell its ideas
in Belgium. Bush would get even more votes if the average US
voter got a look at how much anti-US sneering by Europeans is
found on WP talk pages.
True, and both any sneering and the defiant "hurt
pride" protest vote
for Bush are unconsidered, immature reactions. However, IMHO Ed's
initial post clearly shows that there are Americans who already are
so much in defiant denial mode that they will perceive even factual
NPOV points argued against "their guy" as "sneering". I mean.
Ed's
outraged initial post sounded as if there was an evil Democratic
conspiracy to loot and kill.
Well, duh, there are extremists on every side. I was reacting
to how you tarred somebody else with the same brush.
Not
setting much of an example for
international cooperation!
Oh, but we are! We Wikipedians are actually talking.
Which is ''way''
better than doing a "Freedom Fries" routine or accusing all Americans
of being daft, respectively.
You are talking, but are you listening? If the choice of US president
matters so much to Europe, then why aren't the Europeans supporting
Kerry in a way that will get him some more votes?
Yes? And that way is?
/me is sitting on the edge of my seat with both ears cupped.
Guardian readers
lecturing Iowans in letters was a really dumb idea, I can't believe
that in all the millions of Europe there isn't anyone with a better
idea for two-way dialogue.
Well, I'm trying to engage in a discussion every U.S. citizen I can.
I'm trying to spread the word among non-Americans that there's still a
"different America" struggling to get out and that not all Americans
support those U.S. politicians who are now widely regarded as
ne'er-do-wells (to use a mild expression). I'm trying to be visible
towards that end and I had a T-shirt for a certain candidate freshly
printed very recently and am wearing it over my other clothing.
All that's probably not much, but if you've got better ideas what I
could do then PLEASE do tell me at the earliest possible opportunity.
Because I have a stake in the outcome too -- 3/11 (Madrid) has shown
that; we're a lot more exposed over here, especially in terms of
geography, and it's very evident here how al Qaeda just grows more
powerful the longer Bush is in office.
Stan
-- ropers [[en:User:Ropers]]
www.ropersonline.com
http://www.archive.org/movies/details-db.php?
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