The Free Republic India and Indo-US Issues Ping !
(Freepmail me if you want on/off. )
Posted on 03/04/2006 10:34:51 PM PST by FairOpinion
Have you noticed how the world doesn’t like America? Few countries have anything good to say. The irony is that those for whom it has done the most tend to be least grateful. And this applies regardless of whether the recipient state is Asian, Latin American or European.
In the 1950s, when the Marshall Plan was reviving Europe’s crushed fortunes, it was commonplace in England to joke about Yankee unpopularity. The one that became best known went like this: “We hate them for three reasons, because they are over-paid, over-sexed and over-here.” This snide if successful strand of humour has roots that stretch far back into Europe’s relations with the ‘New World’. Oscar Wilde was a past master: “It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful still to have missed it”, or “America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.”
Even the French had their little digs. Clemenceau, who was Prime Minister during World War I, is best known for the following witticism: “America is the only country to have progressed from barbarism to decadence without experiencing the intervening stage of civilisation.” Freud: “America is the most grandiose experiment the world has seen but, I’m afraid, it’s not going to succeed.”
What lies behind such humour is rank jealousy. Success, no doubt, breeds envy but when your own impoverishment or incapacity adds the curse of dependence envy turns rapidly into dislike. The more the world needs America the more it hates itself for it. And since one cannot swear at oneself, America becomes the next best victim.
Of course, Yankee crassness, at times their innocence and often their idiocy have added to this. Americans are hardly their own best ambassadors. I recall a US Senator at the Cambridge Union who single handedly helped his side lose the motion “This House reaffirms its faith in America.” It happened when, carried away by his eloquence, he warmed to the subject and promised to lift the poor cities of the world “up, up, up — all the way till they look like Kansas City.” That shattered all prospects of a vote in favour.
And yet if America feels let down, stung by ingratitude, even lacerated, I can understand its feelings. Because those who need America the most are often the ones to kick hardest. This week India came very close to joining the list of the ungrateful.
Consider the facts. After nearly forty years of undisputed existence, the international nuclear non-proliferation regime, one of the world’s most sacred holy cows, has been dismantled to admit one single country. Of itself this is epoch-making. It’s revolutionary. But when you add the fact that this will give India, a country that was sometimes called a nuclear rogue state, the capacity to enlarge its civilian nuclear industry, which otherwise simply couldn’t have happened, the magnitude becomes enormous.
But are we grateful? Not if you look at the Left or the Samajwadi Party. Nor if you judge by the so-called popular protest on the streets. Not even if you go by the polls published by newspapers like this one. Instead, we’re more concerned about Bush’s Iraq policy or his threats to Iran, by his duplicity in the war on terrorism or even his simplistic, moralistic, little-Christian attitudes. We prefer to see reasons to dislike him. We ignore all cause for gratitude.
My point is simple. If Bush is so terrible why did we seek him out for help? If his Iraq policy is so unforgivable and if he is, as Arundhati Roy insists, a killer, why did we ask for his assistance? The choice to not do so was always there. But we consciously acted otherwise. Now, having got what we wanted, and possibly in far greater measure than expected, does it become us to carp and criticise?
The truth is we have in George W. Bush a president more pro-Indian than any before him. In fact the same nuclear deal would not have been possible under Clinton or Kerry or Gore. Bush alone made it happen. And he did so despite our Parliament’s well-known stand on Iraq and the ill-disguised contempt our elite have for him. If he could rise above all that then, surely, in return we could have expressed our gratitude more clearly and with good cheer. The protests should have been postponed or muted. They were hardly a suitable way of saying thank you.
Ditto
Perhaps America also stands to benefit in the future from such sophisticated grammar and syntax.
A very pleasant and enjoyable read, accurate in its meaning and feeling.
Here's to you and India!!!
Here's a bit of trivia ( fashion history ) for you....
Though dungarees ( that's what jeans started out being called ), caught on in some places in the world, after WW II, American "FASHION", was NOT considered to be anything to be sought, until the late 1970s, or so.
Yes, the Japanese have been NUTS about all things American, since WW II, from baseball to fashion, to music; but we're talking about Europe's proclivity to look down their collective noses at Americans and America here.
Let's not forget, for a moment, that what is true for today, wasn't always true about America and Americans and how the rest of the world saw us.
I especially admire the pictures with the patchulie (?) flowers around his neck and Dubyah shaking hands with a group of ladies.
Compared to the China photos from last fall, Dubyah is relaxed, communicative and thoroughly enjoying himself.
Lets hope Congress also captures these feelings and endorses the negotiated alliances.
The Dims must be squirming very uncomfortably when they read and hear this speech!!!
Well done Mr. President !!!!
Proud of you I am!
I get more history from your posts than I did in high school!
This is WHY I post so much history to FR. I'm just trying to get the facts out there.
Many thanks for your kind words. :-)
Have a good night
Sad to say, regional prejudices are still with us. Just look at threads on FR, for crying out loud! Some people here will claim that there are NO conservatives in N.Y. and California and that everyone in those states stink. Some will say that, and worse, for the entire north east. Heck, I've even seen that said about EVERY state, that was NOT in the Confederacy.
No, Americans have NOT been a united nation through much of its existence. But, we DID share a common culture, once. And the funniest thing about that, is that it was IMMIGRANTS who invented the AMERICAN DREAM and sold it and a common American culture to the populace, through the movies and through radio. And now, we are once again a fractured nation.
Nighty night and pleasant dreams................
"After WW II, most of Europe was devastated, England wasn't in great shape; but, America, relatively untouched by both world wars was in a position to help them. Talk about no good deed going unpunished? Yes, that's when the jealousy, talked about in the article, came into play. And since then, especially now, since we are the ONLY "superpower", that jealousy has been heightened."
Help them? Consider this. after WWII, the US was left with one half of the world's standing industrial production capacity. We setup the marshall plan & helped rebuild Japan and Germany also because they'd serve as markets in the future and would forsake the path of totalatarianism and a future world war. We almost succeeded in our aims. Japan didn't quite open its markets to us as much as we would like and Mainland europe slid into socialistic semi-totalatarianism. But hey, on the whole it went off well for us. It could've been MUCH worse, ya know.
BTTT
Water buffalo milk makes the BEST mozzarella. And has since Marco Polo brought some buffs back from Kubilai's China.
Someday, the entire world is going to figure out what Iraq is all about and most people will feel shame for not being a part of it.
Texas gets a lot of 'guff', nationally and internationally. It is one state that is recognized around the world - and not for real-life reasons.
Thank you Fair Opinion-
It really is nice to hear someone expressing something nice about the US these days.
Thanks to India for their friendship. May both our countries prosper and be safe.
Cheers - Dinah
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.