I've worked for a large, German-owned and based pharmaceutical company for 15 years. I deal with German visitors from HQ to our Ohio offices. They don't like us. They didn't like us long before Iraq, and they won't like us 15 years after we leave Iraq. I really believe there's still a lot of resentment from WWII, and a ton of jealousy regarding our way of life. You have to see them shop to believe it. Almost like the sacking of Rome.
You are right buccaneer, this is nothing new. I remember their contempt for Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter. They called Carter “that peanut farmer.” They hated Reagan and Bush regardless of what they did, and I had at one time thought that it was only confined to academe and their media, but not anymore. I believe these numbers in these polls. They are only confirmed by what I read in their newspapers today.
There was a time when I was learning history and was quite horrified by how long it took the US to join Europe in WWII.
The more I read the more I became convinced that our fathers and grandfathers knew precisely what they were doing. Europe has heaped scorn on the US and the American people since our birth, and then they wanted help? Really? And somehow they after all of the insults and abuse they felt entitled to that help too. Really?
If something were to happen in Europe today, I wouldn’t care a bit, nor demand that our government lift a finger to help them. American lives should never be sacrificed again for any European. The place could burn to the ground for all I would care.
“They didn’t like us long before Iraq, and they won’t like us 15 years after we leave Iraq. I really believe there’s still a lot of resentment from WWII, and a ton of jealousy regarding our way of life.”
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Exactly! It’s really that simple. JEALOUSY.
We’re the top dogs...they’re not. Their civilizations have peaked, ours hasn’t. Our way of life starts with liberty and freedom...theirs don;t even have a clue of what it means to be free.
besides...those krauts started 2 world wars yet they couldn;t finish...pathetic.
What do we have to do to make it 100%?
Hank (born Gottlieb Mueller to German parents in Brooklyn) should have also mentioned that Germans make the worst tourists. Whether getting drunk at the hotel bar in Miami wearing only speedos or harassing our womenfolk while visiting Italy on a high school trip all those years ago, Germans make the ugly American look downright charming.
They shop the same way in their own country.