Anti-Americans had me in tears on the Fourth of July

I've just moved from New York City to London, into a little house with a little garden - and it seemed a good idea to throw a Fourth of July barbecue. After years of cramped Manhattan parties, craning out of our air-conditioned apartment window to catch a glimpse of fireworks, I was determined to have the traditional outdoor feast.

My British flatmate loved the idea. "It's a themed welcome-back party," she exclaimed. She emailed invitations to our friends. I bought gourmet sausages, and then suddenly I panicked. Why would a bunch of Brits, anti-Bush and liberal Brits at that, want to celebrate our most all-American day?

Having lived in London on and off for two years, I've realised that young British people don't like America; in fact, now that Bush is waging his war on terror, they hate it. At a dinner party in the autumn, a boy I'd just met said: "You know, basically bin Laden is right." I began to cry. "America oppresses every other country, and really exploits them just to get richer and, you know, crushes them if they try to stand up for themselves. Bin Laden was telling America to mind its own business; it needed to be told."

And all this when my city was plastered with posters for loved ones missing since September 11; when I had just discovered that a friend had died in the attack. Knowing that one of the charges against Americans was that we "take everything too seriously", I apologised for crying.

Since September, most of my introductions to young Brits begin: "Oh, you're American." Then comes a barrage of questions and assertions about Bush and America's place in the world. If you can clear such political minefields, you find yourself with some friends for life, whose political attitudes about America do not extend to their opinion of individual Americans. "So really," I told myself, "stop worrying. These are your cherished friends coming to the party. You can make it through an evening without talking politics, and everyone loves a camp themed party, especially one with gourmet sausages and mustard in a squeezy bottle."

Then I read the "youth" survey in The Telegraph - a huge majority of young Britons thought America was "aggressive", "inward-looking", "concerned only with its own place in the world" and "not a good example to other countries". Thirty-seven per cent thought Bush was either "poor" or "dreadful". I accosted each new guest - even before they had negotiated the red, white and blue balloons that covered our floor - with interview requests. "Please will you tell me what you really think about Bush and America? I swear I won't get upset and really the more honest the better and I know that we disagree anyway." It worked, but not until we had more than a little drink. What a sight: BA literature students, photographers, actors and people in the theatre - all British but me - piling on to a sofa and talking tipsily about politics.

"Well, America," began someone, nestling into the couch and setting her drink on the table. "I really like America, but I don't think their political system inspires much confidence." "Bush is awful - a total idiot," broke in a boy from across the room, and the polite reserve was broken. "Yeah," nodded another friend earnestly. "Everyone in Britain thinks he's horrible; we were really gutted when he won. We wanted the other guy, what's his name? - Gore - to win."

Turning away from a conversation revolving around an Alabama-style chocolate cake that one of our friends had brought us, someone volunteered: "Bush is a homicidal megalomaniac; he wants to take over the world." My friend's boyfriend added a new sort of conspiracy theory: "The US is the world's biggest terrorist. They think that it is fine to go into other countries and pillage them for their own good, but when other countries attack them they call it terrorism. George W welcomed September 11. Look what it did for him. He didn't exactly engineer it, but he wanted to go into Afghanistan because of their oil resources. Do we really know Osama was behind September 11?" "Where did you hear this?" I asked, trying desperately to be impartial. "Well, I pieced it together," he replied. His paranoia was met with approval from some quarters: "Yeah, Bush wants to use 9/11 to start a world war." He was shot down by the others: "He's too stupid to do that."

I wondered out loud why they were convinced that he was so dumb. The answer was a bit feeble: "Our media has hyped him as stupid." But another friend, while pouring us more wine, came to the rescue: "He always messes up the speeches that are written for him and trips over big words." "He's a knob," yelled a friend as she went into the garden to partake of the sausages.

Finally, I went out into the garden to talk to my friend, the war studies undergraduate, who seems the exception to the rule. "There is less to worry about George W than everyone makes out," he said, lighting my cigarette with an "I Love NY" lighter. "He is a strong hand on the tiller and his responses are not wrong. The Republicans pick people for character traditionally and set up a really intelligent strong team behind them. I don't think we have to worry with Colin Powell and Rumsfeld." This inspired a boy who had been quiet the whole evening - "I am the most British person you'll ever meet," he confided, "and I am completely behind Bush and America. So I guess that I don't have anything to say here."

Probably this, not the paranoid anti-Americanism, was the most shocking comment. But it was a lovely evening, and no one got into an argument, except for two Brits about the NHS. The Telegraph poll said that 63 per cent of young Britons think America is a good friend to Britain, and that is what I most noticed at my party. For all their criticism of America and its supposed militant posturing, here were my friends, bearing wine, celebrating the Fourth of July and staying late, long after we wanted to clear up and go to bed.

After all, these were the same people who had called me and my parents on September 11 and sent flowers to lay at the site.

...this is a country that fell apart and lost it when the most eligible babe in the country offed herself in a car wreck...

Stupidity like this makes me wonder whether FR needs an Idiotic Post Of The Day Award, to complement RJayne's 'Quote of the Week.'

You'd win a shelf of trophies, pronto.

Ta, mate! You're right. It's a shame so many here believe the LEFT-WING media of Europe & Britain when they're so quick to dismiss similar rants by our own LEFT-WING media.

Folks, just because it's reported in the Guardian, or Daily Globe, or any of the other UK rags doesn't make it a reflection of the British people (or German or Australian or whatever) anymore than what Dan Rather says reflects OUR thinking.

I have been to the UK, Italy, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, and yes even France--as a GI--and the people I've befriended and been befriended by knew I was a GI--and have found them to be hard-working conservatives like so many here in the USA. Many have even thanked me for serving, remembering the sacrafices American fighting men have made for their own freedom. You really have to see it for yourself. Don't trust what the LEFT-WING media says, no matter what country their rags are written in.

You know, you are right but there is an astonishingly vast amount of Europeans who are increasingly clueless about recent history. I saw a certain Dutch individual actually claim, after disparaging a certain American's education, or lack thereof, that 'after WWII, the US did *nothing* for Europe'...this was on usenet. This is horrifying in that this guy is not alone. All I can do is shake my head and wonder what a really great deal the KGB got when they infiltrated your press and institutions of higher learning.

I am grateful for your help, as I have already said in earlier posts. I merely wish you and your countrymen would not try to take all the credit for beating the Germans in WWI and WWII.

True. One minor detail that seems to get lost in the shuffle, of the major combatants, only America and Britain, followed by Germany at the end, were fighting on more than one major front. The Russians, for all the credit the world wants to give them for beating the Nazis, didn't lift a finger to fight the Japanese. America took a major burden on itself to carry a heavy load on both fronts, it deserves some major props.

You don't even know enough about the American Revolution to realise how important opposition in the British parliament was to its success.

Oh, ho ho...unfair, you're bringing nukes to a knife fight.

And what about the old Americans of the WW2 days, Inkie? Do you think they would have rushed in for a free kick at Britain, on the word of some tabloid journalist? Or do you think they might have said, 'let's focus on our common enemy- socialism'?

Actually, you're right, but the chorus of anti-US sentiment in Britain as well as the Continent, is rising to such a fever pitch at the moment that we yanks deserve a moment or two to stick our middle finger right back at them, our idealogical mates on the other side of the pond excluded, of course. The Mirror used our recent national holiday to take a venemous stab at us, so screw the Mirror 'journalists' and the syphillus-infested whores that bore them.

..if the best you can muster is personal attacks... It's not the 'best I can muster', bozo.

Again, more personal attacks. If you can't prove your argument, attack the person you're debating. We'll probably still have come to your rescue when the chinese beat up on you guys. And they will. It's just a matter of time. Since your socialist government took all your guns away, I doubt your country could protect a 'roo.

Glockmeister, take a look at Babylon's post #202. He's been around the world, and has formed a view from personal experience. Whereas you occasionally watch The Crocodile Hunter.

Face facts : the real war is against liberalism and socialism, both of which know no geographical boundaries. There are gun grabbers in CA and MA worse than anything we have Downunder, let me tell you. My friendly suggestion to you is, forget all the crap you're being told about how all Brits/French /Aussies/everybody "hates the US." It's all lies, designed to divide us. As BobJ said in one of the first replies, "the media is the real enemy."

You know, you are right but there is an astonishingly vast amount of Europeans who are increasingly clueless about recent history.

The USA deserves the credit for finishing off the Soviet Union. I have no illusions that without America's help we British would be speaking Russian, but not German.

The Russians, for all the credit the world wants to give them for beating the Nazis, didn't lift a finger to fight the Japanese. America took a major burden on itself to carry a heavy load on both fronts, it deserves some major props.

The Soviets were a joke, they colluded with Hitler and then almost got finished off by him. Their methods of fighting were also so inefficient they lost many times the number of troops the NAZIs lost. They won because their population was so large they could afford to fight a war of attrition.

It occurs to me that in this hypothetical, you are conceding that Nazi Germany has overrun Europe and is now looking to expand across the Atlantic. Of course, it remains true in this situation that "you'd be speakin' German".

Yes, that's right, its a hypothetical situation. I never said that without the USA's help it would have happened.

I have no problem with you saying that without the USA's help we would be speaking Russian, but not German. Because without the atomic bomb, which was of course completed in the USA in 1945, there would have been a third World War.

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