Questions for our American friends

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by palo5

But worst of all was Cuba, imho. The only reason Soviet rockets went to Cuba was because US nukes went to Turkey months before. It was a case of "if you have rockets on my border, I want rockets on yours"

But the US media never said anything about that, and when both sides withdrew the rockets, the US only showed USSR rockets being shipped out and said nothing about their own, which had caused the problem in the first place

Cuba is an amazing story of perception and misperception. Krushchev actually wanted a deal, and thought "we'll take our missiles out of Cuba if you take your missiles out of Turkey" would be acceptable to the US.

The incredible thing is that Krushchev apparently knew that the Jupiter missiles in Turkey were going to be removed anyway . . . so what he was offering was a very well calculated climb down from a nuclear confrontation.

Peculiarly, the US rejected that offer -- must have perplexed the Soviets, who'd have thought "we're giving them something for nothing"

Instead, we almost had a nuclear war, and the deal we ended up with "we'll take our missiles out of Cuba, if you promise never to invade Cuba" was actually worse for the US, since we were planning to invade Cuba, and routinely invade nations in the Caribbean and Central America-- a bad precedent to say we wouldn't, more or less contraventing the "Monroe Doctrine".

The moral of the story: assuming that your adversary will understand the subtleties of your intentions, and your political exigencies is a really bad idea. He's got his own political problems, and it will be very hard for him to understand your intentions . . . whenever a political leader claims to understand the motives of another nation, you can be pretty sure that he's probably wrong.

Hard to understand your own nation, next to impossible to understand someone else's

[blueballsdc]

Originally Posted by palo5

Just as trust-reducing is how The West presents information. Like the "We will bury you" speech. That was awful

Our leaders were glorious and righteous and yours were all Godless communists. You can't be expecting to get good press out of us under those circumstances.

As for international news coverage, here in DC (Capital of the Free World, Most Powerful City in the World, etc...) with the embassies and large international community (also known as DF's) we get more than most of the US. The local news will often run stories of non-US issues especially if it is an important subject. We also have a plethora of international news channels. My cable provides me with the BBC, CNN International, France 24, Russia Times, and Al-Jazeera all in English. They also have a number of news channels in other languages.

I travel quite a bit within the US and I always watch the local news. A few years back I was in Tampa and in the 3 hours of local news coverage they had 15 minutes of National news and no international news. Not having any internet access at the time, it drove me nuts.

[Azzluvr]

Originally Posted by Warren G

I don't know about that, Azzluvr. Maybe you're watching the wrong stations. This isn't Iran, or something. After all, we've got probably thousands or tens of thousands of sources here. It's not like we don't have enough international news coverage, or something. I mean, really...if we don't have access to world news..who does?

Point taken; the news is there if you're interested, but for the many Americans who get their news from the "usual" network evening news shows, there's not a lot of non-U. S. coverage. You have to make a conscious effort to search it out.

[sweatyhat]

As an outsider looking in, there appears to be an element of racism in some of the factions who oppose Barak Obama.
Any mileage in this?

[Warren G]

Originally Posted by sweatyhat

As an outsider looking in, there appears to be an element of racism in some of the groups who oppose Barak Obama.
Any mileage in this?

I think there is, I mentioned it before and some disagreed, but a lot of people are of the same opinion. I think the teabaggers especially are racist, they use thinly veiled references to him, like "he's different", or muslim, or socialist, etc. etc.

Of course after living in the deep south for 24 years, I can give you plenty of personal observations on this...plenty, believe me. The word "nigger" doesn't even raise an eyebrow down here, it's just a fact for most folks. (Not all, but a lot). I mean, white Republican southerners...comon', what do you think they think of him?

(And before any southerners here take offense, my mother was from the south, and I have a lot of good friends here that are just plain good folks that I love dearly. There's also a man that's been like a father to me that would give me his last dollar if I asked him to, and I would do the same..so don't even start...that dawg won't hunt.)

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by sweatyhat

As an outsider looking in, there appears to be an element of racism in some of the groups who oppose Barak Obama.
Any mileage in this?

Its a hard call. If you look at the reflexive hatred that the Right had for Franklin Roosevelt, you'd see some similar themes.

I'd say: there's a "paranoid style" in American politics -- race just gets thrown in as one more nasty thing to say, but the Right is no longer a distinctly racist force. They actually do like Herman Cain and Clarence Thomas . . .

This is progress, of a very limited sort. The nation still has paranoid kooks, but the acceptability of outright racism has dwindled.

[Warren G]

They don't like Cain or Thomas, they tolerate them. They are their tokens. After all, they can't appear racist, so guys like Cain and Thomas are acceptable because they are relatively inert.

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by Warren G

They don't like Cain or Thomas, they tolerate them. They are their tokens. After all, they can't appear racist, so guys like Cain and Thomas are acceptable because they are relatively inert.

I disagree on that one-- I don't think they're "tokens".

To me, the split seems ideological, more than racial. They hate Obama, for ideological reasons, and then say pretty much every nasty thing they can think of about him.

It's somewhat similar to some of the anti-Semitic stuff that's said about George Soros. They start out hating the the things Soros is for, and then just go to the big closet of nasty for stuff to say. There are lots of right wing Jews who are part of the craziness, and they're genuinely accepted (see Glenn Becks's weird trip to Israel, for example)

With Obama, who is easily the most unusual person, with the most unusual name, to hold the office of President, I think his "foreign-ness" is more the issue personally.

I've often wondered what the reaction would have been if someone like Deval Patrick or Kurt Schmoke had been the first black president (they're similar to Obama in some ways, Ivy Leaguers, more law professor than politician -- but their backgrounds are much less exotic).

[tygrkhat40]

Originally Posted by sweatyhat

As an outsider looking in, there appears to be an element of racism in some of the factions who oppose Barak Obama.
Any mileage in this?

John McCain was not born in the United States. He was born in the Panama Canal zone. Yet there was not talk of McCain being inelligible for the Presidency.

There is absolutely an element of racism in the criticism of Obama. They critics are just being a little more clever in how they say it.

[blueballsdc]

Originally Posted by tygrkhat40

John McCain was not born in the United States. He was born in the Panama Canal zone. Yet there was not talk of McCain being inelligible for the Presidency.

Actually there was. Funny thing was, it was Bush's people (read: Rove) that first brought up the issue in Bush's first campaign for President. They didn't openly talk about it but raised the question among some of the supporters. When McCain ran against Obama the question was again raised and it was discussed in Congress before it was determined that he was indeed eligible. For me, there was never any question that he was eligible.

There is absolutely an element of racism in the criticism of Obama. They critics are just being a little more clever in how they say it.

There is an element of racism in some of the criticism of Obama. Yes, there are some members of the Tea Party that are racist, but that doesn't mean that all members of the Tea Party are racist. But this doesn't mean that all criticism of Obama is racist. Some people, my father for one, didn't support Obama because he didn't think he had enough experience.

Some people are opposed to Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann. Others were opposed to Hillary Clinton. Does this make them misogynists?