Um. Why on earth would the article mention that? What does US foreign policy have to do with the life and work of one academic/writer?
Are you under the impression that all Americans (e.g. the Executive branch, and Dr Sharp) are equivalent? Because they're not; they're actually pretty varied, and pursue opposing goals sometimes!
You should live outside USA for a while to check out why that happens...
You don't have to go as far as the middle east, just go anywhere south of the border.
Almost every coup in Central and South America was orchestrated with help, support and/or acceptance from the CIA and Pentagon.
They trained and supported dictators (School of americas, national security doctrine, and so on), that ruled in support of their interests.
That's why that's the sentiment in most of the world about the US government. Some people realize that it's not the main portion of the population the one to blame about this. But given that government after government has followed the same foreign policies, involving in every other nation's internal affairs, it's fair to ask: If the vast majority of the US population would have really opposed to this, there would have been a change by now. The only reason left, aside from indifference, is just that "the defense of the american way of life" seems to be far more important.
The United States, with less than 5 % of the global population, uses about a quarter of the world’s fossil fuel resources—burning up nearly 25 % of the coal, 26 % of the oil, and 27 % of the world’s natural gas.[1, 2]
That explains it all. It doesn't really matters what happens in other countries as long as resources keeps moving, and money keeps flowing. Even if that means placing dictators all over the world.
And that is why you end up with that kind of statements. It won't change, unless your governments start to change. And it doesn't seem to be happening any time soon.[3]
I can't tell if this is a parody or not! A perfect example of kprobst's point with the added comedy bonus that you threw a rant about oil in there too!
If you can't tell that probably means you haven't spent any real time outside the US (and being on a military base in a foreign country doesn't count). I'm glad all the suffering that the US military causes is humorous to you though.
What he meant with "You should live outside USA for a while" is not actually literally living outside the USA, but seeing from the viewpoint of other countries. As in, the viewpoint of the MAJORITY of population of said countries.
In all those countries where the US staged coups or intervened there is a fat-cat pro US establishment. Actually, that goes without saying for coups --you need local allies.
There are also apolitical people all around. HN is not really the best sampling space to get the national sentiments of Latin America.
>It means that the OPs implied assertion that I fit his (probable) stereotype of the ignorant gringo is obviously incorrect.
No. You could still be fitting his stereotype to a T. It's just that his way of determining it was inaccurate (but it wasn't meant to be taken literally in the first place).
"Try living there" should be read as "try walking in their shoes / understanding them", not as "live in that physical space".
One could be living in a country and have no fucking clue how the population thinks and feels. Westerners, with their expat clubs and little isolated houses, are very good at this. But even a local can achieve this ignorance. How many rich americans really know how "the other half lives", be it blacks, hispanics, white trash, etc?
>Not sure how you get that, or even what it means, really.
It means the "general sentiment" about something in a place.
If you doubt that such a thing exists about the issue of american intervention in latin countries, then you don't have a very good grasp of politics and/or reality (at least in this matter).
Simple one-liners often work well to brush aside the real issues, you don't need an argument, just a simplistic phrase that plays with emotions is enough.
May I suggest that you read about who was at fault at what place and when? The current Syrian dictatorship is not US-supported, neither are Iran and North Korea. Does that mean that Britain and US have no part in bringing Iran to where it is today (i.e. 1953)? Do you deny that 2 million Koreans were brutally murdered as a part of an imperial struggle in 1940s? Should we not mention that our one part Republo-crat government gives billions of dollars to dictators around the world and at the same time denies social services to its own citizens because we don't have enough money?
Normally I try to stay out of politics, but this one is really off-the-mark --
> Do you deny that 2 million Koreans were brutally murdered as a part of an imperial struggle in 1940s?
That's... not even close to a correct understanding of what happening.
Without the U.S. forces in the Pacific, Korea gets Japanized by Imperial Japan and Korean culture very possibly would have been eradicated and the Koreans assimilated as entirely as the Empire could have.
Similarly, the Korean War kept South Koreans out from under Kim il-Sung's and Stalin's rule. All of the Korea would be the quality of North Korea without the Korean War...
There's (relatively minor) USA/ROK tension right now, but the two countries have been so incredibly good for each over the last 50 years it's not even funny. South Korean culture is vibrant, the people are strong, inventive, and hard-working, and there's an excellent blend of traditional Korean values and culture along with a selection of Western values, modernity, technology, and infrastructure.
All war is terrible, but America's role in South Korea has hands-down been one of the most positive things the USA has done in Asia, perhaps one of the most positive things the USA has done ever in terms of foreign relations.
I think that your message shows one side of the story and that's the official US side. Like Gore Vidal said that in United States of Amnesia people don't remember anything that happened before last Monday.
Ever read about the 1980 Gwangju massacre? That was a massacre of 2000+ civilians in US-occupied South Korea, carried out by the US supported dictator General Chun Doo-hwan while Carter continued to support him.
http://www.workers.org/2005/world/gwangju-0526/
"They came to the U.S. on the 25th anni versary of the massacre because this is the country that has had the ultimate authority over the South Korean military since the end of World War II. It is the country that allowed a succession of military dictatorships to abuse the people even while nearly 40,000 U.S. troops were occupying the country. And it is the country that explicitly—and this has now been proven— gave the orders that allowed the Gwangju massacre to happen.
And they came here, said Kim Hyo-Seok, to demand of the U.S. government that it “speak the truth, then apologize and pay reparations to the victims.” Kim spent time after the uprising and massacre as a political prisoner.
The U.S. government and the establishment media never talk about the Gwangju massacre. But in South Korea, that terrible event marked a turning point in the people’s acceptance of U.S. military occupation. Today, the majority of South Koreans say in polls that the biggest threat to peace in their country comes from the U.S.
May 18, the day that the uprising began in 1980, is now a national holiday in South Korea and Gwangju reverberates to demonstrations and rallies calling for U.S. troops out. Since the Iraq War began, a focus of those rallies has also been the demand that no Korean troops be sent to the Middle East."
You are correct in that Gwangju is the watershed moment of anti-Americanism in South Korea. It indeed confirmed that US is not on the side of democracy in South Korea, as they legitimized Chun regime and condoned the massacre.
On the other hand, while US formally held (still holds) "the ultimate authority over the South Korean military", what it meant in practice is questionable. US troops "occupying the country" is not really the correct description. I'd say "assented when consulted" rather than "explicitly gave the orders". Many description is possible, but I think the best description of what US did about Gwangju is "nothing".
It is certainly arguable that US should have done something instead of nothing, but unfortunately I don't think that is the normal standard. Also Korean war should be evaluated separately from Gwangju.
I am on board with most of your points, I just wouldn't place too much emphasis on the "diplomatic" actions of America's past. You don't blame a country for its history, you learn from it, identify flaws in the system and change them.. (ie: Germany and Nazism, or U.S and slave trade).
However, a major problem I think is willing blindness, for example: how many Iraqi deaths have been caused by Bush's WMD charade? A lancet study suggests 100,000's... but the American consciousness finds such a figure unconscionable, so it is not reported.
satu,
I agree with you, if the American support for dictatorships had ended then it would have been futile to mention the past. The problem is that this is how the situation is today and it's the same as it was 10 or 20 or 50 years ago.
The Bush's WMD charade surely was indirectly responsible for killing far more than 100k Iraqi civilians, perhaps more than a million. The infamous leaks showed us that the US gov and military were lying about the numbers, the actual number of Iraqis they directly killed was close to 109k back then (no minutes of silence for them on any September day).
Since you mentioned that, what is even less well-known is that Bill Clinton's administration "saved" 500k Iraqi infants from the Saddam regime between 1991 and 1996 by sanctions that refused everything including life-saving drugs into Iraq. What's reported even less frequently is that Secy of State Madeline Albright thought about it:
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1084/
Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.
I'm not blaming fellow Americans for it, we're too busy watching celebrity gossip, who cares whether our tax money goes to kill thousands of protesters via dictators or to kill millions of civilians through our own machines.
You bring up some very interesting facts. Certainly being indirectly responsible for the deaths of millions should probably be keeping big time bureaucrats awake at night, but I sincerely doubt it. There are all sorts of psychological mechanisms that people employ to defend against this sort of cognitive dissonance... and unfortunately it is an easy and (sadly) natural part of being human. In the same way that Americans can eat meat while being blissfully ignorant of the environmental impact (let's not even talk about animal rights), Americans can also ignore what is occurring in dark rooms within foreign countries. It's the proverbial tree falling in the forest. My hope is that better data collection and live streaming will make global situations more 'real' to people. (ie: Abu Ghraib)
I have been in your exact shoes and tried this exact strategy. Hated the exact same things you do. Told every internet forum that would accept me that the US Government has worked in order to support economic interests and supremacy through out the world and in the process has benefitted from and knowingly participated in serious crimes against humanity. I gave hundreds of examples backed by our own documentary record and declassified history. Chomsky style. I could go on for hours on just central America.
It doesn't work. Your words are going to fade into a black hole and eventually only you will remember them. And probably not, even.
This is not going to help you achieve your goals. Detach and think about why. It is obvious.
As satu said below, there's a lot of ways to avoid thinking in what their well-being costs all around the world.
Most people just see gadgets, ignoring the kids killed in Coltan wars. We like to feed our vehicles without thinking about all kind of problems that the very same oil we are using is causing elsewhere. And it's natural, otherwise, we'd get crazy.
But then again, it's amusing when (just to put a silly example) a company changes something in their EULA, and lot's of people start calling for a boycott.
Sad indeed, the news of a a cat being rescued from a tree or Lindsay Lohan on drugs again is more important, that another 4 or 14 Afghan kids were just killed by NATO is not worthy of prime time, not when we are the ones killing kids.
I know what you're saying, but I think that now the average American knows a lot more than she did 20 years ago, thanks to the internet. If it was up to the big media corporations the average Joe would never have found out about the other side, they would only know that we are liberating Iraq, Afghanistan, Cuba, Venezuela etc. I think you must have change the mindset of some of the people that read your stuff, maybe you sowed some seeds of change (and no I'm not talking about Obama who is carrying out some of the same policy and taken some of the Bush policies even further, and has prosecuted more whistle-blowers than all other US presidents combined).
>It doesn't work. Your words are going to fade into a black hole and eventually only you will remember them. And probably not, even. This is not going to help you achieve your goals. Detach and think about why. It is obvious.
It's not about "working" or "success", it's about doing the right thing and telling it like it is.
Also, the "not working" part? Not that true, anyway. It maybe have not worked for US leftists and the SDS et al, but it has worked wonders in many countries, for getting rid of dictatorships, colonialism and such.
No, it's a useless line that sounds like ignorant whining. "Boo hoo, every time I go online someone complains about the US, why don't they just be quiet!"
Why on earth would an article about struggle against dictatorship mention the main force that keeps the dictators in place (i.e. money, the weapons, diplomatic support) when talking about the "dictator's worst nightmare?"
I never suggested that Gene Sharp represents the government or that all Americans are equivalent but it's funny to attribute the recent Arab protests to some book written by Gene Sharp, these movements are homegrown.
Another commentator mentioned Gandhi, his nonviolence didn't force the British out, the threat of violent independence struggle was very real if the British didn't leave. Behind Martin Luther King there was Malcolm X. Nelson Mandela's ANC was called a "terrorist group" by the US in their struggle against apartheid (Mandela's name was on terror list until mid 2008).
https://www.google.com/search?q=mandela+terrorist+list
>Um. Why on earth would the article mention that? What does US foreign policy have to do with the life and work of one academic/writer?
Because 99% of "academics writers" on such issues push US foreign policy, with very few exceptions, like Chomsky (which is not an academic in those fields of study, anyway). Think tanks even more so.
This very article, for example, targets US's target du jour, Iran.
Are you under the impression that all Americans (e.g. the Executive branch, and Dr Sharp) are equivalent? Because they're not; they're actually pretty varied, and pursue opposing goals sometimes!