can't understand American mentality. They must have been brainwashed by the Republican Party and the idiot president. He looks stupid naturally; everywhere he goes he makes an asshole out of himself and what is sad is that it reflects on all Americans. They are the laughing stock of the world. How he became president a second time is beyond me. He emotes stupidity. Microphone on or no microphone on! Stjepan Misic Croatia

Americans in general are no more stupid or brainwashed than any other electorate. Ok, maybe a little bit more but not much.
Without exception all the Americans I know or have met do not like or support George W Bush.
I voted for Tony Blair. TWICE! What was I thinking? I've gone on at great length in various threads about how I feel about the way I was betrayed and decieved so I'll not say more here, but you get the drift. Let us turn though, to Canada and Italy. Italians voted more than once for a media tycoon who patently rigged election campaigns and broadcasting in order to remain in power as well as changing laws whilst in power to avoid prosecution for corruption. This didn't stop Italians voting for him though. Are they all stupid and brainwashed? Probably, a bit. But it didn't last. Now Canada has decided that even though their country is seen by the rest of the world as sane and stable (except Quebec) and viewed enviously by Americans as a haven of politeness, tolerance and liberalism, the Canadians have elected a rightwinger. Nations constantly fall into the trap of beleiving the tough talk and the posturing and the rhetoric of how everything is awful because... (at this point you have to add in all the things like immigrants, illegal or otherwise, refugees, homosexuals, lesbians, latinos, jews, blacks, people who want to burn flags in protest at something, politicians who think everybody should get something for a nominal fee even free and paid for by the entire working population, being too nice to criminals not executing people, all the same old tired failed evil cruel nasty claptrap). They believe, or at least a significant proportion of people believe, that by preventing say two men from getting married, the world wil be a better place to live and their children will not be raped by paedophiles on the way home from gym class. They are also prepared to accept that on balance it's OK to keep allowing palestinians and Lebanese to keep dying because to do otherwise would be bad for some reason too complicated for them to fully comprehend but it must be OK, because Secretary of State Rice says so.

After a while. Sometimes too long a while, (Nixon, Thatcher and now Bush) the electorate wakes up to the fact that the right is actually wrong and the left, whilst not having ALL the answers can in fact run the economy, (Bill Clinton, Gordon Brown) and don't rush into global military conflict because they think their daddy will be imprerssed. Blair is a nutter, as is Bush. The right will always fail because they refuse to learn lessons from the past. The left will always be the more successful in terms of social policy and wealth distribution but the electorate will always, once a few years of prosperity have addled their brains, forget. Or believe Lies and the lying liars who tell them.

It's not an American mentality. It would seem to be a quirk of human nature.

Yikes, I thought people who posted here were intelligent enough to not make broad statements about a group of people. "Americans" are diverse with many different viewpoints and beliefs. I admit to taking offense, oblak_21, especially when you consider our president really did not fairly win either election. And I think if you look at his approval rating you would see that most Americans have seen the light. I was never a supporter of his, rather a staunch objector, and for you to include me in your statement is not only wrong, but rude. Are you from Croatia oblak_21?

Thank you, Martyn, for having the patience and energy to write such a reasoned and intelligence response, and saying what I'm too tired to!

I second that appreciation as well Martyn.

i just want to say as an american i am not envious of canada.

Not even a teensy weensy bit?

They might have socialized medicine and Toner and Jilly and EJim, but their weather is even worse than Michigan's.

nope, not really. a nice place to visit and i've never had a bad time in canada but i don't think it would suit me to live there.

Yes i am from croatia..
well i hope that there is somme inteligent people in the Us. BUT..itis a shame that they are minority...i have read some posts on youtube where people kill people...the comments were.." a man did you seen that wow, we rock we are number one." 50 % approves that fighting against terrorism includes ocupation of foregn countrys, foregn iraqi oil,foregn water in aphganistan...
bush claims thet he wants to import democracy in that countrys so that nocolonialist americans could leagaly exploit all kind of neded resurces on islamic coutrys who have invented the writing...that is the key..whille you americans are geting richer and richer the people get poorer and poorer..and while theya are poorer they become terrorist...why are this terrorists from 3 world poorest countrys? dont quite understand..

You know i edmired us space program and their misions..but now..when i see what is happening and what your legal preisdent is talking about i dont have opinion of a better tomorow..
The Un is now nothing...the american farmacetical company has more power and influance then this world organization...this smells like the 3 world war to me..

I was going to ignore this thread, as Martyn said much of what needed to be said, but I feel I must respond to this latest post.

There are obviously many intelligent people in the US. This is perhaps best shown by the desire of people from all over the world to come to the US to study at American universities. You may have heard of places like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, etc... Beyond that, literacy rates in the US are among the highest in the world (see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_count...y_literacy_rate ).

Are intelligent people in the minority in the US? Of course it depends on your standard for intelligence. Certainly there are extremely intelligent people, and extremely ignorant people, but most people fall some where in the middle.

What I think you are suggesting is that people in the US are less intelligent because they believed President Bush when he suggested in the lead up to the Iraq war that this war would reduce the threat of terrorism on the US. Many people believed him because they did not expect that he would so brazenly lie to the American public. They were clearly mistaken. Ultimately, one of the real signs of intelligence is the ability to learn. And this, the Americans have done.

For example, I'm not sure where you get your figures, but I don't believe 50% of the American population believes anymore that the fight against terrorism has benefited from the invasion of Iraq. You can see here http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm that:

61% believe that invading and occupying Iraq has motivated more Islamic terrorists to attack Americans and the United States.

56% believe that spending huge sums of money to invade and occupy Iraq has meant that a lot less money has been available to protect the United States against another terrorist attack

58% do not believe that invading Iraq has helped to reduce the threat of another terrorist attack against the United States.

Let me also add, that other coutries joined the US war against terrorism committing troops to either Afghanistan or Iraq -- countries such as... oh, I don't know... how about Croatia, for example. Yet, I would not call Croatians stupid because that would be a gross generalization.

Unfortunately, it seems to me that you are generalizing about Americans based on the country's leader. That would be like saying all Croatians were brutal mass murders because Milosevic ruled Yugolslavia in 1990. Hardly fair, I would say.

canada,italy..i am not talking about them...i am talking about the united states and their foregn politics...italys berlusconi is this and that..a clown maybe..why do you change the subject over two american servant countries who are hooked on us becose of money..the only thing that God didnt invent.

becose of inserting"democracy" in 3 world coutrys who poses somme neded resurces, becose of 20 years war in aphganistan that crippled the soviets,that was the plan in the first place, now te us have bases in all aroun ex soviet republics becose they are keeping rusians at bay.. Then they dont have pretensions over foregnt dictarorship or regime..? c mon..all around the world the CIA works..in every country that us has some use they instal CIA elements...when they cant penetrate the regime..then they penetrate with misliles and bombs..
i mean in croatia whitch was yugoslav repubic raged war and the italians didnt bother...but when the us starts to be on offensive in iraq well then they sent their troops no mather about Un resolutions...
Us, england and italy...you know i am starting to think that the us has hidden goals..and they have a click which commands all of that...let me if i may write something about history...first they schooled talibans in afghanistan on how to be a guerilla. that is how the soviet union colapsed..noked up saddam hussain and helped him attacked the all hated iranians...and who knows what..

And this shit with lebanon...The US started this shit there...it doesnt matter that the people are dying..what is matter is that the american arm factorys and companies are making profit...
all that becose of hesbolah? Beirut is a stonehenge,lebanon 300 years back...
all becose that you american would be able to feel safer and happier..

When i was in high school i learned english (my bad that is bad) a learned ancient history about iraq, iran,greece...and learned to respect them...i learned the firs civilizations from asia to europe...the us wasnt in plan..
and in the worst type of school in the country..(could be like your schools in the projects)

but you dont learn nothing about asia,or eather other coutry exept yours in the high school do you?

i apologise for my bad language writing...

I think you might have missed Martyn's point. Are Italians idiots because Berlusconi is a clown? After all they voted for him...

And, why are the Croatians supporting the US in Afghanistan? Is Croatia a servant country or is it hooked on the un-godly dollar?


No apology required. I'm impressed you write as well as you do in a language that clearly isn't your first.

That being said, international studies are an important part of curriculum in nearly every high school in the US. Your claim that the US students don't learn anything about other countries is another ridiculous generalization.

Take it easy Oblak. I think we're all basically in agreement on this forum. George W. Bush is an evil troll. But the vast majority of the American people are not stupid or evil because barely 50% of them voted for him.
Most of us will continue to maintain to our dying day that he LOST both elections and STOLE them from the Democratic candidate both times.

I reckon if I could speak and write croatian as well as you can speak and write in english we'd have a better understanding of where each of us is coming from in this debate.

Take a look at some of the other threads. You'll see how most of us feel just by looking at the I Hate George Bush, I Really do. thread.

Do you really think the US started "this shit in Lebanon"? I will make no secret of where my sympathies lie on the question of the struggle for Palestinians to be treated with respect and dignity by their "captors" but the mindless cretins that make up Hezbollah were the ones who kicked off this latest debacle. They did it deliberately knowing that Israel would respond with the over reaction and the brutality we've seen thus far.

The US administration like that of the UK has to live with their obscene decision to refuse to call for an immediate ceasefire. I can't get my head around that at all. But all this doesn't mean Americans are any more stupid than any other peoples of any other country.

Men with guns come. It doesn't matter how well educated or illiterate you are. It doesn't matter how liberal or authoritarian you are. It doesn't matter what you believe or hold to be true and good or what you think is bad or evil.
Men with guns come and they kill you. It's not your fault.