Monday, September 22, 2008

ARROGANT YANKEE, UGLY AMERICAN

Me: I’m getting kinda tired of that arrogant bunch of old-world snobs and know-it-alls commenting on anything American.

Dammit, the Euries should learn to shut the intercourse up, and just keep quiet until we ask them their opinion.
We've saved their donkeys three times (WWI, WWII, Cold War), the least they could do is JUST SHUT UP.

--- ---

Other Person: He can rant all he wants. This is just the typical arrogant Yankee response to criticism, even when it’s the truth. In my opinion, assuming I’m entitled to one, Palin is horrendous. Maybe when we keep our noses out of the world’s business, they’ll stop commenting on ours. We even try to influence other countries’ elections, as though having our own rigged isn’t enough to keep us busy.

--- ---

Me: Thank you for allowing me the privilege of ranting. And thank you for calling me a Yankee - a term applied every single day of my years in Europe, and not in affection. I'll take it as a badge of pride.
The rest of the world is a cesspool, and as far as I'm concerned they can stew in their own foul juices. Screw them, and screw the ratty camels they rode in on.

--- ---

Other Person: Please keep me off your future rants. The Ugly American lives and thrives in all his bigoted splendour.

===============================================


Note:

I do not mind straightforward honest criticism – the kind of criticism that one both expects from and offers friends and equals.
[The operative concept being a sense friendship and equality, on a larger scale than just the individual level.]


What gets my goat is the sneering, condescending, and patronizing tone of pretty much all negative foreign commentary about the United States – the attitude that radiates dislike of American religion, American politics, American coffee, American entertainment, American popular culture, American values, American products, the American form of government, and Americans in general. Everything American, in fact.


I particularly resent the opportunism and overweening sense of superiority and self-importance of the people delivering the negative foreign commentary; get over yourselves, you people really shouldn’t talk – you’re no great shakes yourselves, and your societies, if they are actually livable, have only been so a short time. Which, coincidentally, is only since our involvement with the rest of the world – there may be a link there, and you might want to look into that. Before then, you were all brutal dictatorships, oligarchies, and class and caste ridden tyrannies.
Every single one of your societies has history of viciously quashing dissent, persecuting minorities, and exploiting and enslaving whoever could not resist, plus warfare, extermination, and ethnocide. You lot are much better at being brutes than we are; you-all had a lot more practice.


Feel free to comment on this – but please leave your anti-Americanism at the door. Thank you.

13 comments:

Spiros said...

There you go, dragging your goat into the discussion again. Does he eat panties?

Tzipporah said...

hmm, Other Person seems pretty reasonable, given your ranty-ness. sounds like there was an unreported precursor to the rant.

Anonymous said...

He probably irritated them with some typical Yanquismo. Something arrogant and xenophobic. Underneath his sweet fubsy exterior he's a sexually hungry bitch.

Hence, of course, the panty obsession he shares with Lev and Spiros.

I, however, am quite normal.

Well, other than the penguin thing, that is.

Smooooth, silky, sweet penguin feathers, mmmm....., so redolent of a cool arctic environment, with free refrigeration for all! Why, one could keep one's left-overs forever! And share them with the bright intelligent penguins. The sweet and calm and gentle penguiiiiins!

Oh yes. We are at present having no bloody penguins, alas. So sad.


---Grant Patel

The back of the hill said...

Tzipporah, the praecursor consisted solely of the first text (Me: I’m getting kinda tired throughSHUT UP'), plus an article about British cabinetrix Hazel Blears calling US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin 'horrendous'.

Quote: "One of the reasons why Sarah Palin has been such a phenomenon is because she's anti-politics, anti-Washington. Her politics are horrendous, but actually she's struck a chord with people - 'I'm a maverick, I'm not part of those powerful people' - and people identified with that."

That in fact I agree with the fringe Brit political bitch on this is neither here nor there - I am fed up with the rest of the world and their opinions.

The person who responded with the "He can rant all he wants" and "Please keep me off your future rants" e-mails has made it a habit of hers to send snide and sarcastic e-mails about rednecks, hicks, republicans, red state voters, dumb Americans, and religious types.

At this point, she and I are no longer on speaking terms (for the foreseeable short-term). Which is fine by me - it means I no longer have to put up with her sneeringly petulant distaste for both the US and the people of this country.

Anonymous said...

Do penguins love us?


---Grant Patel

Spiros said...

I like beavers.

Anonymous said...

How do you cook them?



---Grant Patel

Anonymous said...

As a Euro pee'rn all I would venture is that N. American women are thrust at us via the media - and sooner or later we have to puke - Britney, Lindsay & her girlfriend, Hillary, Sarah the Impaler - Nancy Reagan - The Osmond sister - Madonna - Miss Monroe - The Jackson sister - S. Jessica Parker - Trumps & Hiltons - Desperate Housewives, Lady Bird & Diana Ross - to mention only a few.

where did all your menfolk go?

Jonlook-p'krd is a Brit.
Dr House is a Brit.

You spend MILLIONS of dollars in politics and all we are given are M'Cain & the Impaler versus the The Obamas - a Cosby family to vote for.

Seriously unimpressed folks!

Graham

Spiros said...

Margaret Thatcher, Princess Di, the bloody Queen...

Against this you give us Patrick Stewart and Hugh Laurie?

What about Blighty's menfolk?

Anonymous said...

Graham,

Perhaps the Europeans are fascinated by American women, and would like to imagine a world without American men? It is, after all, their broadcasters that both buy the product, and broadcast it to the masses.

I suspect that most European men have fond fantasies about sleazy encounters with loose Yanqui mujeres, who will soon leave, and whom one doesn't have to introduce to the parental units.

Nobody fantasizes about American men.

Tits are, after all, more appealing than ten gallon hats.


---Grant Patel

Anonymous said...

And misbehaviour feeds stereotypes, whereas a serious programme might give people the impression that there is more to Americans than meets the mental eye. Complexity? Good heavens, nobody wants that! Lets watch some more stupid entertainment from the heartland of stupid entertainment; that's what they're there for.


---Grant Patel

Anonymous said...

I do not wear a ten-gallon hat, by the way. I do not have a ten-gallon airhead.

That's why I watch American television - to see how the other halfwit lives.


---Grant Patel

Anonymous said...

And his European cousin too.

I love inbred. You pale-complected people represent a very narrow genetic spectrum, you know. Almost Parsee in it's intensely limited focus.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.


---Grant Pateinfeld

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