Why such anger towards the United States

Good morning all.. As of late and in my travels through ATS I have come across much anger and hostility towards the United States which just so happens to be the country I reside in as do many of our other ATS members and I have also come under personal attack for being an american and showing pride in being a soldier and being proud to serve my country. Computer insults wont make me lose sleep one bit but I would more or less like to hear input from the community about why it is exactly you hate the United States, I have never sat here and bashed the UK or Australia, Ive never been to either country and wouldnt mind a visit.

Before I hit post and let the masses dive in with their opinions I would like to say a little something... There are many reasons why I love it here and having seen some real nasty places it was great to come home but my goverment is not good, My goverment lies..ALOT and we are having serious financial issues,people are losing jobs. Crap I pay nine thousand dollars a year for property tax, My former president is as dumb as a box of hammers, DICK Cheney is a super crook and there is a new CINC coming to town who I have reservations about but there is nothing I can do about it, We as americans voted him in, Not just the african americans voted him in, Middle class whites and white women voted for him as well as did the latino population, We have serious immigration issues, We have an abundance of undocumented citizens, last I checked it was 13 million in 2007, So there are a few of the reasons and Im sure I missed some and I apologize. We have racism here as well and that extends into the military as well but not as much as one would think but it does exist. I proudly served in the US Army and I have no regrets, It made me into a leader, a teacher, a humanitarian, a friend(which are hard to come by) and most of all a man. My service has been plagued by many embarrassing incidents and it has really shed a terrible light on the american military as a whole and that hurts me because we have some idiots that slipped through the cracks but then again we have many fine leaders as well..Example..Colin Powell. It seems that some of the community has issues with americans being proud of their service in the military and like to express that, I do and I catch hell for it on this site and then there are some who hated their service and I can respect that, I was fortunate to serve with some very professional soldiers and excellent leaders however some did not get that chance and it soured them and I can also respect that because I have met incompetant officers in my travels but that shouldnt warrant personal attacks or bashing of the military. Everybody in the United States volunteers to serve and nobody is forced and to be honest if americans want to own guns let them, I just fail to see why everybody has to get up in everybodys business because they like guns and want to own them.If you dont like guns then dont buy them, Nobody is forcing you to go down to Guns R Us and buy a rifle or sidearm, we have crime here and some of our cities are just like warzones, I live right near Philadelphia and they call it Killadelphia so some like to be able to buy a gun for home protection of themseves and loved ones.It just seems like everybody hates the United States these days and as much as there is some serious issues hurting our country I still love it here and I loved serving my country. Yes our goverment has done some bad crap and deserves to be bashed but not its people..I would love to hear about why maybe you think your country is better off and what would you do to make some changes and what would US citizens do to make some changes..You opinions and ideas are truly welcomed and appreciated!!



[edit on 16-11-2008 by cmd18B]

[edit on 16-11-2008 by cmd18B]

The U.S.A. is one of the most evil empires in history, IMO. I was born and raised in california. I think their is this anger towards the U.S. is because the evil is becoming more and more visible.

A lot of americans give off a vibe that they just don't care anymore. When was the last time you saw a report on the news about all the iraqis that have died in the war? And the fact is most americans don't care. They care for the soldiers doing the fighting, but what about the others?

I told my sister she should'nt buy a hanes t-shirt, because it was made by a child in another country, who was working a 19 hour shift. Her responce was "well at least they have a job."

To me the the majority of the american people just don't care, as long as they are comfortable.

[edit on 16-11-2008 by lucidclouds]

[edit on 16-11-2008 by lucidclouds]

reply to post by cmd18B



I'm a little confused by this. Reading from your post, it seems that you believe this is a fairly rampant problem. Are you honestly saying that all these posts brimming with antagonism and hate for America are just saying 'I HATE AMERICA!!!1'? Nothing in any of these posts actually explains why that particular poster might "hate" America? All these posts are just out of the blue and have no relationship to any particular threads which might provide some context?

Again, you read all these anti-American posts and, even if you didn't understand the actual posts, you didn't think to ask for clarification at the time? If these posts are as rife as you're suggesting, then you passed many opportunities to understand these posters' feelings.

However, if the posts there don't articulate people's (negative) feelings towards America well enough for you, then what makes you think this thread will be any different?

Also, these kinds of threads appear semi-regularly. 'Why do people bash America?' 'Why do people hate America?' and so on. There's been a few certainly since you joined the site.


Oh yeah, in before "It's because they're all jealous! USA OK! USA is the GREATEST country on earth!"


[edit on 16-11-2008 by Merriman Weir]

This is a hard one for me.

I know there are lots of great, intelligent, lovely people in the USA. I'm friends with a few of them.

But, I guess my own "dislike" (I wouldn't call it hatred, that's far too strong a word) stems from the Bush administration and the arrogance associated with their actions. NO nation on Earth should ever believe that it has "the right" to kidnap people from their country and hold them as prisoners without charge, defense or reason. That is just insane.

On the citizen side of it, I am angry that the American people have allowed all of this to continue. Your government represents your people, and if your government acts in such an immensely disgusting way (toward your own citizens too) you should feel ashamed and angry.
Yet most ignore what their government is doing, or actively support it by using their patriotism as an excuse.

This then follows on to intellect. Would an intelligent nation allow their leaders to represent them in this way, without argument?

The majority of non-Americans I discuss politics and related issues with seem to agree that they see America as arrogant, selfish, and immensely corrupt. From the corporate giants swallowing up businesses all over the planet, to the refusal to adopt ecological ideals to help the entire Earth, America seems to be a direct obstacle in the betterment of the Human race as a whole.

On the military front, I feel more sorry for those serving their country than angry at the actions, because you all seem so deluded. You dress it all up in "patriotism" and "pride", what is there to be proud about? Innocent civilians are murdered every day in Afghanistan and Iraq. No Weapons of Mass Destruction were found, it was an illegal invasion for the installation of a new government that would supply oil. Nothing more.
You need no more proof than the fact that the oil fields were the first thing to be secured in Iraq. Not the Hospitals, Schools and civilian infrastructure, the Oil.

Having said all of this, I would like to repeat that I don't believe that this reflects the majority of Americans, otherwise Obama wouldn't have been elected. But it still leaves me with the question of why you don't all do something about it!

I once had a burning ambition to visit America and travel your beautiful country. But I gave up that dream when Bush took power and you all let him do whatever it was he wanted to keep him and his buddies wealthy.
I don't think I'll ever visit to be honest. If you can't fight back against your leader when he takes such incredible steps to destroy freedom, you never will, and I wouldn't ever feel save visiting a nation like that.

Thank you OP, for an interesting discussion. I've never really thought about this so thoroughly before.

There is an extensive list of reasons to dislike America. Anyone who wants to know how disgraceful this nation has become doesnt even have to go more than ten years in the past. The U.S. is constantly sinking to new lows all the time.

One thing I notice is that Americans love to bring up how bad it is to live in some other nations when anyone says anything bad about the U.S. While it is true that there isnt generally as much suffering or poverty here as in other parts of the world, this does not justify the poor quality in treatment of its citizens. In 2007 there were 37 million americans living in poverty. Thats 12.5% of all the people here. This is a country whos GDP is 23% of the whole world. Our debt is up to 10 and a half trillion dollars, and yet multiple wars are waged to line the pockets of certain interests and install a puppet government.

You bring up the war. America has consistently invaded other countries and broken international law time and time again. It is never necessary in defending personal freedom to go into the country of another and infringe upon their freedom. It is also by no means noble to shoot missiles at a country from the ocean. It is NOT only the actions of this government that are reprehensible, it is much more than that. It is the U.S. media which perpetuates the same ideas that the powers that be tell them to. It is the economy of this once great nation which now is content with producing nothing and making money off of stock market gambling.

But most of all, it is the majority of the citizens in this country. It makes me sick how ignorant and apathetic most people are. Most American citizens still believe everything the picture box in their living room tells them. They spend their lives feeding the beast and are content with it. They are selfish and even with all their negative traits still think very highly of themselves. These people have the apathy to watch television and see people starving, genocide being commited, and all sorts of other atrocities being commited. They do not care about evil unless it is happening to them. Then suddenly its a problem.

These are the same people who defend this government and its actions; who support invading a sovereign nation to catch an ideological boogie-man. The fact is the stories in the media about the bad seeds in the military aren't what makes me have no respect for todays soldier. Todays soldier does it themselves. Anyone who follows orders without questioning deserves every evil they have brought into the world brought back upon them. The only time it is justifiable to kill a person is in defense of yourself or an innocent person. If a foreign military tried to invade the U.S. I would be the first to go to arms.

You attribute so much to being a soldier OP. By what you say am I to assume that you would not be any of those positive things now if you hadnt gone into the military? That you gained positivity out of the experience is not a direct result of what occured, it is a result of what you made of yourself out of those events. Im sure youve seen soldiers do a lot less with themselves.

When I was growing up I was taught in school how great our nation was. Americans love to talk about fascist governments of the past and their propaganda, but America is probably the best at it so far. This nation has constantly from its birth said something noble and done the opposite. I love the idea behind America, but I truly despise how far in the other direction things have gone.

The border issue is another of a long list of issues. What truly makes this bad is not just the open border, it is the fact that the ones who run this country want that border open. Otherwise it would be closed. I live in Arizona by the way, if you want to talk about warzones here go a few hundred miles south of me where cartels wage war in the streets.

These things, among others, make me think negatively of the U.S. and a lot of its citizens.

The reason there is such anger towards the United States is the fact that they think they own the world. The United States is a sovereign country just like any other. But they seem to think they are above all the rest of us.

This is the mean reason most people dislike the country as a whole. It has nothing to do with the United States citizens, but more to do with their government and military.

You are totally oblivious to the fact that your government is pure evil. They have turned your attention away from them completely and made you think there is a great threat to America. 9/11 made all this happen, and it was a inside job created exactly for this purpose.

I dont think Americans are any worse than the rest of the worlds population though. Its just that its incredibly obvious how much propaganda you get on the news as "truths" when you see it from a European perspective. Its completely nuts turning on CNN or Fox News over here, I cant stop smiling at the constant barrage of fearmongering and idiotic news presenters. No wonder you dont care anymore when thats what you have to listen to.

Originally posted by Copernicus

I dont think Americans are any worse than the rest of the worlds population though. Its just that its incredibly obvious how much propaganda you get on the news as "truths" when you see it from a European perspective.

This is one of the points that has had me laughing at the threads with the comparisons with Obama's proposed community service programme and the Hitler Youth. America has had other similarities to the Hitler Youth for decades regarding the flag waving; the pledge; the idea that America's way is the right way and that American right is might; how the country should unite to defeat the enemies of the country; how 'if you're not with us, then you're against us - look how frequent this divisive tactic used even on here; and so on.

Yet, some people are being very selective about which things they want to use to compare and demonstrate any similarities with the Hitler Youth. The truth of it is that similarities have been around for decades.

Also, the flip side of protestations such as 'what would you know, Eurotrash? You're not American!' is that it's because we're not American and are distanced from it, that we can see it more objectively. Americans, generally, whatever side of the political spectrum they happen to be on, are immersed in it - whether they think it's the case or not - and really can't see it the way people outside of America see it.

As always, I feel obliged to point out that I don't 'blame' or 'hate' Americans for this, as it's not actually their fault that America is like this. These particular wheels were set in motion before the majority of this site were even born. I'd perhaps even go as far as to say it's not even wrong per se, it's just different from everywhere else. It's only when I'm told for the millionth time, that it's the right way or the best way, that it actually becomes an issue for me.

[edit on 16-11-2008 by Merriman Weir]

Originally posted by detachedindividual


On the citizen side of it, I am angry that the American people have allowed all of this to continue. Your government represents your people, and if your government acts in such an immensely disgusting way (toward your own citizens too) you should feel ashamed and angry.
Yet most ignore what their government is doing, or actively support it by using their patriotism as an excuse.

This then follows on to intellect. Would an intelligent nation allow their leaders to represent them in this way, without argument?

This goverment absolutely does not represent me; there are many, many others that feel the same way. The political machine does pretty much what they want. They are entertwined with corporate power and money and use these connections to keep our people dumbed-down thru the corporate media. This same media works in concert to ignore third parties and ensure that the two main (hopelessly corrupt) parties maintain control.

Our citizens have no recourse when this government goes crazy. The Democrats indicated they would take action if they became a congressional majority in the '06 elections. After they took power, Pelosi comes out with "Impeachment is off the table". And then it's back to business as usual. Some change huh? Unfortunately, the founding fathers didn't foresee a situation where a completely berserk administration would be supported by a completely braindead congress.

We are also witnessing high-strangeness with this engineered economic breakdown. Several congressmen have come forward and stated they were threatened with marshal law if they didn't support the bailout. Rep Burgess made a micro-speech and described what was happening in congress at that time:

www.youtube.com...

Personally, I think our nation is currently under a form a marshal law but it has not been openly declared to keep control of our people. Our citizens no longer have a voice. Apparently, even some of our congressmen can't argue about what is happening.

There is very little, if anything, that we can do at this point. Our political machine is locked-n-loaded -- all we can do is hold on and hope to get thru the next calamity they have in the pipeline.....

Oh no America hasnt taken the evil empire baton yet...that would still remain the UK's,but i can see it compensating just before it collapses...which it will soon.No doubt in my eyes The shift of power is moving to the East.

I don't think that the USA is an evil empire yet. Our government was very evil during the Cold War days. There were a lot of cover ups going on. I think we got a bad rap from the Cold War because people thought we were just going to war to protect our interests and we got a war mongering reputation for it when we were fighting the Soviets. I also think there are a lot of people in our government that lie about the reasons for words. They only tell people what they want to hear. Other nations dislike us because a lot of people in our country are foolish and believe whatever they hear on the news. People in our country don't really think critically and a lot of the people here are fat. There are a lot of reasons that people from other countries have to hate America. I personally think if the government was less aggressive and considered using more diplomacy and the people in here were more intelligent more people would like us.

But yeah, as I have said, there are a lot of reasons why people don't like us.

It has become ok to insult America. All you have to do is pose a question such as... "America, a nation of hypochondriacs and fools?" Then in your topic state that americans are indeed fools and deserve to suffer. What hasnt raised in equality to the people makeing sweeping generalization about a nations intelligence is another persons ability to rebuke somone for making such a thread.

So what im saying is that its become ok to call an American a fat fool, which is very apparent in the threads we have about this topic, but not equaly ok to call that person a fool for making such a statment.

These people dont ever get back the insults they put out. So why would they stop? Its always a net gain for their ego.

reply to post by Wertdagf


Why do you think it has become okay? Do you think it is party based and that they hate us when we have pro-War Presidents or do you think it's just that they are jealous of us and want to take their anger out on us and blame us for the world's problems?

Its just ok in internet society to insult America. There is lack of returning fire so they can just pour out the bullets, because its "acceptable". Forums like these are filled with anti-american sentiment often with no rationalization or understanding behind it. They are people just living out their lives in these nations doing the best they can to get by. If you were to call somone that made such a blanketing statement a fool in return for their simplification of something very complex you would indeed be in the wrong. We are begining to learn that its ok to insult people nationaly while not personaly. So the biggest target is always going to get hit, America. Just dont insult the people that make such insulting accusations.

I can honestly say I have no jealousy towards America. You live in a nation where your rights are disposable, the division between rich and poor is immense, and the leadership uses the stupidity of the people as a weapon to control them; how many times have I seen Bush use the word "terrorist" to excuse even the most flagrant abuses and the people seem to go "oh well, if it stops the terrorist let's let him do whatever he wants".

I'm only surprised he hasn't yet blamed terrorists for the financial meltdown, and you'd probably all buy it if he did. You certainly wouldn't protest about it, you'd pretend it didn't affect you or that it wasn't your duty to argue against it.

And Merriman Weir, slightly off topic, but I love your avatar. Miss Garside is an amazing woman.

reply to post by detachedindividual


Yes, the Bush administration was stupid... I agree... on a number of things.

I'm more positive about the Obama administration. What's your take on him? Do you think he'll improve our relationships with other nations and improve the way that other people see us from other countries?

I believe he'll do what hes told. Theres just to many levels you have to go through to not be "on the wagon" with those that are already there. Im sure bush did what he was told to aswell. Its like an organism because theres just to many powerfull poeple that those decisions affect. They would have to all be in on the choices that are made.

Have you ever read "Making The World Safe For Hypocrisy"? Long read on the internet but well worth it. Might answer the question of why there is hatred toward America.

I don't hate America but I don't love it either. I love the IDEA of America.

I'm not in a foreign country killing civilians so that the fat cats here in this country can get fatter. I'm not raising the price of oil. I didn't vote in any of the House measures or Senate bills. I'm not doing any number of things that are considered hated behaviors. Neither are most of my fellow Americans.

The IDEA of America is that it is a country FOR the people, BY the people. The reality is that it's a country for TPTB, by TPTB with the people providing the labor.

I can understand why other countries hate America. I hate the same things they do but the American PEOPLE are not responsible for inciting the hatred. It's TPTB. Let us at least make that distinction.

I wouldnt even go as far as saying that TPTB are ever americans..... all their money is over seas along with half their mansions. Maybe call them somthing different like financial prostitutes, but not American.

Originally posted by Wertdagf
So what im saying is that its become ok to call an American a fat fool, which is very apparent in the threads we have about this topic, but not equaly ok to call that person a fool for making such a statment.

These people dont ever get back the insults they put out. So why would they stop? Its always a net gain for their ego.

Whatever criticism is levelled at Americans, one thing certainly isn't an issue and that's that they might be unable to dish whatever they get back out. Where have you got this weird idea that Americans aren't 'allowed' or 'able' to dish it out and that other countries aren't allowed to be called on?

What some Americans don't seem to accept that is taking centre on the world stage is a double edged sword. It's not a one-way thing where everyone should be grateful or in awe for any positive things. Instead America deserves to be called on for the negative things that they are connected with, whatever they are.

If this is too difficult to fathom for any reason, think of it in American presidential terms. Bush has just had 8 years and the much of the world and America itself has, rightly or wrongly, railed against a Republican administration. During Obama's tenure, it will be the Democrat's turn to get the flak for America's perceived wrong-doings from both home and abroad.

Now, instead of seeing that on a local level with just American presidents, see it on a global level. America has jostled to secure a place as a kind of world president - in the past, other countries held that place - they should therefore get the flak in the same way that people still love to bring up the failings and the negative elements of the British Empire almost a hundred years after the fact.

If the world is still around in 2108 and America is still getting # for what's happened in the early 21st C, then start complaining. But now, whilst America loves to point out that it's still in the big leather chair at the head of the table, there's absolutely nothing to complain about. If America wants to boast about its superiority, its global influence and power, then it should expect to reap criticism as well as reward and to take the rough with the smooth.