Why do Europeans think we're brainwashed and that we have too much trust in our government?

I've recently become aware that much of the propaganda about my country here in America comes from European and from anti-west people. People say that we're brainwashed, that we love war, and that we love our government.

May I be the first to say that don't always love our government, we don't always love war, and that we're not always brainwashed. People have often said that many people are brainwashed here, and, yes, that is correct to an extent. But I don't believe people are brainwashed by the government here. People here are more brainwashed by other things like religion, television, and Hollywood movies and American idol. But NOT by the government.

I'm in college right now, and, I see a lot of people who mistrust the government and rightfully so. They are critical thinkers for the most part when given the chance to think critically. So from my first hand experience being around these people I KNOW that they don't have too much trust in the government. Most people aren't brainwashed by Obama. They just think that he has a chance to change things and make life better here. People don't seem to be as affected by "overt brainwashing" as professional CTers make it out to seem like.

A majority of the people who voted for Obama don't believe that the terrorists hate us for our freedom, if they did, they would have voted Republican again. I think that disproves the notion that many people here in the USA are brainwashed by anti-Muslim world propaganda. Plus, Obama has a Muslim background, so I think the fact that people voted for someone of a Muslim background proves that people here aren't brainwashed by anti-Muslim propaganda.

I haven't met anyone in my state that said that they loved the government, or, who were extremely patriotic. Maybe that's because I live in a liberal state, but, the people here seem to be fairly intelligent. I imagine if Obama screws up they're going to be mad at him too.

I just fail to see how we're brainwashed. I know that our country in its past has done a lot of terrible things. Most people know we declare wars when we shouldn't and we do things we shouldn't do and would probably like to put a stop to that, but, feel powerless.

I just don't see why people say we're brainwashed. Voting is just something we do because we would rather have another leader in power and not the same old guy after 4 or 8 or 2 years. We're not brainwashed per say... I think many people here are just preoccupied with their lives. If they were shown the truth they would wake up too... it's not like people think that we're magically spoonfed everything from the government or that we're brainwashed much... sometimes the government propaganda works on us and gets us to support something that isn't good in the long run like the Iraq war, but, usually we're awake... it's not like we're as big of sheeps as people make us out to be I don't think.

Europeans used to look at the US in a mixture of admiration and jealousy, but that was over a generation ago. Today, they look upon the US with sadness and anger--sadness that it has fallen so far, and anger that it has dragged the world into this financial crisis from its own profligacy, greed, and laziness.

Face it, the US is such a mess--economic, societal, and moral--that that for the first time since the Civil War, and at the end of over 60 years of world dominance after WW II, serious people are seriously contemplating the country's implosion. Unthinkable, even a few years ago.

Read the financial news, to start. Learn how all the protections that would have prevented this depression were systematically dismantles from Reagan onward. It is not that the ones who did the dismantling didn't know the dangers--they didn't care, from their greed. I spoke with wife of the recently retired head of one of the major US investments banks last October, when this all started to implode, and she said her husband, and everyone on Wall Street, knew that this was coming for years, but they all just grabbed what they could while the grabbing was good, whistling by the graveyard. Well, with that attitude, any wonder the US is in the state it is in right now?

As for warmongering, no one does it better than the US. Inform yourself of how many years we have had wars or police actions since WW II, and how many in the entirety of our existence as a nation beforehand. The numbers will shock you. We are basically at permanent war to keep this sick joke of debt and greed and corruption they call our economy afloat.

In short, don't blame the Europeans for looking upon the US as they do; they've been around a lot longer, and haven't been bs'ed by trickle-down (voodoo) economics, housing bubbles. Greenspan telling us we've overcome the economic cycle, and lies of WMD to get us oil reserves and a protectorate in the Middle East.

Our political and economic cultures are breath-takingly corrupt, and we go out shopping. (Or did.) Then come home and stare at the teevee. Our MSM is a joke, parroting the lies proffered us by our gov't. Do you know the Pentagon budget for propaganda is nearly 5 billion dollars a year?

That is $4,800,000,000.00 spent each year to convince you that war is peace, black is white, slipped into your newspapers, magazines and news reports. How much more corrupted can a nation be?

So don't shoot the messenger; Europeans have every right to their opinions. They don't have our personal or national debt levels, our exposure to ponzi schemes passing as financial instuments, or our lust for war to feed the coffers of mulitnational corporations and keep this sorry mess that passes for a country running for another day.

And btw, the US is a corporation, not a gov't. That should tell you everything right there.

Rant over.

Im here in the U.K and i dont think you americans are brainwashed at all, i see a lot of the fake sociopath sheeple mentality but here its worse people really are brainwashed.
I see a lot of ambition courage and open minds there and i do wish that we had more people like ron paul, i have tried to open minds and offer people a better life here but none want to know i could go on forever making valauble points but you get the message.

essentially, we are brainwashed...

We've been taught a version of history that specifically tries to instill a sense of nationalist pride. Great lengths are taken to make sure that our history books provide a hopeful and positive version of american history.

However, Europeans are taught history in a more complete manner... They tend to learn both sides of a story, and are taught more complete history, instead of our american method of memorizing dates...

Its really sad... and most people don't realize it... but if you reflectively look at our school textbooks, you'll realize there are many missing gaps, skewed stories, and gloss overs that if you knew the actual events of history, it would make you sick...

Then, we plan holidays around myths... such as thanksgiving, and make them seem like positive holidays...

The U.S., just like most countries, has a dark and not so benevolent history... we just cherry pick what we teach our children... and they grow up with a distorted and often inflated sense of nationalism...

Not to mention our school curriculum is based on the wrong aspects to learn from history... We are taught What happened on what dates... barely ever mentioning the important question of WHY it happened...

Just think about it... Our textbooks almost forget complete wars... (how much do you think a high school grad knows about the war of 1812?)

reply to post by Frankidealist35


Watch this, and you'll understand -

video.google.com...

Originally posted by nj2day
essentially, we are brainwashed...

We've been taught a version of history that specifically tries to instill a sense of nationalist pride. Great lengths are taken to make sure that our history books provide a hopeful and positive version of american history.

However, Europeans are taught history in a more complete manner... They tend to learn both sides of a story, and are taught more complete history, instead of our american method of memorizing dates...

great post nj!!! I completely agree, we Americans have one of the worst education systems of any 1st world country, probably THE worst. We are taught from an early age to be little patriots, and meanwhile we don't know the half of what has really gone down in our short history. People outside of the U.S. who generally characterize us as fat lazy buffoons, are mostly right unfortunately. It's a stereotype, but sadly it is true in many many cases.

But its true.
Just watch grab a cam and watch yourself on TV

reply to post by gottago


starred gottago


[edit on 16-2-2009 by big gee]

Originally posted by Frankidealist35
I just don't see why people say we're brainwashed. Voting is just something we do because we would rather have another leader in power and not the same old guy after 4 or 8 or 2 years. We're not brainwashed per say... I think many people here are just preoccupied with their lives. If they were shown the truth they would wake up too... it's not like people think that we're magically spoonfed everything from the government or that we're brainwashed much... sometimes the government propaganda works on us and gets us to support something that isn't good in the long run like the Iraq war, but, usually we're awake... it's not like we're as big of sheeps as people make us out to be I don't think.

I agree that many people are just to caught up in life to pay attention to whats going on (thats a full time jobs itself) Also I must mention whats seems to be a contradiction in you post and signature, you sig. says both parties are the same but you post claims we vote for change?

reply to post by frankdatank


No my sig is not in contradiction of what I said.

We vote for change in the hope that it'll make a difference when it's just the same person with a different face.

I DO hope that the parties start to care about us again sometime soon, then, perhaps I can see myself voting for one of them in the future.

Anyhow, back on topic, I just disbelieve that it is government that is brainwashing people. People think we're brainwashed by our government... but I don't think we are. I think we're brainwashed by other things.

TheMajestic
=
Im here in the U.K and i dont think you americans are brainwashed at all, i see a lot of the fake sociopath sheeple mentality but here its worse people really are brainwashed.
I see a lot of ambition courage and open minds there and i do wish that we had more people like ron paul, i have tried to open minds and offer people a better life here but none want to know i could go on forever making valauble points but you get the message.

If it is all like you say, then, I truly feel pity for you in the UK. I hope that things get better there. I'm reading an article in the economist right now about how Gordon Brown over there is trying to get you guys to think that your troops are the best in the world, when, that mightnot be the case. You guys have parades for your troops over there? I think parades would be okay if we were doing well... but I'm guessing more brainwashing goes on over there from what I'm reading.

Originally posted by Frankidealist35
reply to post by frankdatank

 

No my sig is not in contradiction of what I said.

We vote for change in the hope that it'll make a difference when it's just the same person with a different face.

I DO hope that the parties start to care about us again sometime soon, then, perhaps I can see myself voting for one of them in the future.

Anyhow, back on topic, I just disbelieve that it is government that is brainwashing people. People think we're brainwashed by our government... but I don't think we are. I think we're brainwashed by other things.

TheMajestic
=
Im here in the U.K and i dont think you americans are brainwashed at all, i see a lot of the fake sociopath sheeple mentality but here its worse people really are brainwashed.
I see a lot of ambition courage and open minds there and i do wish that we had more people like ron paul, i have tried to open minds and offer people a better life here but none want to know i could go on forever making valauble points but you get the message.

If it is all like you say, then, I truly feel pity for you in the UK. I hope that things get better there. I'm reading an article in the economist right now about how Gordon Brown over there is trying to get you guys to think that your troops are the best in the world, when, that mightnot be the case. You guys have parades for your troops over there? I think parades would be okay if we were doing well... but I'm guessing more brainwashing goes on over there from what I'm reading.

what nation doesnt think there troops are the best and this country has always had parades mainly from the royal guards its just tradition spanning hundreds and hundreds of years.

People are brainwashed from birth to believe all sorts of things, by looking on the internet i dont see Americans as people who love their government but as people who are paranoid about it and pretty much everything else and everyone else's opinions of them, but i know that this is not true its just the nature of the sites i have been reading. Assuming what one nation thinks of another is nonsense because opinions in one room can vary massively, every single thread i see that starts with what Europe think or what America thinks, make me realise that most of us don't know our arse's from our elbows ( me included ) let alone being able to make such sweeping statements.

Dears,

I'm checking your very interesting site for a while. I appreciate very much that the people are openly discussing "hot" issues, very often after few hours from it been released, plus the RSS feed is a very good tool to keep updated.

I'm writing now from Romania, a country from Eastern Europe, which now is part of EU.

I had the first physical contact with North American Continent, in 2004, when visiting Canada.

You should understand that romanians were always under some kind of a siege, never been able to stay sit and enjoy, but always had to take care, otherwise would be wiped out from the map; I'm referring here about lots of people attacking them, because their country were at crossroads between Europe and Balkans.

The toughest period has been the communist one. So, everything you are NOW passing thru, such ID, gun control, spying on people from government, nets of people spying people over their neighbours, diverse draconic laws, all were implemented there, knowing how debilitating on psyhic and physical welfare were. Don't mention, hundreds of thousend of people dead, incarcerated or grusome killed and tortured, just because their neighbour had something against them and then went to authorities saying someting nice, type: "your conspirating against the regime, meet some dubious guys, etc". Was enough that the life of that person, ended as it used to be.

Back to the discussed problem, yes, the North American people (US included) are brainwashed, dosn't matter that by government itself, or by its peers or third parts, or its payees. Whats matter is that. IS NOT TO BE BLAME ON YOU PEOPLE, because everyone under exposure of such tehniques will end same.

You have to stop to believe EVERYTHING. Everything ANYBODY is saying, ME INCLUDED! You should always reporting and crossreferenced with what you know for sure from your or closed one experiences. You should also ask your heart about it! You should ALSO NOT DISREGARD ANYTHING ON REASON IS TOO STRANGE, FLIMSY OR LESS PROBABLE. I know is a very difficult process, incuring to think all the time. You will start to see and understand things which you thought different about. This will increase the level of stress, but after a while this will be a life saving.

People in Romania, meaning the youngsters are falling under same attack from TV, mass media, but there is a hope, because they are true Christian believers, same as you. You should stick to this, because the current war is an assult of evil over the righteous. Because of corrupting and destroying the human beings, is a slap in the face of God, that His creation is NOT PERFECT! Ever person which is shifting to the evil side, is increasing the confidence of the World Ruler, right now.

There is no other way, logically, rationably available to defend yourself, other than Jesus, which is primary reason of the war is waged against us.

In Romania they are in a hurry to implement microchipped Passports, ID's and driving license, without the law being publicised, discussed, just overnight. They first tried the HPV GARDASIL vaccine, but less than 1% of people fall into their trap. They are preparing all sorts of "goodies", such destabilizing the social order, creating havoc in different places, etc. You get the point. People are knowing WHO IS DOING THAT AND WHY. If you go to simple man in the country side you will be shocked how smart, awaken and in the knowledge are those people. And this is not because of INTERNET, but because of GOD. They have Jesus Christ who is their strength, I'm not a preacher or priest or anything. I'm commoner as anybody else, but I know Him is saving us.

We need to stirr the awakening into larger masses of people and I'm positive that the financial harshness is doing a good job toward this. Do not blame people in government, do not blame Israelites or the Torrah Jews, do not blame anybody. Just pray for yourself and the others and open eyes and spread the TRUTH. With warm regards.

Frankidealist35 dear friend!

As an European I think that "gottago" and "nj2day" made great & intelligent posts, they were informative and very well-written from both an "European" and "American" perspective".