Hello fellow ATSers from abroad (not the United States)

a reply to: Sheye

You must be from Alberta. USNorth.

originally posted by: seagull
a reply to: veracity

Now how is it you know that is the opinion of "most" Americans? By your own admission you don't travel, or not much, so how is it you have such a learned opinion on what "most" Americans think?

I just know what is bs and what is factual

originally posted by: burdman30ott6
a reply to: veracity

No, you misread. What I was saying is that the mythos of Indian "spirituality" was largely a Hollywood construct that put butts in seats. Those butts were fascinated by portrayal of mystical spirituality in absence of a Christian God.

I've got history (both personal and family) in Indian country... while not all of it is BS, a lot of this "at peace, one with nature" business is total smoke and vapor. They were survivalists, not spiritualists. And warring between the tribes wasn't "a few bad apples" it was their way of life. The Comanche, Apaches, Sioux, Cherokee, the Ojibwe... all would have sooner cut another warrior's head off than have a sit down talk of peace and nature with them. The Anasazi chopped down every tree in Chaco Canyon to build their communities... these trees never came back. Lookup a potlatch sometime... the tribes who celebrated it tended to turn them into parties of oppulence and wanton waste... and this was long before the "white man" came to America to teach them of such foreign concepts. Most of the virtues attributed to the tribes in relation to their "in harmony with nature" claims can also be directly attributed to ANY settler who pushed a wagon west into the pioneer lands. Those settlers used all the parts of the animals they killed too, they also used seasonal clues to tell them when to plant and when to harvest, they did what was needed to survive.

I'm not throwing hate on the Indians here. I'm simply saying that society has romanticized the Indians of old to mythical status when, in reality, they were just other humans who's crap stunk just like everyone else's did.

It doesnt take much research to realize that they were one with the land and a very peaceful people. They were portrayed as scavengers bc that is what the government at the time wanted Americans to believe, bc they were so terrible to them. They wanted the majority to side with them while they took their land away time and time again, then had them executed. Then they passed laws to make it legal to take their children away to force them to be like the whites, all the while their way of living was (in my opinion) much more peaceful.

Talk about fake news, the portrayal of Native Americans by the gov't and media in early 30's on was fake news. Remember the cowboys & indians movies, how the indians were always the bad ones and the cowboys good? That was like Apple Pie or Baseball back then, token American. It was fake.

Is this what you believe Native Americans to be like?
www.youtube.com...

I am an expat retired USAF vet living in the UK. I thought Bush was a criminal. I thought Obama was gonna do some good, then realized he was an unqualifed azztard. Hilliary should be in jail and Trump has great ideas but is killing it with his dumbazz tweets. America has lost its shine after 9/11 specifically. We tell other how to act, yet we meddle in others elections. Americans are hippocrates, we tell others to do x and we re-elect fools with 9,000 sq ft cribs. ..over, and over, and over.
I love the U.S. but we are s£$%t for brains from where I stand.

Having said that, the UK healthcare is awful....One has to wait weeks for routine surgery and if you are old.....fuggitaboutit. You gonna die. Pray to god you have property so you can sell it to pay for your end-of-life care. Or---knife crime is as bad as guns in the US, but shhhhhh. we dont speak of that. The BBC is bias..go figure. 95% negative reporting. They are like the CNN of Europe ...at least in the way of US reporting. Never mind that Neville Chamberlin is on the verge of being Prime Minister.

originally posted by: veracity

originally posted by: seagull
a reply to: veracity

Now how is it you know that is the opinion of "most" Americans? By your own admission you don't travel, or not much, so how is it you have such a learned opinion on what "most" Americans think?

I just know what is bs and what is factual

I have more left leaning friends from both coasts that routinely tell me how horrible I am for not supporting $15 an hour for minimum wage.

Yet I know paramedics in the middle of the country that started at about 17 an hour , I know mom and pop stores that the entire family works in with 1 or 2 people because that is all they can afford to add at minimum wage.

So in 1 case you are telling me a burger flipper is as important as a paramedic, and in the other your telling small business owners sucks to be you when they have to fire their only extra help. The only friends that ever came around to my way of thinking are the ones that visited me in Oklahoma and saw for themselves.

The purpose to saying those two examples is that if you have not been there, some times it is hard to understand the cultural differences.

a reply to: Irishhaf

If a qualified doctor wants to accept a job for $17 an hour, then that is his choice. If a person cannot afford to pay workers a good minimum wage and health insurance, then they do not need to be opening a store and they must look for work elsewhere.

That is not saying I do not support small businesses, I support treating people fairly.

People first.

Then build your business if you have the money to, if not...look for work elsewhere. Simple.

a reply to: veracity

It is what the market can afford, it has nothing to do with taking care of their people.

Remember people in the Oklahoma can get a 2000+ sq foot home for a mortgage payment that would not get you a 150' studio apartment in San Fran.

that is what many people miss, things are different in different parts of the world and often it is hard to see that persons point of view if you have never experienced it.

It is not really a knock on you or anyone, its just a simple fact that not everything can be quantified from X many miles away.

a reply to: Irishhaf

i can agree with you that minimum wage increases should depend on the market, but isnt it a federal decision? so it goes across all states?

a reply to: veracity

The current Minimum is a federal (7.50 or whatever it is), states can push it up if they want but not less than the federal I believe.

I did not mean to derail, just trying to use minimum as an example that some things that drive people nuts about the middle of the country cannot really be explained without being there.

Also even if you live there, there is so much variety from town to town if you do not travel and sit at a bar striking up conversations (or a coffee shop) it would be unfair to judge all of them by one localized experience.

And yes this applies the other direction as well, the majority of Muslims are no different than I am. They want a decent job, a safe place to raise a family and a better life for their children.

The problem I personally have with them is they do not speak out against the minority that are shooting up concerts, or blowing themselves up among innocent people. Now more are starting to speak out, and that is a very good thing it brings islam closer to the reformation that is desperately needed.

The same goes for Politics, I saw a Van Jones piece where he went to Michigan I think it was and sat down with a died in the wool Democrat family that voted for trump to ask why.

The gist of their reasoning involved Hillary did not seem to care about their problems, and Trump showed up talked and appeared to listen.

Anyways I am starting to wander now, and I still have a paper to write by midnight CST so I should probably get on that.

a reply to: veracity

Despite posting regularly on a board (this one) that demonstrates rather conclusively that not all Americans, or even most, think alike...

OK. You win.

a reply to: seagull

What do i win?

originally posted by: veracity
Is this what you believe Native Americans to be like?

Do you believe archeologists?
www.science20.com...

"If we're identifying that much trauma, many were dying a violent death," said Kohler. The study also offers new clues to the mysterious depopulation of the northern Southwest, from a population of about 40,000 people in the mid-1200s to 0 in 30 years

blogs.scientificamerican.com...

"Contra leftist anthropologists who celebrate the noble savage," the Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker wrote in 2007, "quantitative body counts—such as the proportion of prehistoric skeletons with ax marks and embedded arrowheads or the proportion of men in a contemporary foraging tribe who die at the hands of other men—suggest that pre-state societies were far more violent than our own."

www.culturalsurvival.org...

The recently accumulated evidence, however, refutes this concept of ecological nobility. Precontact Indians were not "ecosystem men"; they were not just another species of animal, largely incapable of altering the environment, who therefore lived within the "ecological limitations of their home area." Paleobiologists, archaeologists, and botanists are coming to believe that most tropical forests have been severely altered by human activities before European contact. Evidence of vast fires in the northern Amazonian forests and of the apparently anthropogenic origins of large areas of forest in eastern Amazonial suggests that before 1500, humans had tremendously affected the virgin forest, with ensuing impacts on plant and animal species. These people behaved as humans do now : they did whatever they had to to feed themselves and their families.

www.ohio.edu...

It is also important to establish that the practices of the Iroquois were more than the exaggeration and hearsay of excitable Frenchmen. The Iroquois surely performed torture upon war captives; many European settlers viewed first-hand the mutilated body-parts of war captives. However, there has been some doubt in the current century that cannibalism was really practiced by the Iroquois. Anthropologist W. Arens proposed in 1979 that there were no first-hand accounts of flesh eating among the Native Americans, and thus no solid proof for cannibalism. This controversial view has been refuted since, for there is indeed ample evidence in The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents alone to prove Arens’s thesis wrong. With this assertion in mind, it is now possible to inquire why the Native Americans performed these appalling acts.

So...

they were one with the land and a very peaceful people

is complete bullsnip according to individuals who make their living researching and studying the historical records and physical evidence for decades of their lives. Obviously we'd be wise to give them due diligent respect based on the fact that they are experts in this topic while you and I are not.

a reply to: veracity

Y'know? I've no idea...

Let me think on it for a bit.

originally posted by: LesMisanthrope
a reply to: veracity

results come from what you call " looks". Caring how other countries perceive us is actually not all all caring about how we "look". Its expanding your mind to take in what others perceive as faults and finding a way to improve. An extremely intelligent person knows they always have something to learn, and know they do not "know it all" (thinking you know it all is actually what lower intelligent people do). Learning from others is one sure way to expand and become better.

Obama was very intelligent, its not surprising he cared what other countries thought about America.

Results do not come how other countries perceive you. Most of the time those people, like the majority of people throughout the world, know America through media, advertisements, movies, but have never travelled there nor even talked to any Americans. Their perception is derived from propaganda. Their perception is false.

I think you need to learn some history.

Good luck getting trade, allies, poltical, UN support, unilateral agreements etc...plus a bit rich the accuse the rest of the world of not travelling/talking to Americans seeing how few US citizens own a passport/travel overseas and the blueprint for fake news.

Plus the Blueprints for press, advertising, political, military and regime change action. Taught as 'Strauss's Continental Philosophy and Bernais 'Hidden Persuaders (guide to subliminal propaganda)

Said Qut'b - the inventor of Islamic terrorism visited the US for several months on behalf of Egypt adn waas disgusted how Americans spent more time caring about their lawns than each other throuh radical invdividualism which he saw of the collapse of society nations (probably why you have only two parties and such virtiol on left and right instead of working together to help cuontry and each other).


Qut'b was imprisoned by Egyptian guards who were trained by the CIA in torture - he was smeared in fat then had starving dogs set on him and suffered a heart attack - the former leader/mastermind of Al Qu'eda was one of his supporters as they all saw the US individualism as a great evil - which has caused the deaths of millions all over the world and directly led to 9/11.

It also led to the Cold War - Two CIa teams (A and B) were created. Team B were made of non-inteligence officials based on known views strong anti-USSR and pro military strikes on Russia. Rusmsfelt and Wolfowitz were on Team B - before the operating being Wolfowitz called for taxtical nuclear wae on USSR

Here in other #ries you have good journalists like Fisk, Pilger, Goldacre, McKenzie who have spent 40+ years in journalism and never got a fact wrong (and are some of the only journalists I bother to read as they're much better journos than myself and accurately predict most wars/conflict months in advance due to expert knowlege.

One the ssurveliance conluded and they found absolutely no evidence on any dvancement or effort to adavance a nuclear programs. The untrained Team B, argued against the CIA and Team A (trained reliable experts) they were so desperate for war they claimed a complete absense of evidence was conclusive proof the weapons wer so much more advanced than US they were undetectable and would launch all their nukes at he US within 10 years (1986).

The US on the other hand copies and pastes it's content off AP/Reuters then had a load of clueless 'edutainment' talking heads maing up what the audience wan't to hear/what grabs ratings and more money via ads.

---


As for the earlier poster ftalkign about the Ukraine, in months leading up to the Russia tensions, the US ilegally installed the leader of the anti-semetic, white supremicist, far-right party Svoboda - breaking the Ukranian constitution and peace treaties designed to stop conflict between Russia and surroundign states. The assualt on the EU- Russia peace agreements caused China.

It was the same in Georgia (initial small invasion was conducted by Georgian tanks and troops - only a few dozen tanks so hardly a full army but it spiralled from there.

a reply to: Nikola014

It seems a large population of our race has become dependent on getting a like on FaceBook, or Instagram, or Twitter.

Or a flag or star right here on ATS

a reply to: bastion

thanks , people do care more about their lawns than their neighbors, even their own dogs...its disgusting.

We ARE a very selfish nation.

No healthcare for the poor...let them die

No contraceptives for women...close their legs

Money, houses too big for the inhabitants and material things hold importance to people, not compassion and caring for others.

Its like we have turned into mini-zombie-demons. I blame religion

Usa
Bad points
Environmentally damaging the earth
starting wars for profit
religiously barmy
racist especially police
police state mentality
gmo friendly
overeaters
over comsumers see 4 x 4 cars
hunting mad not healthy eaters i.e fat, we are copying this trend in the UK
Loud annoying and pushy, not all just most who are tourists
health services doesn't work for everyone
all about money and shallow concerns to looks
treats native american's badly
doesn't look after it's former soldiers
CIA and FBI control foreign policy, agency has too much power over government
is corrupt in government, lobbying bad
CNN is awful
Food stamps and welfare spending at minimum
drug and gang culture as they don't have any jobs I guess
prisons used as a workforce, too many in prison especially from ethnic groups
NGO's taking over the world
Watch too much tv making them dumber than they should be
pharmaceutical industry killing more than it fixes
selling off parts of USA to China
TSA is full of perverts so travelling there isn't a priority
See's people as units of currency/profit

good points
good teeth although always going on about UK bad teeth
brave, generally a brave nation
outgoing & friendly
adventurous
beautiful country
speaks a similar language
is a country of immigrants, a lot from the UK, so shared ancestry~diversity
most of the good things like the pioneer spirit are in the past
freedom of speech
education is for all up to secondary school.

UK has been killing its disabled people so if I wrote this about the UK it would probably be a terrible list too.

a reply to: burdman30ott6

Native Americans were violent...yes. I do NOT disagree with that.

If your family and neighborhood were being attacked, raped, pillaged... wouldnt you be violent?

They fought back...for survival.

In 4th grade playground terms...the Whites killed first

a reply to: freetheworld

thanks for y our honesty.

originally posted by: veracity
a reply to: burdman30ott6

Native Americans were violent...yes. I do NOT disagree with that.

If your family and neighborhood were being attacked, raped, pillaged... wouldnt you be violent?

They fought back...for survival.

In 4th grade playground terms...the Whites killed first

They fought back for survival against each other long before " white" men came along ... and they still hold grudges.

Here in Canada, the Cree and Dene have a long history of not getting along.

From my conversations with North American indigenous there is still problems today between tribes.