American Views Abroad


Thursday, November 29, 2007
 
Overseas US voters might have a better chance of registering to vote and getting their votes counted in Efforts Increase to Enfranchise US Citizens Abroad at
www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/28/america/vote.php

Wednesday, November 28, 2007
 

Gabor Steingart's column West Wing in Der Spiegel Online discusses his view on the current mood in the US -- The Depressed Superpower.

'Optimism, once considered practically a part of the American genetic makeup, has suffered considerably in recent years.'

'The only thing that has doubled in the seven years of the Bush administration is the country's military budget. By comparison, the average US family income has stagnated in the last decade or so.'

'Americans are capable of handling anything -- just not the notion that something cannot be improved. .....But perhaps America's collective depression has nothing to do with Hillary Clinton or George W. Bush. Perhaps neither the Iraq war nor globalization is solely to blame for America's blues. What if the real problem lies with the American people and not with the circumstances? The challenges facing America today are not more daunting than those of the past. ......But the difference is that the people facing today's challenges do so with weakened reserves of strength.'

www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,519890,00.html


Tuesday, November 20, 2007
 

We walked out of American Gangster on Sunday afternoon. Not having been to the movies recently, we had the urge to get back into what US films are portraying about its present state. Granted the new Redford film was our first choice. While it seemed to be praised in German reviews, it was most definitely being slammed in the US media, something even the Sueddeutsche Zeitung commented on last week. In the November 12 issue of The New Yorker which has just arrived here Lions for Lambs 'is most charitably described as Ibsen with helicopters.' It was harshly dismissed and not only in that magazine. There was, however, no afternoon showing and so American Gangster, supposedly a comment on US society, was the next choice. There is always a rather endless assortment of commercials preceding films here, some of them almost naively amusing in an unprofessional way, particularly if the product is a local one. It's something you more or less take for granted while finding your seat and settling in. Immediately following these ads are those for upcoming movies and this time it was one violent scene after the other while the loudspeakers blared on making these almost physically painful. There was an inner plea for the film to start, but the violence was never ending and the scenes from ads to current film were seamless. The violence and the blood-letting continued unabated and the shrillness coming from loudspeakers on both sides were unbearable. Finally a break and we could flee.

Do we really need to spend 19 Euros to see such appalling violence at the movies when all we have to do is turn on the evening news? Perhaps it's because here in Europe the news can be picked up on public TV many times in the evening and is rather thorough in letting its audience know what's going on in the world. The scenes these last four years from Iraq have not covered up the blood-letting and tragedy there. Perhaps too it was all that up-front shooting in the film that got under our skin. There was a school shooting in Finland, of all places, recently where a number of students and teachers were killed so in the face. There is the case down in Cologne where two young adults were planning to stage a rampage in their school but did an about face. One has since committed suicide after being confronted with his site and idea. Violence is ever-present on the web and continuously being hammered home to us on the nightly news and obviously being glorified for commercial reasons in films. Light hearted comedy hardly reflects these times. If Lions for Lambs really deserved to be so dismissed by its home critics is something we'll have to see for ourselves soon.



Tuesday, November 13, 2007
 
Riverbend from Baghdad Burning has managed to blog on life as a refugee in Syria.

'We were all refugees. I was suddenly a number. No matter how wealthy or educated or comfortable, a refugee is a refugee. A refugee is someone who isn't really welcome in any country -- including their own....especially their own.'

www.riverbendblog.blogspot.com

Saturday, November 10, 2007
 
A North Sea storm swept over the area bringing in the wet and dreary side of autumn. In Friday's Sueddeutche Zeitung there was an interesting interview with Naomi Wolf whose book The End of America: A letter of warning to a young patriot will soon be published. Wolf parrallels the present regime in Washington with the rise of Nazism in Germany in the 1930s. The interview in German can be read at www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/artikel/269/141960.

Monday, November 05, 2007
 
There is a sign-up window on the upper right of the main page of TomDispatch.com. His posts are too interesting to miss. His latest one --- Advice to a Young Builder in Tough Times - Imperial Opportunities Abound --- reveals how 'on the planet Americans are building up a storm.' First there is the 'mother of all embassies' in Baghdad which is meant to hold 1000 diplomats, spies and military types. About 70 kilometers north of Baghdad is Balad Air Base which is essentially an American small town. 'Camp Cupcake' another base in Iraq holds 17,000 people plus luxuries one doesn't normally associated with present living conditions in Iraq.

Of course, it isn't only bases Americans build around the world. A network of offshore prisons is soaking up millions of tax dollars. He points out how 95% of all foreign bases on this planet are US bases. The rest of the world is aware of this, but few Americans seem to be.

'The fact is: In Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, our garrisons regularly slip beneath the American radar. Think of it, perhaps, as a way to have our cake and eat it too. We manage to be an imperial presence on the planet without ever quite having to be reminded that we are part of an empire, an identification which rubs against the American grain.'
www.tomdispatch.com/post/174858/baseless_considerations



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