Letters to the Editor
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Ken Burns could not have picked a worst time.
I hate to say this, but given the current administrations need to compare the war in Iraq to WWII, this may not be a good time to show this. Why? Because the first people who are going to watch this are going to be pro-war Bushies who, after they turn off the TV after every episode, will turn to their spouse and say, "Back then this country knew how to finish a war, we didn't have all these namby pamby liberals telling us to cut and run from Hitler." The last thing they need is more ammunition.
Burns always does an exceptional job and I have no idea what his personal politics, if any, may actually be, but it just seems like this might be a bad idea right now. Not that that is Burns fault, but I'm sure there are many who will see this as a rallying point to justify throwing more bodies into the Iraqi meat grinder.
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Cultural imperialism in the Milky Way
Ah yes, how others see us. It's a puzzle, that one. After years living abroad I was often amazed at how someone going on about how the entire country is obviously populated with morons who think exactly like George Bush could get me, ME, defending the US population, even while in fact sharing many of the same criticisms if put forward by anyone with a slightly more reasonable manner. The French are actually much more polite about it than others, in my experience, and since this is where I lived for the most part (and at least a small part of why) I could at least deal with their brand of misinformation about the country.
One aspect that became clear to me was that our own cultural success, at least in the commercial/imperialistic sense, is partly to blame. Our TV and other cultural products are SO widely disseminated that this is how a large portion of the world forms impressions, and well, just think about that for a moment. I've seen enough atrociously bad European TV, French included, to know that were things reversed and we were forming opinions about France based entirely on their TV shows - well, suffice to say that our images of sophistication and refinement would be replaced instead by visions of a culture at least as goofy as our own. In fact in my opinion, it would be worse.
Clearly the only solution is to stop pumping out bad TV shows (France often runs the weirdest long-forgotten series and comedies we've ever produced, go figure) then burn all of the copies. Then go visit more, in person. Especially those who break the stereotype. Show 'em who we really are.
Of course the idea of somehow erasing all those recorded shows is futile, not to mention the fact that virtually all of them have been transmitted out into space anyway, a large expanding bubble of embarrassment that will some day have the entire Galaxy seeing us the same way that Europeans do.
So, whaddya gonna do.
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See, this is funny because it's goddam ironic
Quoting: "I know what you're thinking: "Why would I want to spend my time learning facts about stuff that happened a long, long time ago?' And you raise a good question, really. Who has the time to learn about history?" "HH" stands for "Heather Havrilesky," but it also stands for "Ho Ho!"
The reason it's ironic is because the readers of Salon are actually so very intelligent that they go out of their way to learn all kinds of important things.
Like the difference between the BBC and American versions of Asshole Kamikaze Fuckyou Chef. And where Bat Boy will go live now that Weekly World News or, as insiders say, "WWN") is closing shop.
Yep: funny, ironic, and smart as hell. That's my Salon.
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dumb americans?
having lived in Eastern Europe, and having spent a lot of time in Western Europe, I can tell you that the people over there are probably not as ignorant of US culture and history as you think. In fact, I would be willing to bet that average Europeans know more about US history (and geography) than average Americans do. They also obviously are more aware of American overreaching since WWII, especially recently. It's actually the Americans that are ignorant about their own country and its place in the world; not the Europeans who are ignorant about America (obviously, typical Americans know very little about what goes on in Europe or elsewhere overseas- it's beyond argument).
it's only anecdotal, but try asking random people you meet at the bar who the US fought in the Revolutionary War. Many of them will not know. Conversely, everyone in Europe knows from whence came the United States. Heather makes a comment about Reagan. yeah, he not only got elected- he got reelected. worse still, same thing with George W. best recent case of American stupidity and willful ignorance was being hoodwinked into the Iraq war. folks we aint strong and brave; we was afeared of Sadaam Hussein whilst the Europeans (and others) living much closer knew that he was little or no threat.
Land of the Free? Home of the Brave? not so much these days.
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I know someone who never stops griping about America
She's always full of little facts and figures to prove we're a bunch of dumbsh*ts.
Like: Did you know that 87% of Americans believe in angels?
But at least we never believed in Stalin or Hitler, which is something I can't say about the people in her part of the world.
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"We saved the day, plain and simple"
With a little help from 20 million dead Russians. (Yeah, I know she was being ironic. Wasn't she?)
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Oh for the love of...
Right, it's ignorance that makes people hate America. Even though we all know more about your history than you do (AND we can find America on a map!). Even though Canadians can't get away from knowing far too much about what's going on in the states.
It's not because you're completely mediocre at everything except military might, which you use to bully the rest of the world, and yet you never fucking shut up about how great you are.
And whether Heather was kidding about it or not, it seems like the fact that the single greatest contribution to winning WWII was from the Soviet Union is far too morally complex and ego-bruising for most Americans to integrate into their worldview. Nope, just say it was The Greatest Generation.