The American Attitude… What is it?

I wrote an article a while back here, The American Attitude….

I am very interested in the idea, being an American and starting to realize myself that we have a certain predisposition… or a certain attitude that stands out - is different from those in many other countries. Anyway, being a psych grad I’m interested in it.

I’m going to write a much more comprehensible article and post it at one of my other blogs, but before I do I wanted to ask if anyone reading would care to let me know what you think about Americans…

Let it all loose. You can email, or comment - up to you.

Appreciate it!

Vern

Welcome to the USA, Don’t Get ILL!

Someone else must have seen this story. It’s so bizarre that I almost can’t believe it’s true - but, knowing the USA with it’s rules - I CAN believe it.

A woman took her two teen daughters from England to the USA - New York. She became ill and was hospitalized. The hospital authorities said they couldn’t stay at the hospital with her as they were minors. They took them to an ORPHANAGE!

They were strip searched, separated from each other, and told they couldn’t see their mother in the hospital!

Is this nuts?

Here’s the full story in the BBC news>
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Why do Americans read Personal Development Blogs?

My girlfriend asked me an interesting question… I had just expounded on my plans for the AimforAwesome.com blog - a new template and logo… branding… focus… and she is so incredibly helpful with anything internet that it blows me away everytime I ask for her opinion on things. She intuitively KNOWS what works from a visual and user standpoint. How does she know? I haven’t the slightest idea.

I have been working online since 1997 when I decided that psychological counseling wasn’t for me. I was the counselor - not the counselee as some of you are thinking.

I learned DOS, and then quickly jumped headfirst into break-fix and got a bunch of Microsoft certifications. Since 1998 I’ve been seriously involved in all aspects of online marketing, sales, optimization and things.

I think I know a lot of stuff. But, everytime i run something by my girlfriend she disagrees with my view and usually - 85% of the time, she is correct and I go with her opinion.

Anyway…

So, we’re sitting at an outdoor shop eating khao tom moo - and she asks me, “Why do people read personal development blogs?”

Huh? It hit from left field as it’s just a natural thing that Americans do. We want to improve the quality of our life… we’re unhappy on the inside - most of us. We’re sick of life in the way it exists. We want that elusive happiness that we’re always told about - but that in truth only exists inside us when we change what we think we need.

As I thought about it - wow… Thais don’t need this. They don’t need cheered up. They aren’t insecure about what they ‘are’ as people.

They are basically happy with their lives - whatever they’re doing. I saw it as unambitious before. Now I see it as normal. American’s are so damn worked up about achievement and getting more than we have that we’re missing the whole point of life. It’s here… it’s passing by… this IS the game. The game isn’t later when we’re making 200K per year usd. THIS is the game and this is life. If you’re not happy now you won’t be happy later.

Get happy now.

It was a great morning and has been all day since she said that…

Asia, Europe Agree on American Dress Code

In order to better distinguish (or, control) Americans traveling in Europe and Asia, an all-night joint meeting of Asians Against Americans (AAA) and Europians That Don’t Like Americans (ETDLA) produced, finally after 3 years of intense debate an agreeable dress code for all Americans traveling overseas.

Curiously in light of the recent attacks on American pride, culture, and nationalism Americans are accepting this dress code, and are even said to be embracing it.

A respected representative from China said,

“We like the new code as it does a few things well. Numba 1, it gives Americans some sense of anonymity despite the obvious change in appearance. We realize Americans are tired of being targets. Numba 2, there is less proud (haughty) talk from the Americans since it is harder to do so and since they wouldn’t know if anyone is around them to talk about themselves with. Aaaand, numba 3, NOW the American’s DON’T know it all and they must rely on people of other cultures - the culture they’re sucking the life out of, I mean, the culture they are living in for a while, for the most simple things… directions to the nearest McDonalds for instance.”

The new dress code is demonstrated below…

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American Attitude? You Talkin’ to ME?

I decided today that I’d write about this fascinating topic (to me) because I am amazed to constantly see reactions these people have about me being an “American”.

Since arriving in Thailand I have had the pleasure to interact with people from all over the world. Approximately 12 million foreign visitors each year visit Thailand, some staying for as little as 3 days like I had one friend do. Others staying for years like I chose to do.

I’ve met most of these visitors at Buddhist temples and on trains. I also lived for a while in a house with an upstairs that was rented out to visitors the landlord picked up at the train station. I was able to have dinner with many of these visitors and talk for hours about the general state of the world, and what they’re doing in Thailand…

Usually a conversation will go for a little while before one or the other parties asks what country the other is from. I’m not good with accents, some Australian accents sound indistinguishable from the UK accents to me. I’m always curious to find out what life is like in another country so I’m usually the one that asks first. When they ask me and find out that I’m from America the person usually stops for a second. I can see the confusion on their faces.

‘From America?’, they say.

‘Yes”.

‘Oh, I didn’t think you were from the US”, they’d typically say, or something to that effect.

At first I didn’t find it strange since even in the USA I’d have people asking me where my accent is from. My accent? I didn’t think I had an accent. I’ve lived in the USA from 0-38 years old. At 18 I went to Hawaii and I had a lot of local Hawaiian, Portuguese, and Filipino/a friends that I spent time with. I also married a Canadian girl when I was 20 and she had a rather unique, almost French way of speaking where her voice would rise at the end of statements, as if they weren’t statements -but tentative questions. They weren’t of course, they were statements, but she said them in a very gentle way. I think I picked that up somewhat because I believe that most statements aren’t unquestionable truths. Everything is open to debate. Sometimes when I speak with people I speak in this way.

But I’m a guy full of contrasts… sometimes, when I find I’m talking to someone that is trying to manipulate me through lies or tactics to reach fulfillment of some hidden agenda (I don’t like hidden agendas), I expose them and we go from there. For some reason, something in my past makes me intolerable to hidden agendas.

Anyway, I digress…

So, my way of talking is usually not as forthright as other American males. I’m not as attached to what I’m saying. I allow for different interpretations and people that might disagree with what I’m saying. As a result I sometimes get the question…

“Are you gay?”

Ha! No, I’m not gay, quite heterosexual. But, since my way of speaking isn’t like the typical American male I get these reactions from other Americans.

When I came here to Thailand and met people from Germany, Sweden, France, the UK, Ireland, and many other countries I found that I again got a reaction - one of disbelief sometimes, or, at the least - bewilderment.

I think it’s not possible that people from other countries pick up on my slight accent like some Americans were able to because it’s not that noticeable.

I began to question people that looked confused after I told them I was an American… Why are they confused? What doesn’t fit?

I got many reactions… but overall it seems that there is some generalization (maybe deserved?) about Americans that people from other countries have found to be true. At least among those that travel to Thailand.

Some people said it was the way I spoke. I didn’t speak like everything I said was an indisputable fact. I didn’t insist that my opinion was the only opinion that had value. I didn’t assume that I knew everything. I allowed for other possibilities. I wasn’t so sure of myself. Overtly confident. Brash. Cocky.

This is the idea these people had about Americans. They said American’s seem like they need nobody else. American’s think they can do it all themselves. They are supremely confident in themselves and what they know of the world and how it works. Which is funny to me because even I as an American know that we know VERY little about the world outside of the USA.

It’s true that we don’t think we need to know much about the outside world. Why would we think such a thing?

We live far from most of the other countries of the world, only Canada and Mexico are touching us. We know everything we need to know about them - we think. What do we know of Canada and Mexico? Virtually NOTHING, but that is what we think we need to know about them. They are virtually non-issues in our lives. We don’t have a need to know more on a daily basis. Nor do we think we need to know about Germany, Ireland, Sweden, Belgium, or the UK.

We don’t think we need to know because we see ourselves as self-contained. Self sufficient. We’re not of course, we rely on countries all over the world for trade, advice, diplomatic solutions to problems, and a million other things.

But, to the average American family making $60,000 household income or less - we are oblivious to what’s going on outside our borders except what we read about Iraq, Iran, and Israel.

Really. That about sums up our worldview.

As Americans we’re so wrapped up in our day to day living, survival for some, and seeking abundance for the rest, that we don’t see any need to spend time thinking about issues other countries have. If we don’t personally know any other citizens from foreign countries then we don’t know piss-all about their country.

That’s a weird thing… you know why?

Because Europeans know a hell of a lot about our country in comparison. But, not just our country, but, they grew up knowing a LOT more about all the countries of Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East… since they were children they were aware that the world is a very big place and that each country affects the one next to it and the ones far away from it. They have a worldview that is so much more mature than our own limited American worldview.

I saw the truth of this when I was 18 years old in the Air Force stationed in Hawaii for 3 years and meeting people from different backgrounds… Hawaiians, Filipinos, Portuguese, Koreans, Japanese, Germans, Samoans, Fijians… a temporary stint in Korea for a few months and then visiting my future wife in Vancouver, British Columbia and her family a few times… I remember being really excited that there were so many things going on in countries other than the USA. I was glad that what I had experienced in the USA wasn’t all there was in life. I was excited to know people from other countries and know what they did everyday… how they lived… what was important to them.

I found that people in Canada knew SO MUCH about America and that I knew virtually NOTHING about their country. We share a HUGE border, and yet, I knew next to nothing about them.

I think as Americans we have a responsibility to increase our worldview. We need to interact with people from other nations and get a sense for what they think is important. What are their opinions on issues about the USA? You might be shocked.

When I was in the Air Force and maybe for some years after that I was under the impression that the USA was of one mind with nations across Europe… UK, West Germany, Belgium, Sweden, France, Italy, Spain, when was the last time we were at war with any of these countries? We must all be getting along fine. They are democratic, or some other form of citizen-controlled government at least in theory… They must love us, and we had no ill-will toward them as far as I could gather.

When I thought about a war between the USA and Russia during the cold-war I thought that it would be so silly for Russia to go to war with us because our “allies” - all of Europe except Russia, would be our partners in the war. I thought America had staunch allies all over the world. We’d done enough good for everyone, right?

Hmm, not sure.

Asking visitors from other countries about America’s “police the world” policy brought up some opinions that were clearly anti-USA. How could that be? Does the rest of the world want to fall to communism? To dictatorships? Does the world want to be held hostage by Iran, Iraq and the other oil saturated countries?

Apparently President Bush and his warring with Iraq has done some serious damage in the international community. Citizens of UK, Belgium, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Ireland, Australia (though not as much), and Sweden have all told me that they are at odds with the war, and particularly dislike President Bush for what they see as warmongering for oil.

Americans must understand that while what we do in the middle east affects us a little bit… it has the potential to bring mass chaos and war to the countries I listed. They are RIGHT THERE in the middle of it. Iraq and Iran are close neighbors. These countries have hundreds of thousands of immigrants from these countries living within their borders. In fact, they call those countries their homes - despite having emigrated from other countries.

Citizens of these and other countries fear strongly, and have every right to, what America is doing in the Middle East.

Just so my fellow Americans know, people of other countries don’t necessarily think Americans have rays of sunshine exuding from their nether regions… They are afraid of America and it’s haphazard invasions and policing of the world - with or without international support.

Any other ideas about the “American attitude” and what it is?

Can anyone better explain what the attitude is, and why the world seems to be at odds with it?

Did you see Line’s sight yet? Here’s something funny - an exchange between American and Canadians…

http://thamawat.blogspot.com/2007/10/americans-vs-rest-of-world.html
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America’s Foreign Policy: What the hell is going on?

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American Foreign Policy: What the hell is going on?
(2.7 MB - 15 minutes of Audio)
This article on Audio MP3 if you want to listen on
computer, phone, mp3 player, PDA, etc. instead of
reading it below.
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I’m not a political person - whatsoever. In fact, this
will be the 1st political article I’ve written in my
entire life. I typically have no interest, but this
morning everything over the past couple years is
on my mind - and I write when I’m angry… so…

I could usually give a rat’s azz about anything political
that’s going on in the world. There is no one person
that runs things in any country, and in a democracy
that really ISN’T one (USA), there is no sense
participating on any level unless that is the focus of
one’s entire life - trying to affect change in some
meaningful way. I’m a realist to the core. I don’t
know what anyone else’s definition of realist is
so I use my own. A realist is someone that acts,
thinks, reasons, explains, behaves, in ways that
are consonant with reality as it is. Reality is
forever changing, is circumstantial and
phenomenological… so, I try to act in ways
that are consonant with reality in
whatever situation or time I find myself.

So - since I couldn’t possibly dedicate my life to some-
thing that is so uninteresting to me - I rarely think
about politics, read about them, or talk about them.
It’s just a part of life that will go on without me if I
never give it a second thought, or, if I get really
involved - still - it just kind of rolls along without
changing. No sense spending my life talking about
things that other people are doing.

Sometimes it affects me. Like since being here in
Thailand. I have met people from all over the world:
England, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Czech,
Norway, Sweden, France, Saudi Arabia, Iran, India,
Pakistan, Kuwait, Brunhai or something like that!,
Israel, Malaysia, China, Russia, Laos, Burma,
Cambodia, and many more places that aren’t coming
to mind this morning.

So many of these people I’ve JUST MET want to talk
about America’s foreign policy. When I first arrived
I hadn’t known much at all. Not even enough to talk
about it - I just listened to find out what everyone is
all worked up about. I’ve got a layman’s understanding
of things - but it’s very basic and I don’t wish to get
into any lengthy comment or email discussions over
this - so - if you feel so inclined, you’re probably not
going to get a reply… sorry, really I just abhor
speaking about it or writing about it unless I’m
emotional about it - like this morning for some reason.

It’s a beautiful day outside… here’s a pic of what I’m
looking at as I type this.

There are so many beautiful days here where I look
outside, the sun is shining… I’m living the easy life,
finally not worried much about personal things going
on in my life back in the states… I’m in a good state
of health, of mind, emotionally as good as I’ve been.

I have somewhat of a paranoia that’s developed as I
get older. I think a little bit about things that are in
the future and maybe likely to affect me. I am a bit
more cautious in everything I do and how I prepare for
things that will come and cause me grief. I
overprepare and overthink it.

This article about America’s foreign policy is a
long-time coming. I’ve thought about it in spurts
over the last 2 years.

I have started to really enjoy the stability of life at least
MY life. I’ve noticed that it’s really important for a
person’s well-being - emotionally, to be at ease about
what is happening in the world globally as well as in
one’s own private logic inside the head.

Previously since I never gave a thought to what was
happening in the world I was blissfully ignorant. Like
many or (most?) in the USA I was ignorant and didn’t
even care to know.

I had too much to think about to get MY life straight
in my own private world, rather than get excited
about the apparently ridiculous things that were
happening on a global level and which I couldn’t expect
to change without an all-out effort that would never be
forthcoming.

So, the point…

Many people from other countries have asked me about
the state of things - and what I “think” about Bush’s
foreign policy - America’s foreign policy, but they call it
“Bush’s”.

And initially I could just say something about… there
are human rights atrocities, there is corruption at
every level of some governments, there are
inhumanely cruel sons of bitches running countries
to the tune of fat profits, personal power and
indulgence.

There are whole populations suffering for the
selfishness and insanity of their leaders (N. Korea
comes to mind). There are children eating slop
because those in charge of their country are more
concerned with amassing fortune and extravagence
for themselves, their own families, business
partners and friends.

And it’s true of course.

And then I would mention something about, for us in
America we feel that we’re doing really well with our
quality of life, the amount of financial success we can
generate on an individual level with some effort and
know-how. We’re so happy to not have to worry
about wars at home, on our soil. We love that we
don’t have human rights violations within our
borders (that we see very much of compared to the
world as a whole).

Being a bible based nation, our laws, our political
behaviors, our personal behaviors were created with
that in mind. The morals we follow, that we believe in,
are bible-based and there is still a fairly large, diverse
and strong group that believes the bible is a divine
book full of things we can apply to ‘today’ and get
positive results. Personally I feel the opposite - that
religion will be the undoing of the relative peace
the US has enjoyed since it’s creation.

But, as a population, we want to think of ourselves as
a country that HELPS others since we have so much.
We want to SOLVE all kinds of problems, not just
our own, but across borders, continents, and oceans.
Torture, rape, forced starvation and other human
rights violations really get a lot of us enraged and
we think we’re morally justified to put a stop to it
using whatever means we have at our disposal.

We have a LOT OF MEANS at our disposal. Our
military, probably is still ranked #1 in the world in
terms of capability, scaleability, maneuverability, and
technology is our primary means. Financial means
would be the next. With those two means, we feel like
we are the head of the world. We feel like we have
obligations not just to our own people, but to the
people of the world… god fearing or allah fearing,
Buddha loving, or whatever… we feel like we need
to act to resolve things that are consonant with most
religious views. Human rights violations are things
that make people from the whole world cringe.
It’s something that the American leaders use to get
us into action - and to feel good about doing something
about in countries other than our own.

Notice how we give the appearance of caring what the
international community thinks before we act on
something we want to change?

We pretend to be going through the motions to get
international support for an action that we feel is
morally justified, and if the process is too slow - or
it appears like we might not get full support we just go
ahead and DO IT ANYWAY. The leaders feel
justified, and we as a country - as a people have
felt justified in acting on something we believe
strongly about.

Nuclear weapons programs is something we feel
strongly about. The capability for leaders from
other countries to launch a nuclear weapon at the
USA is just not acceptable. It’s something that we
feel justified to eliminate at whatever costs to
global harmony in the short term because we think
in the LONG term that the world will be a better
place without these weapons being available to
every degenerate leader on the planet. And, in
one sense - yeah, that’s true.

In quite another sense we don’t really see the BIG
picture.

The big picture is that as we start to act as we wish -
without international support - at least of the top
dogs, we are ruining our relationships with these
countries. By invading IRAQ we have not only
pissed off the world’s countries that are wondering
what justification we had - because no weapons of
mass destruction were found, but, we are pissing
off followers of religions that have hated the US and
our relationship with Israel.

America has pissed off a whole lot of countries and a
good portion of the world’s people by being aggressive
with our military action.

It seems to be getting worse. The reason I got pissed
off this morning was that I was reading “The Star”
- a Malaysian news source and the headline had some
articles about the USA and what it may do in IRAN.
I have heard little pieces of this over the last couple
months. I’ve blown them off, firmly believing that
Bush knows how bad he f’ed up in Iraq and he
wouldn’t dream of continuing along the same lines in
Iran.

I may be wrong, and it’s starting to really make me
think about the short-term prospects of world peace.

CNN, The Star, BBC and others have been sprinkled
with articles of opinion stating that some believe
the decision to go into IRAN and to bomb nuclear
facilities there has already been made and it’s just a
matter of time before it’s implemented.

I have to wonder how a president, and a world power
could could have it’s head so far tucked away in a
warm, wet, cozy yet smelly place that
it could believe for a second that initiating military
action in Iran is the way to resolve something.

I really think that if the USA moves forward with this,
any chance we had of a semblance of world peace for
the short term will disappear completely.

It’s like we’re a nation without friends or support
anymore. What happened to foreign policy? Has it
always been this bad and it’s recently ‘coming to a
head’ of stupidity in Bush?

Iraq has been such a disaster. Americans dying daily
for WHAT?

One thing that I believe in - because I guess I need to
believe in SOMETHING as being the right course of
action….

I think that before America acts militarily with
violence it needs to have the support of the United
Nations. There must be a vote on it that results in
agreement. Without this America is on it’s own.
When we act on our own initiative (and moral
authority) we’ll endure the havoc that will come
from it.

I don’t believe we, or any other country can act with
violence BEFORE another country attacks us
or our interests militarily.

Bush’s administration acted on Iraq before they
attacked the US or US interests by bombing the
hell out of them, effectively removing the leaders
that were in place, and not resulting in anything
meaningful for the country politically since.

America should really have agreement from the UN
before ANY military action ANYWHERE. If there
is no agreement - there is no military action.
Military action - killing others - has the effect of
pissing some off. Go figure.

Economic sanctions could be done in place of
military action for a long time. Though the UN
might not be in agreement to physically change the
nations that are threatening nuclear weapon,
chemical weapons violations or whatever their
offense happens to be, likely a number of countries
would agree to economic restrictions that can have
real effects.

In the case of nuclear weapon manufacturing by
countries that the international community thinks
shouldn’t be in control of… all sorts of sanctions can
be applied.

A country that decides to bomb with a nuclear weapon,
some other country, is at fault. The world powers
agree that nuclear weapons are too horrible to be
used and are only still around for “peacekeeping”
purposes. (LOL). So, if a country used this technology
action would be taken by the UN - as a global effort
- to rid the country of the weapons and to change
the government in whatever means necessary to
make it a country that isn’t a threat to others.

Proactively initiating violence like the USA does - is
causing its self more harm than it is stopping.

It’s tough to say this - but I really believe that BEFORE
the USA can act we need to have been acted UPON by
someone else. Defensive in nature. This is how we
need to be. This will bring us international support and,
in the long-term, give us the security we need in this
world of emerging powers and populations (China).

I believe that if America acts in Iran without full
international (UN) support the world will change quite
quickly. Followers of Islam will unite. Groups that are
not usually associated with each other will unite with a
common cause - destroying or wreaking havoc on the
population of America and on those that are important
to America.

America has opened a can of worms, and instead of
shutting the can and sealing it up… it wants to open
more cans! America, in it’s moral, bible-based quest
for peace and harmony around the world is causing
more damage. Serious, serious damage. America is
playing right into Iran’s hands… I think they
actually WANT this. They know the effect it
will have on those that are teetering on the
decision about whether to fight with the USA. This
will be an act that brings them all together.

Those that dislike the USA and it’s policies are
scattered at the present. Behind the scenes they are
likely making alliances against America. The
worst enemies can unite under a common cause
- another enemy.

Bush either doesn’t SEE what is happening - that he
is pissing off the world, or he doesn’t care…

Either way - if we act in Iran I see the world changing
rather quickly.

But, I’m not political and to tell you the truth - I don’t
have the slightest idea what is REALLY happening in
the world!

Neither do you - only what you read, hear and see. Is
that the “truth”?

Is that reality? Sort of - it’s a piece of the puzzle, but
the whole puzzle is never really seen. So many pieces
are hidden. In fact, no one person or group of people
can see the whole puzzle. Groups are better than
individuals though, and I hope that America will
realize that soon and start acting with other nations
in GLOBAL agreement… not as an individual.

Ok, that’s my first real “political” article… it may
well be my last!

Sleeping, or…?