The whole world is ........laughing?

My husband travels a lot overseas for work. This summer, every phone call home has mentioned that the folks overseas find the American Health care debate absolutely ludicrous. They can't believe Americans are this stupid.

Canadians can separate the shit from the shinola as far as what's in their own interests. Too bad Americans have been brainwashed totally by people who def do not have the ppl's interest in mind.

country does look like it has been brainwashed against its own best interests.

I just hope the world knows not all Americans are morons

They only put the stupids on TV anymore. The world laughed when Palin was added to the ticket wondering "what the hell is wrong with Americans...are they really that dumb?".

It's like watching the beggining of "Idiocracy"...then we see where it leads and go "oh shit" out of fear that it's a biography and factual account of America.

against something that is so wonderful.

Americans are propagandized into stupidity. People this stupid and brainwashed are also dangerous.

Tell that to the ETs from Planet X coming to set up the NWO (or was that the UN) :rofl:

Where does it say in the Old Testament or in the Revelation that anyone who can't afford it should get health care, anyway?

(Just a little healthy :sarcasm:, you understand :) ).

but not "Americans" in general, not even "most".

As the poster above says, the media "loves a fool"..and so do others who need someone to look down upon.

Gov't supposedly of, for and by the people.

I suspect much of the world asked itself why is no one trying to stop your madness?! during Bush/Cheney's reign of terror.

I fing get it.

And proud of it.

I bet many of the people who opposed any kind of reform either don't have health insurance or are have the best health insurance that money can buy.

or worse...McCain/PALIN for god's sake. :evilfrown:

It never fails to twist my skivvies in a knot when I see people who would benefit from various programmes actually distrust or not want the programmes. It is like they are proud of their ignorance, like it's some sort of honour to be that distrustful or ignorant!

I have been "lucky" and benefited from several programs.............Being "retired" and under the poverty level on SS income, ( & having served a 2 year stint as an AmeriCorps VISTAat age 61=63, partially sponsored by the local social services agency,( where I made many friends, ) I have benefited from every free program they offer! oil tank replacement, energy saver fridge, ( when it went South in 4 years I got a new one free plus upright freezer too. Hope they last more than 4 years.........)
Loan grants for siding, insulation, replacement doors & windows, new metal roof............free sewer from the Town............
( to protect the fishing resources)
The siding contractor. fullfiled his job specs uo to the top of the wall, the roofing contractor came down to the wall withthe roof............BOTH left a little 1" gap between....... Sat. night watching the funeral procession, I heard a ping in my kitchen...........The downgraded tropical storm was blowing from due east: water right through that gap! running down the end support beam on the back of the house through the loft floor and dripping onto a pan lid on my stove. Bucket I placed there had 1" of water in it when the storm stopped.Had I been giving out the final check for the job, I would have made sure that gap had been filled before giving the balance of the money! It was not under my control!
At the same time NOW IF I earn, $86.00 extra dollars this YEAR! I will lose my health care coverage! That will cost me about $3,000 out of MY pocket for replacement health care coverage.! No money to put back into the business to cover cost of doing business ( approx $200. per month) The lower echalons of entrepreneurship are SEVERELY restricted, & regulated; while the BIG BUSINESSES go scott free! NO REGULATION.
I am still strong ( at 70) healthy, experienced in running a profitable free lance business, and yet like a butterfly pinned to a specimine board. I can't afford the small local travel, social networking, advertising, that it takes to make a business succeed. It worked for 20 years prior to the hostile takeover in 1990!

by a corporate media driven to keep them ignorant in the interests of corporate profits.

Apart from stating the obvious -- that we need Media Reform badly...You should also remember that we DO have 280 million people here, almost 2/3 the population of the entire European Union which is comprised of 27 countries.

That fact leads me too suggest that we have a lot of EVERYTHING here.

That must be a relief for them.

That hardly seems fair in light of the last two elections.

Does the world understand that it's us against the status quo of unchecked capitalism?

Right wing views in the USA get far more publicity than the views of the majority of our citizens who are desperate for help from the repeated failures of the private sector to prove they can do things better.

We allow capitalism to go unchecked?

Yet they were able to move past it in many countries.

Stop letting the media convince you the sky is green.

in the Pres and the Democratic Party, but it's a struggle. Every day we get another Democrat turning their back on us. Sen Reid says he favors a public option only if it is privately run.

We have 80% of the population favoring a public option, yet we are struggling getting Congress to agree.

I agree the media, repubs and Faux are trying to convince us the sky is green but the Democrats havent done much of a job saying otherwise.

That we dont exactly know if the majority of Americans want a public government run option, and thats reflected in Obama's approval ratings. I'd like to an independent poll done on this issue instead of polls done on different news stations/websites which are more often than not, politically skewed.

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nt.


home of the Greedy, land of the Gullible.


the degree to which the masses are brainwashed and propagandized is painful to watch; and what these foaming at the mouth ignoramuses at the town halls don't realize is the fact that they are nothing but useful idiots for the elites.

:grr:

Meet up with some unchecked pitchforks and stalled semi trailer tucks on every freeway in the nation.

Here we are afraid of our government. There, the government is afraid of the citizenry.

The French are just as mollified by their government and the media, which is largely owned and run by friends of the president. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=2030630&mesg_id=2030630">link His best friend Martin Bouygues runs France's largest private television station Tf1 mentioned in the article. The over friendliness displayed by France's media was clearly evident when he ran for the presidency in 2007. He presented himself as a man of change and reforms, who could tackle France's most challenging problems, the economy and a perceived state of insecurity due to rising crime statistics. Not once did the media question his campaign as to why they could make such a bold claim, when Sarkozy himself had been the man appointed by president Chirac to deal with these issues, as Minister of Finance and Minister of the Interior and had been rather unsuccessful at improving either of them.
The current state of the economy has led to many manufacturing companies laying off thousands of workers at a time. Desperate workers have now adopted a new method of protest called bossnapping: the forced detention of factory bosses in order to get decent severance pay or other benefits. These workers have been ridiculed by the government and the media. This has led to the extreme example of some workers threatening to pollute entire river systems with toxic waste in order to be heard.
The government used to be wary of social protests, now they just muddle up the issues or ridicule the protesters via the media.
Concentrated media ownership has led to the same problems in France as in the US, the populace is simply told what to think by the media's talking heads who never investigate or question the government's actions.

the "bossnapping, polluting workers" are a tiny minority manipulated by anarchists. The big unions are against them and the general opinion too.

your "desperate workers" have lay off conditions that even the best unionized US worker could dream of. Their demands are completely unrealistic (100 000€ each over unemployment subsidies to 80% for at least 5 years and lay off compensations of several months salary, sometimes up to one year).

there are no lay offs of "several thousands" at the time. Maybe 3-4 industries had "massive" lay offs and you won't get more than maybe 2000 total.

During the recession's worst phase, workers on short-term week have been compensated to 100%. Today this is over, car factories show a production increase with 11%.

Sarkozy has managed the crisis as a traditional scandinavian social-democrat. But for those who still dream of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" it's "fascism".

I haven't heard anyone blame the anarchists for more than a hundred years. I thought we were now in the terrorism era. Maybe you should describe them as social terrorists.

I agree that some of the demands that these workers make are ludicrous and they probably see it as a starting point for negotiations that will leave them with not much at all. However it is not unheard of that some people who are made redundant or leave their job, enjoy rather large redundancy packages in the millions of euros even after bankrupting the company they were in charge of. A sad example of where our modern society has now taken us. (BTW whilst reading up on Sarkozy for my previous post I came across this interesting titbit from his wikipedia entry "As the French President, one of his first actions was to give himself a raise: his yearly salary went from €101,000 to €240,000 (to match his European/French peers). He is also entitled to a mayoral pension as a former mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine. He also receives a yearly council pension as a former member of the council of the Hauts-de-Seine department." All right for some.)

What I seem to understand from your post is that you think that those anarchists just don't know their place in society. They should just be content to lead their little serf like existence and be thankful that they have a job to go to. How dare they ask for some compensation that might tide them over whilst they are looking for a new job. I mean why should they get more than basic unemployment benefit when they are likely to stay unemployed for months if not years at a time.
I find your repulsion for these workers to be that of an aristocrat from the 1880's as I stated in subject field of my post. I had not realized that I had somehow left the liberal confines of DU to end up on a forum where one would call striking workers, anarchists and use such language as "But for those who still dream of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" it's "fascism"." to somehow imply that the writer one is criticizing is somehow a communist, an illness that has somehow made him insane. In your words a sufferer of "moonbat lefty fantasies".

I am sorry that I had to write two long paragraphs to call you out on your arrogance. I would very much have preferred that you had criticized the arguments of my previous post, instead of using all your energy and insults, to call me out on my use of the bossnappers and the potential environmental terrorists to highlight the fact that in today's French society one needs to be outrageous to be heard by the government friendly media and the mollified populace.

To finish a rather long post, I would just like to say that comparing any of Sarkozy's action to that of a traditional Scandinavian social-democrat, is to either not know what a Scandinavian social democrat is or not truly understand Sarkozy's character. Sarkozy is the embodiment of France's unhealthy culture of its political elite being too close to its economical elite, a point I made painfully clear in my post and a Scandinavian social democrat would not dare show as much arrogance towards his constituents as Sarkozy does on a regular basis when talking about anyone whom he feels is against him, such as disgruntled factory workers (there's also no way a Scandinavian elected official would ever be allowed to give himself a 140% pay increase).

Was France's election that put Sarkozy in office a legit election?

And wasn't it rather close?

I always felt that George W pulled some strings to get Z. in office.

I had not heard anything about the toxic waste threats being made by laid off workers.

They had some electronic voting but on a fairly small scale. Sarko won with 53% of the vote in part due to the fact that his opponent from the socialist party was continuously stabbed in the back by the "dinosaurs" of her party; Dominique Strauss-Kahn who ran against her for the nomination and lost was later appointed as head of the IMF with support from Sarkozy, Bernard Kouchner another member of the old guard was later rewarded with the post of foreign minister by Sarkozy
But as I mentioned in my previous post the media played an enormous part in Sarkozy's victory and are likely to do so in the next elections.
Here are the story about the toxic waste threats http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/aug/20/france-transport-river-seine-pollution
To follow up on the issue of protest here is another article from the guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/29/bossnapping-creative-nonviolence

we allowed a coup to put the cheney misadministration into place for 8 years.

the complete idiots might be a minority- but they get all the attention, and the half-idiots are fooled into believing that they are the mainstream, so they just go with the flow.

and even married a progressive-liberal one. It's the repukes and their cronies, not Americans as a whole.

Battling health care of which they only could profit. This is what we are shaking our heads, not really laughing. And when I personally watch a town hall debate seeing guys with guns and posters of Obama as Hitler, I'm merely creeped out by it, and the ignorance and hate that was planted in their brains for too long.

No, I don't think the whole world is laughing, giving my European view here. It's too sad to laugh about.

the world is really shaking their heads, not (gleefully) "laughing" at us - that's what my experience has been, at least.



"Battling health care of which they only could profit."

yep. exactly.

to sadly contemplating this woeful sight. Though there are outbreaks of pure hilarity sometimes. :silly:

My Canadian and New Zealand friends don't understand this. Neither do my friends in Italy or France.

They expect almost anything from us now. :eyes:

And can they believe that corporate propaganda works quite well on a lot of Americans? :shrug:


Will they claim that corporate/government propaganda is never used in other Countries, including their own, ever? :eyes:

We're not yet identical to them, so we must be "stupid."

:eyes:

On the other hand, WE have Olive Garden.

an average family works 80 plus hours a week, ships their kids off to be brought up by institutions and gets and average of 8 hours paid vacation, and prays that their employer doesnt dump their health insurance.

There aren't a lot of boarding schools in this neck of the woods. What did you mean?

but I'm sure there are many.

kids to one. Of the people I know, one parent stays home or Grandma watches the tykes.

As a Dane I can tell you that it is pretty much the norm here too.

Italy is ranked as #2 for health care. We are #37.

Their country was devasted -- ours was not.

Because they were having to re-build and had little to offer people in the way of jobs and a decent economy, they decided -- wisely, I think -- to come together and agree to offer them a government funded healthcare system.

We, on the other hand, decided, for different but similar reasons, to link our healthcare to Employment.

It is a little unfair to compare Europe -- in all ways, with America -- We have a different history.

Paul Krugman talks about the attempts to get UHC in the US back in the 1940s. Back then the insurance lobby and pharmaceutical lobby didn't exist, so they couldn't stall progress. The successes of the new deal had proven government could work. So we were in a good position to get public UHC.

However some politicians were afraid it would lead to integrated hospitals, so they opposed it.

Thats basically why we don't have UHC. That is also why we don't have UHC now. When the democratic party started standing up for civil rights in the 1960s, most white voters in the south started voting republican. As a result 19/26 senators in the south are republican but only 21/74 senators outside the south are republican. Of those non-southern republicans (who make up 28% of all non-southern senators) some are more moderate and sane. Snowe, Collins, Lugar. Specter too if you still consider him a republican. Now that base in the south is helping to block health reform.

Its pathetic and sad, but there you go. This is why we can't have nice things, because some voters are pissed that the government forced them to treat black people halfway decently half a century ago.

We trail the rest of the civilized world in almost everything. We are the only modern country that allows our citizens to die for lack of health care. Even China is waaaaaay ahead of us in this area.

Face it, America, the country where people think they are so great, are busted.

Right or wrong?

They are befuddled that we as a country don't want to imitate them in just about every way, and part of that includes government-run health care.

We are so screwed up. I have personally spoken to many Europeans, and they arent literally laughing but are amazed that we can screw up so badly. They cant believe that we are so materially oriented. They are family oriented and enjoy their standard of living. We, on the other hand are always working more overtime, or another job so we can buy a boat bigger than the neighbor.

It is an arrogant attitude to think they want to be like us. It's America's arrogance that they laugh at. The land of the free, yeah if you are rich.

We have the highest infant mortality of most modern nations. Yeah, they envy that.

Your reading comprehension skills are sorely lacking.

just like them." Article? Personal interview? Some are sad we are crumbling. Some laugh at our arrogance.

I wonder about someone that feels the necessity to insult someone during a discussion. "Your reading comprehension skills are sorely lacking." Maybe so, and that isn't my only weakness, but what does that have to do with the discussion? Are you trying to make your point by bullying me? That is a tactic of an authoritarian.

not some 180-degree variation of the argument.

And saying that a tactic is the "tactic of an authoritarian"...what kind of tactic is that?

This is not new.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/17726

(different languages just for a start, you know?). Europe is very diversified.

So, no. Most Europeans, I think, would like America to be like the best we've seen it all by itself can be. But maybe we'd have to go back to the civil rights era for that. And look what what was going down back then.

like them. Good grief.

And Europeans with whom I have spoken tell me so all the time.

As I have mentioned, many Europeans wish the U.S. was less interventionist, less military, more diplomatic, had a stronger safety net for all our citizens--more like them.

Hell, many folks here on DU wish we were more like the Europeans--hardly a day goes by without some thread to that effect. I don't know why this is so mind-boggling to you.

What the hell?

Here's a free tip from one of 'them Europeans'. We don't want the US to be like us. Wanna know why? Well, we simply couldn't care less. That's the major difference between the modern versions of the EU and US, we simply don't care if someone is like us, and have no desire to export our democracy, freedom, or capitalism.

What we do want is for the American PEOPLE to have healthcare and some shot at prosperity. Not because it's like us, but because it's civil. We would also like other oppressed nations to experience true freedom. We don't want the US to be like the EU, we want all people, including our own, to attain the ideals of peaceful and free cohabitation.

You may label that 'European', we call it 'human'.

"As I have mentioned, many Europeans wish the U.S. was less interventionist, less military, more diplomatic, had a stronger safety net for all our citizens--more like them."

The first three, yes, thank you very much. Not because we are like that, but because we actually think it makes the world a little more comfortable for everyone.

The last one; Do what you want. But forgive us if we think we live with a smarter and more humane solution.

We laugh because you (in the broadest sense(I fortunately know that there are distinctions)) seem to celebrate and encourage immense displays of stupidity.

You can probably rightfully blame it on a small minority and on Fox News. But when people like Sarah Palin and other public figures play along on that and no one dares call them morons, you can hardly blame outsiders for slapping their knees.

desires of the European. You, my friend, are not a Democrat. Why are you here?

a stronger safety net for all our citizens"

Oh, you mean decent!

Geez, teh stoopid.

I, of course, am right despite your scintillating debate mastery.

Nothing needs debate. Pointing and laughing is sometimes all that's left to do.

I suggest travel and reading to cure your short-sightedness.

Like whom?

Like the British - who have their national health service? Or the Germans, with their hybrid universal health/private insurance? Or the French? The Norweigans? The Italians?

It is not about 'being like them'. It is about having what they, in their many different fashions, ALL have - some kind of governmental guarantee that nobody will DIE for lack of healthcare. We are the ONLY major industrial nation without it.

In our constitution, that would fall under 'provide for the general welfare'. WE set the standard which THEY have lived up to, in one way or another. At a time when the French were starving in the streets, and the workhouse and poor-mill were standard features of the British landscape, we wrote into our constitution that the government has a responsibility to its citizens. Over the past few decades the western democracies have taken that concept to its natural conclusion - that healthcare is a right, and that a healthy citizenry makes for a healthy nation. Only WE, who created the concept, have not attained it.

It's not laughable. It is pitiful.

:thumbsdown:

So each and every citizen of Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine and the United Kingdom thinks the same?

And they all yearn for the U.S.A. to be "just like them"?

Sorry to disappoint, I'd hazard a guess they're too busy living their own lives to want to 'colonise' American politics.

Fucking unbelievable!

:eyes:

tastes.

No, not EVERY European inhabitant wants us to be like them, but it's laughable at best to suggest that European countries and governments don't desire the U.S. to be more like them in most matters--they wish the U.S. was less interventionist, less military, more diplomatic, had a stronger safety net for all our citizens.

Were you ASLEEP the last 8 years?

I've lived in 'Europe' not just for the last eight years but since I was born - :-) - and never once came upon a citizen of any of its countries who pined for the U.S. to be "just like them". It's nonsense.

Honestly, I've only ever seen comments like that in Freeperland, never here. It's a first.

I'm only going off what European editorial writers have intimated and expressed for years. I presume you never came across any of those citizens.

option that includes a government run program like Medicare as an option.

I read American editorial writers who say stuff that is very far right, and even racist. I guess they are expressing what 'Americans want'?

...couldn't be more vague.

Do tell what France, Latvia, Germany, Finland, and Slovenia have in common other than a basic observance of human rights?

run health care right now. And the American people would want to imitate their universal systems of health care, if they were properly informed of the advantages.

and they are all right and you are wrong. America is a morally bankrupt pitiful excuse of a nation now. No one with half a brain would ever admit to being a "Proud American"

The World Health Organization's ranking of the world's health systems.

1 France
2 Italy
3 San Marino
4 Andorra
5 Malta
6 Singapore
7 Spain
8 Oman
9 Austria
10 Japan
11 Norway
12 Portugal
13 Monaco
14 Greece
15 Iceland
16 Luxembourg
17 Netherlands
18 United Kingdom
19 Ireland
20 Switzerland
21 Belgium
22 Colombia
23 Sweden
24 Cyprus
25 Germany
26 Saudi Arabia
27 United Arab Emirates
28 Israel
29 Morocco
30 Canada
31 Finland
32 Australia
33 Chile
34 Denmark
35 Dominica
36 Costa Rica
37 United States of America
38 Slovenia
39 Cuba
40 Brunei
41 New Zealand
42 Bahrain
43 Croatia
44 Qatar
45 Kuwait
46 Barbados
47 Thailand
48 Czech Republic
49 Malaysia
50 Poland

We just barely nudged out Slovenia in the list and it seems like every most every major European country has better healthcare than we do. Hmmmmmm...... Maybe we ARE stupid with regard to healthcare.

what a dumb statement to make.

They laugh that so many can be so stupid as to fight/argue/debate and oppose that which is only beneficial to the average person.

How can people be so stupid to opposing a government that wants to help people?

...they think the US is stupid because they actually have to have a heated debate about whether or not to let babies die in the streets without medical care.

It's pretty fucking simple.

Are demonstrably dumb as dirt. And mean besides. "Europeaness" doesn't enter into it.

We laugh because even the most incredible stupidity is not uniformly confronted and debunked.

You have a major network dedicated to keeping people dumb - and an amazing amount of people willing to show that off on tv.

Hey, I know its not the majority. Far from it. But the given the amoount of coverage they get, it is pretty hard not to have a chuckle once in a while.

Oh - and you pay 3 times as much per person pr year for healthcare that can be denied you by profit driven organisations when you actually need it. That is sort of dumb too.

The Democratic Party would have been wise to boycott Faux many moons ago as catering to it only gives it credibility. Instead the dems have let them shape and frame the debate that can possibly lead to Obama failing and the right wing gaining power again. All they had to do was cut off the head of the hydra which is Faux news. The Dems need to start directly calling Faux out in unison and they need to boycott that psychotic network before they help send the country down the drain. Faux is the diseased heart of the Republican party.

You don't have to be European to organise universal healthcare. Just organised.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Japan

Quite honestly. We have no idea why you aren't like us.

You really SHOULD be identical to us, you know. Let's face, it you're not doing very well.

Slowly but surely.

That display of ignorance and stupidity was fed, nurtured and continually magnified by the corporate media; and they most certainly view corporations as their clients while the American People; living in the land of the free with the world's record breaking prison population, where corporations are given the rights of super person-hood and money is equated as speech, are only viewed as customers or consumers to be sold a product, candidate or down the river.

The only reason, universal single payer health coverage; the most logical, common sense and moral solution, for the nation's health care woes, never made it to the table was because our political "leaders" decided the interests of a relative handful of corporations trumped those of the entire nation; all 300 million strong.

campaign finance laws. I cant seem to find a link. But the current alignment will probably mean a decision for corporatism or fascism. No more restrictions on corporations roll in elections.

I bet George Orwell is laughing his ass off.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/us/30scotus.html

"At issue is whether the court should overrule a 1990 decision, Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, which upheld restrictions on corporate spending to support or oppose political candidates. Re-arguments in the Supreme Court are rare, and the justices’ decision to call for one here may have been prompted by lingering questions about just how far campaign finance laws, including McCain-Feingold, may go in regulating campaign spending by corporations.

The argument, scheduled for Sept. 9, comes at a crucial historical moment, as corporations today almost certainly have more to gain or fear from government action than at any time since the New Deal."

If you are familiar with this issue, please start a thread.

We are so arrogant to be fighting wars in two countries, yet cant/wont provide for our own. We put corporate profits above human life.

And the M$M keeps the discussion at the lowest possible level to discourage meaningful reform.

nt

who are demanding that they continue to pay for mediocre health care. It's unprecedented stupidity. Most of the world's people gather to GET stuff from the government, not to get less.

The other comment I get is that it shows the immorality of the American people--universal health care is a moral issue to the British and Canadian and German people with whom I've emailed.

9/11, Katrina, Tsunami victims, you name it and US Citizens donate and give what they can for people.
Locally, there is always support for kids who need cancer treatments that insurance won't cover, or for the family of a victim of a violent crime.

Yet, when it comes to universal coverage people apparently don't get that it is basically the same principle.

"UN Declaration of Human Rights

Article 25
Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control."

We see it as a human right, just about as important as freedom of speech. By the way, the US signed that charter too. :)

...how immoral this nation really is. Not in a judgmental, fundie Christian "immorality" way but just a basic human decency way. We've proven how soulless our culture/society is.

We let the rich ass hats run our lives when we "invented" democracy. Kinda hard not to not look stupid with that.

Now, I have to go make a dozen calls to get Doctors to FAX each other more paperwork so that my sister can get the care she needs.
:grr:

actually, I do, but I'll never admit it.

then it's not a surprise that other countries wonder why the Americans are so stupid ...

After November 7 2000, it's going to take quite a bit to reverse this sentiment

oh so PERFECT. Who really gives a flip what someone is laughing at? This isn't middle school. Are they are all 12 year olds?

It's a minority that is holding up health care reform. Not the majority. The majority is working hard.

Also, the fact that we debate so much of what we do in this country is "laughable" to some. But at least we can and do debate it.

We laugh because we're all out of tears. It's a manic laugh of disbelief.

We honestly just want you all to be safe and healthy, and we're shocked that you're unable to come to that consensus yourselves.

Brainwashed, AGAIN, into voting and rabble-rousing against their own best interests. It's the gullibility, stupid.

:banghead:

At the time estimates were 33% were openly Torrie, 33% wanted the Revolution and 33% did not care.

Today 33% will follow Corporate Media and the GOP, 33% tend to want Government in their best interest, and the final third too stupid to speak up for themselves.

:hi::rofl::hi:

lol

:D

Then again, I've lived here all my life.

people just took place last week. This part of the country is so incredibly dumb it boggles the mind. Of course they all live in trailers and love Bush/Cheney but you mention Obama and they lose it. Ironically many of them have 3 or more kids and their insurance is through the roof but they scream socialism if you mention to them they would be the one's benefitting most. Dumb as bricks.

concerned that so many people are being shut out of a fundamental human right while others rake in millions. For us, it's just hard to comprehend.

my family in Germany can't understand how ordinary people can be so loyal to those that make money off of them when they are sick and dying. Yes, Germany.

People were amazed at Bush as President, but this takes the cake for American stupidity in recent history, based on the reactions I have heard.

The Republicans have mastered the art of propaganda and continuously convince many of the poor to fight tooth and nail against their own best interests.

Göbbels would idolize these people.

As would Pravda, TAAS, and Izvestia.
Having no morals or shame is the base of Republican/corporate politics. They rely on, and exploit, the ignorance they helped create with the great dumbing down.
For the sake of national sanity Fox News must be isolated and exposed for what it is, the propaganda wing of American fascism. That the rest of the corporate media makes greater profits if Fox succeeds makes any reasonable reform much more difficult.

Then there was "NCLB," "freedom fries," "niger yellowcake" and that whole embracing of an illegal war on terror because they were manipulated via fear spread by our "free press."

Seriously. Where have they been? As a native, the stupidity of Americans comes as no surprise to me anymore. :(

Actually, Canadians are probably just a tad pissed our health care system is being flogged. :(

pity for Americans, too.

Actually, most Canadians have felt pity for Americans re the US "healthcare" system for decades.

but they gave up on us when Shrub was re-selected.

Just go to the AARP discussion board:

http://bulletin.aarp.org/yourhealth/policy/articles/health_care_reform2.comments.0.html#commentHeading

after they have exhausted all other possibilities."

Churchill nailed it.

The only question is whether or not we've exhausted all other possibilities yet. For possibly the first time ever, I'm rooting against human ingenuity.

.........are Americans REALLY this stupid? And sadly, the answer is yes. Yes they are. In fact, it's long been a saying of mine that the vast majority of Americans are so stupid that I don't know how they find their way home at night. The truth of the matter is that a small percentage of the Americans are willfully stupid (these people are known as the hardline Republicans and Faux News viewers), and the rest are just some combination of lazy, apathetic, and/or too consumed with their own lives to keep up with the world around them (thus, they are susceptible to being spoon-fed their opinions from the Right Wing Media Screamers).

I have friends who live in other countries, and I can confirm that people of other nations do, in fact, laugh at us. But they only laugh at the people stupid enough to vote against their own self interests (not Americans as a whole). I find myself apologizing to them an awful lot.

The difference between Americans and other foreigners is that when the will of the people is subjugated in other countries, the citizens storm the Bastille. In America, they shrug their shoulders, eat another McNugget, and turn on quality Fox programming.

But are sufficiently acquainted with madness Down Under to recognize that what they're seeing is just the noisome part of the bell curve.

However, they like Obama and can't understand why getting decent national healthcare appears to be so hard.

It's "stupid and crazy".

it appears that americans are that stupid. i can hardly believe it myself.

1. The health care protestors are willing accomplices in big pharmas attempt to block healthcare reform. Their motivation? Destroy the black man in the whitehouse.

2. They begrudge giving away for free to other people a service that they pay for.

3. They're gullible fucking idiots who put party affiliation before using their brains.

Take your pick.

Our media spends many hours a day showing and discussing incessantly about stupid stuff. Right now on tv they are getting breathless over the President speaking to school kids..... Later we will see more film clips of the radical righties and repeat their stupid conclusion instead of a real discussion about Afghanistan, health care, etc..

We aren't stupid, but a lot of us are pig-ignorant and proud of it. Corporate media dictatorship doesn't help, either.

because we are great stoopids... and the GOP lives longer than cockroaches, but with the same goal

no idea how thoroughly our political process and the M$M has been hijacked. They would be more sympathetic if they lived this reality.

This site has been a welcome (and constant since I found it) reminder to a European like me, that there is an opposition to the image of USA that Bush and his side was responsible for projecting.

I can only speak from a UK perspective rather than Europe..

There is just a sense of incredulity at the unwillingness of certain demographics (you know who they are!) to engage in a sensible debate. Americans are renowned for being generous and there is certainly no pervading wish for Americans to be more like us (whatever us is in a European sense?!). However,there is a clear tactic on the American right (and there has been for some time now)to not debate the merits of any specific issue but to debate only the underlying ideologies (ie the politics of fear). Public option = socialism/communism = government interventionism = unconstitutional = scary shit.

I think it is this that generates more scorn than anything else in the UK when discussing US right-wing politics. Of course people who live in glass houses and all that, we know everything in the NHS is not wonderful (we wouldn't swap it though, people are proud of what the NHS represents), but I think there is almost a sense of frustration that you have the potential to cherry pick the best of both worlds in the private/public health debate and have the best health care system in the world and yet certain people just don't want to even hear the debate.

Anyway, just my personal perspective ;-)

....every year HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS leave everything that they have ever known to get here. To the Promise that this country brings.

Our government may have its problems, but our country and everything that we stand for (personal freedoms of all sorts that are not available in most of the world) is still strong and I am still very proud of the PEOPLE of this country.

Feel free to gloat all you like...people still die to get here.

The ideals of America are still here and you really do not have to look far...you just have to look closely.

...we live in a country that has good "values" -- but only in theory. The promise of America has never been realized in actuality. It's stressful to live with such a lie. Schizophrenic in fact.

If you're coming from more obviously controlled places America might look good. However I once had a Chinese friend tell me all the things she was disappointed in about America. The list was very long.

Yes the people of this country are what's good about it. We DO deserve better. But our corporate masters have us exactly where they want us at the end of their tether. Which is not to say we shouldn't stop trying to change things.

But we can't be laboring under false illusions if we really want to change anything.

because we don't have universal health care.

no one here in the UK is gloating.

I doubt that you are any more "free" that many of the rest of us - and in some ways I can see, a lot less free. For instance, you do not have the freedom to be given health care and medicine regardless of how much money you have. A pretty basic freedom, I'd say. We are not laughingg at you, we're simply astonished that so many of you regard caring for your fellow citizens as something to be afraid of.

Be as proud as you like of your country but look around and acknowledge those people of your country (and there seem to be many) of whom it seems a truly fair society would be ashamed.

Yes all is relative. People flee Sudan for the relative freedom of Yemen, crossing waters and often drowning, much as Haitians coming to the US do. Does this mean that they are drawn to the 'Promise' of Yemen, or to some dinner and a roof? People die to get to Yemen. What is proved by that about Yemen?

That part isn't really true. According to freedom house there are 192 countries on earth. Of those about 122 are democracies, and of those about 92 are liberal democracies (countries that are democratic and generally follow the universal declaration of human rights). The US is not some jewel in the rough, we sit alongside 91 other liberal democracies.

In fact, some countries we feel comfortable looking down upon are starting to surpass us. China, India and Mexico are developing universal healthcare systems while we in the US are struggling with it.

In the US, we sometimes send our kids to discipline schools when they act up. We set them up in places like Costa Rica, Samoa, Mexico, etc. but then the human rights organizations in those countries shut them down. What does that tell you? We send our kids to foreign countries to go to schools run by american officians, then the human rights orgs of those countries shut them down?

Is America a more free country than Cuba? Yes. That is hardly something to brag about, the fact that our human rights are superior to Cuba. If we are reduced to comparing ourselves to places like Myanmar or Cuba, then whats the point. Many of the immigrants who come here from Mexico are looking for work, not personal freedom.


Anyway, there is a strong tendency for jingoism in the US, but we are not that great anymore. We have a lot of good traits, but so do many other countries on earth. We should be proud that we live on a planet where countries like India are developing universal healthcare, or that countries like Mexico are improving their human rights, or China is working on improving its environmental laws. And we should use that to improve our own to keep up with them.

I've been working in the UK for the past year. First, it's nice not to have to apologize for the administration like I did for the previous eight years. But more to the point of this thread, the people I talk to hear also are mystified to our lack of civilized health care.

this summer at my brother-in-law's wedding in Canada with some of my husband's relatives. They are concerned and puzzled about what is going on here with the "healthcare debate". They don't understand what all of the fuss, lies and fighing is about. We need a single payer system, the pussy footing is costing lives, foolish and ridiculous.

We are like little children in the yes of the world: immature, silly and superstitious.

He invited a bunch of friends over to watch Springer in all his glory and his friends were just shocked at what they saw. Only confirmed to them that Americans are even dumber than they thought.

and that being on this show is pretty much a free vacation for the "guests" to go to Chicago and stay in a nice hotel?

but WE'RE not surprised...

I hope that I never have to move back to the US until we have a real first-world healthcare system which respects basic human rights. People ask me about this debate, and when I explain the details of it, and how the current "system" works, they're dumb-founded. Many people just don't believe that it could be the way it is.

thing. They wondered why we didn't have decent health care.

When he was in Australia, his students told him on one trip that their "wanker" politicians were worse than any of his.

On the second trip, he walked into class and they just said, "Well, you win".

This was during the reign of Bushco....oh, wait, you had already figured that out!

We were stupid enough to put up with Junior for eight goddamned years, and even now when he should be sitting in a prison cell he is instead sitting in a mansion in Dallas. We have a history of stupidity. Both the rule of law and government of the people, by the people and for the people are, as Ms. Pelosi was quick to remind us, off the table!

umpteen years ago and we should have had it then or like most of these countries back in the 1950's - it is ridiculous - and the more they talk while taking in money and benefits is outrageous

its not so much that they're laughing, its that they don't understand how we could be like this towards each other.

...the fact that there is a non-white President. They have to make him evil, so they have tied the words "socialist" and "marxist" into everything he does, without understanding what that means. They really can't handle it, and prefer to scream and shout to hide their dumbness. Curiously, they never complained about socialism before Obama was President.

I am a single guy, employed, with no kids. So using the teabagger logic about socialism, why the hell should teabagger children go to school at my expense? Why should they get tax breaks / child credits at my expense? Why should they get unemployment at my expense (are you listening, Joe the Dumbfucker)? Why should the seniors get healthcare at my expense? It should be their own damn responsibility, right?

But I'm human and sane, and I know that we ALL have a responsibility to make this country run. There are a lot of Americans who share this view. They may not be as loud, and may not have their own propaganda ministries (i.e. Faux News), but they're there. They may not always get their way, but they have made progress to undo the wrongs of the last 8 years and beyond.

created largely by spending as much on the military (with 5% of the world's population) as the rest of the world and giving those who own 95%+ of the nation's wealth by far the least tax burden in the world and being the only industrialized nation not to provide some form of universal health care at a much lower cost than is expended here on those with access to health care. We are especially stupid because we continue to propagate and perpetuate the RW wet dream by even Dems being largely beholden to the moneyed lobbyist interests (corporations) rather than taking care of the general welfare and well-being of its people. :P

I couldn't get out of him just what global sources his information came from.

Methinks he doesn't talk to people with accents.

but drink beer and eat noodles down at the market.


Our only parlor game was that if an American official came through then I would innocently ask him what he thought about socialized medicine and the European staff - all doctors and nurses - would spend the rest of the night disecting the idiot.

The irony is that all of the doctors and nurses were basically conservatives who had come to work for the UN to escape taxes and have more disposable income - but none of them thought the American system was a viable system and just found it hilarious to see Americans make fools of themselves over such a stupid ideological issue.

Stupid is as stupid does
And we done did stoopid for 8 long hellish years
And thats ALOT of stoopid to make up for
Because alot of the stoopids are still around
And those stoopids are actiing even more stoopider
Because of who is on the WH

Or sniveling racists hiding behind anti-socialist rhetoric?

:shrug:

I think the vast majority of the population answers to that description.

And they have just gotten stupider through the years.

not the government. the people. The world would greatly benefit from the inevitable self-destruction of the evil empire.