Talk:Anti-Americanism/Archive 3

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Guatemala coup

"been alleged that the CIA was involved with the military coups in Brazil and Argentina." Why is Guatemala (50th anniversary!) omitted? WP not willing to admit it was more than allegations?

found some mention of it - not under History in Guatemala but History of Guatemala, cripes - and pointed to it. 2004 Apr 21

American culture

I'm not sure the section on cultural exports is entirely complete. In countries like Greece, for example, the non-Greek movies shown are almost exclusively American ones, because that's what people like. People on occasion are familiar with other countries' cinemas (mostly movies from France) but in general vastly prefer Hollywood movies, and US-made movies are really the only ones that gain any popular acceptance in the country, usually even more than local Greek movies (which generally have inferior production quality, due to very small budgets). This seems to be the case in many other countries as well—people simply like American movies, and watch them except when the government prohibits them from doing so by using cultural protection laws. --Delirium 21:43, May 21, 2004 (UTC)

American movies are not only watched so much because they are "better" but also because Hollywood can spend most money for marketing. Pathetic movies like Pearl Harbour, The 13th Warrior, or Hannibal never would have had as much success without those campaigns. You may also note that many of the successful non-US directors and actors go to Hollywood because it is the financial center for the film world, e.g. Alfred Hitchcock, Antonio Banderas, Wim Wenders ... Thus it is not that Hollywood per se makes the best movies but it attracts the best movie makers. Once non-US movies find enough money for campaigns, e.g. by winning awards, it often turns out that the audience likes them, e.g. in the cases of Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain, Nueva Reinas, Monsoon Wedding, Cidade de Deus, Elling, In the mood for love, Good bye, Lenin!, Trainspotting, The Last Emperor, etc. Get-back-world-respect 22:28, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

Well, fwiw, of those movies you listed only Trainspotting was popular at all in Greece. Perhaps it's a language thing—most young Greeks speak both Greek and English, so prefer films in either of those two languages, and definitely not in French. --Delirium 17:47, May 23, 2004 (UTC)

Of the movies I listed only Amélie was French, and according to IMDB it was by far a bigger success than Trainspotting, even in the US. Monsoon Wedding was Indian and had about as much success in the US, maybe you just do not recognize it from the English title? Cidade de Deus (brazilian) means City of God, Nueve Reinas (argentinian) Nine Queens. Get-back-world-respect 19:38, 23 May 2004 (UTC)

The dangers of Anti-American sentiment

I believe that this sections failed to present a neutral point of view, by mentioning only terrorists and failing to mention that terrorists comprise only a small proportion of those with Anti-American sentiments, and only a small proportion of the problems with Anti-American sentiment. One could say that it is equating Anti-American sentiment with terrorism, although obviously the rest of this article does not put out this view.

I thought the most suitable way of fixing this problem was not to remove this section, but to expand it in order to point out that Anti-American sentiment very rarely leads to terrorism, and that Anti-American sentiment has more practical implications not only for America but for the rest of the world. For example, anti-American sentiment affects the ability of countries to trade with each other. Anti-American sentiment also contributes to America's dislike of other nations and polarisation of opinion within America.

Death penalty and Canada

Japan's population is 127 million, compared to 290 million in the US. Japan executes about 2 or 3 people a year, in the US it is dozens. At least 118 people are under sentence of death in Japan. There has been one execution in Japan in 2003. More than 3,600 men and women await execution in the USA, where more than 750 executions have been carried out since 1990, 56 of them this year. The USA has frequently violated international standards in its pursuit of the death penalty, including by using it against the mentally impaired, the inadequately represented, those whose guilt remains in doubt, and foreign nationals denied their consular rights. In the past 18 months, the USA has executed four child offenders -- those under 18 years old at the time of the offence -- the only such executions known in the world in this period. http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGIOR300082003?open&of=ENG-USA And I do not quite see what ethnic diversity has to do with capital punishment. Canada is ethnically extremely diverse and has no death penalty. Get-back-world-respect 07:40, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

Canada is ethnically extremely diverse. That is a humorous statement. http://www.factmonster.com/spot/bhmhockey1.html mentions that the black population in Canada is a whopping 2%. This miniscule percentage is in a nation of 32 million people. The state of California alone has 33 million people, and there are 49 other states in the US. Do you really think that your most cosmopolitan cities (Toronto, Montreal) match the ethnic diversity of Los Angeles, New York City, or Miami? Just the Hispanic/Latin-American population in the United States is larger than the entire population of Canada (12.5% of 290 million people)! Don't like that source? http://www.canada.com/national/features/census/story.html?id=%7BC78A4458-7085-4FEC-AD57-45F3BA869561%7D has a listing the "top responses for ethnic origin" from the Canadian 2001 census -- the result is Canadian (39.2%), English (20%), French (15.75%), Scottish (14%) , Irish (12.9%), Italian (4.29)%, Chinese (3.69%), Ukranian (3.61%), and North American Indian (3.38%). If your census bureau is making distinctions between "Scottish", "Irish", and "English", and considering "Canadian" as an "ethnicity", then your definition of "diversity" is quite weak, since the United States would just lump them all together as "white".

Canada has nothing like the illegal immigration problem of the United States -- perhaps because people don't like the cold temperatures of the north? Illegal immigration into the United States begets wonderful benefits, but unfortunately (and realistically) problems as well, because there is no control over who is coming in, including criminals, people with non-law-abiding-tendancies , and a lot of economically depressed people who will be competing for jobs with the others already in the country.

Add to this mixture the tensions amongst different cultures, because different cultures have different values, and different viewpoints on "the way things should be". Just think about the tension between Anglophones and Francophones in Canada, where you have laws enforcing bilinguality, which some people strongly resent. In a state like Florida (16 million people, half the population of Canada), there is interethnic and intercultural tension amongst a segment of Hispanics, Latinos, Chicanos, and Cubans (it's complicated), despite a common tongue. Black Haitian immigrants, black Jamaican immigrants, and African-Americans don't always see eye to eye. Ethnicities usually reflect different cultures, different cultures have a different values, different values can lead to tensions, tensions mixed with economic distress can unfortunately lead to overheated violence, overheated violence can unfortunately lead to murder... and overheated murder can unfortunately lead to the death penalty under existing laws.

Interethnic tension is not limited to America; the massacre of the Tutsis by Hutus in the Rwanda massacre in 1994 was "racially" based, even though they look the same to me (both are black), while in Indonesia, Chinese businesses are attacked due to a combination of economic and ethnic tensions.

My point is that interethnic tensions are a reality, even when the distinction between the ethnic identities is slight. That doesn't mean they are justified, or should be condoned. But if it happens, it is going to happen on a greater scale in the United States than in any other country, simply due to the sheer numbers of immigrants, the wider variety of countries of origin, and the size of the entire population in actual numbers. The situation is more complicated than in Canada, and hence requires a different way to handle severe problems.

Now, the United States could always let its Death Row inmates move to Canada and live with Canadian families. Would you like to host them in your abode?

The USA has frequently violated international standards in its pursuit of the death penalty, including by using it against the mentally impaired, the inadequately represented, those whose guilt remains in doubt, and foreign nationals denied their consular rights.

In the word "international", to which nations do they refer? Certainly not "all nations of the world", but just the ones that happen to agree with Amnesty International! The "standards" which Amnesty International mentions are not equivalent to enforceable laws, otherwise Amnesty International would be able to sue for wrongful prosecution, attempt to overturn verdicts, and declare retrials. To what court would they turn? That's not how judicial or legislative systems work. What members of Amnesty International feel about the verdict of a particular case is irrelevant; otherwise, they would be participants in the jury. They aren't. They don't participate on the jury, they don't necessarily sit in the trial or see the evidence first hand or hear the witnesses testimonies first hand, and they certainly don't sit in the isolated room where jury members alone discuss the merits of a case amongst themselves. Jury members may be presented with evidence not open to the general public, due to the gruesome nature of the crime. If a jury decides that somebody is "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt", then Amnesty International cannot be so presumptious as to blindly believe the defense lawyers, who are paid to convince others of their client's innocence, regardless of the truth. And the defense lawyers have an extra incentive in pursuing a case to the limit of endless appeals: their future reputation and hence future revenue depends on it! They will say anything, including lies. Remember: it's their job!

I don't think even Canadian courts would overturn their own verdicts merely to accomodate a press release by Amnesty International.

Japan executes about 2 or 3 people a year, in the US it is dozens. Japan has a very homogeneous society, without the scope of illegal immigration and additional problems of interethnic tensions that I discussed previously. A homogeneous culture means a more conformant culture. Everybody in Japan speaks Japanese. Practically everybody in Japan was born in Japan. Practically everybody in Japan has the same ethnicity. Japan does not have to worry about large numbers of poor immigrants pouring into their borders because they will escort them out very quickly! -- May 25, 2004

I had heard Canadians complaining about US citizens' ignorance towards their country, but the anonymous author of the above article seems to be a particularly striking example. The CIA reports about ethnicities in Canada: British Isles origin 28%, French origin 23%, other European 15%, Amerindian 2%, other, mostly Asian, African, Arab 6%, mixed background 26%. If you had ever been to one of Canada's metropoles like Toronto, Vancouver or Montreal you would have noted that it is hard to find a dominant ethnicity. Toronto is considered by many as the most ethnically diverse city of the world. "Toronto is home to virtually all of the world's culture groups and is the city where more than 100 languages are spoken."

By 2001, Toronto's visible minority population accounted for more than 50 per cent of the population. "The top ten source countries for immigration to Canada were China, India, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Iran, Sri Lanka, The Philippines, Taiwan, Russia and Jamaica in 1996." [1] When I lived in Toronto I was impressed by how welcome Canadians made foreigners - like me - feel and how much they cared for people with different cultural backgrounds getting along with each other. Multilinguality is only one sign for that. In Toronto you can find signs for the names of streets in Chinese and Korean. After only a few years immigrants are generally accepted to be "Canadians", wherever they had come from, and newspapers frequently report whether efforts to give immigrants equal chances on the job market were successful.

"International standards" are for example treaties the US signed guaranteeing foreign citizens the right to access consular services. The International Court of Justice has ruled in several cases that the US violated the treaties it signed, but the US simply ignores the rulings although it sends judges to the court. Another case was the Reagan supported terrorism against Nicaragua where the US simply declared that the court was not entitled to rule upon the case, even when the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution where only Israel and El Salvador voted with the US.

Would you also say that Sudan does not violate international standards when thousands of civilians die in massacres, just because no one enforces the standards?

If for you ethnic diversity means that there are many blacks or that the number of millions of inhabitants matter for the concept of diversity I think you have a problem. And in my eyes someone who argues that the USA needs the death penalty because of its ethnic diverse population shows nothing more than what an utter racist he or she is. Get-back-world-respect 23:32, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

You are an excellent example of Canadian ignorance and stupidity. You did not read carefully the links that I gave you.

And in my eyes someone who argues that the USA needs the death penalty because of its ethnic diverse population shows nothing more than what an utter racist he or she is. Once again, you show your ignorance and stupidity. That is not what I said. I said that an ethnically diverse population, compounded by illegal immigration, leads to a different set of problems that justifies a different way of handling the problem.

When I lived in Toronto I was impressed by how welcome Canadians made foreigners - like me - feel and how much they cared for people with different cultural backgrounds getting along with each other. My own case is similar -- my parents emigrated to the United States from China. One of my sibilings is married to a Hispanic. Many of my cousins have marriages to other races. But since you do not bother to read the links that I gave you or to ponder the information that I wrote, and are obviously stubborn in your point of view and wanting to bash the United States all the time, I see no need to continue the conversation. I have visited Canada many times, including Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa, and Halifax, and your definition of "diversity" just doesn't cut it. May 25, 2004

Quite telling that first of all you still do not dare to sign your messages, second, you try to insult me, which says more about you than anyone else, third, you still think I was Canadian which I am not, fourth, you are still refusing to accept that Canada's population is ethnically extremely diverse, fifth, you keep telling us that the death penalty was a way of handling problems with immigration, sixth, you accuse me of bashing the United States although I never did that but criticized certain political decisions and you personally for racism. As is mentioned in the article, anti-Americanism is just a label some people try to batch on everyone who criticizes US politics. Most people are not anti-semite either, and still the United Nations would have passed dozens of resolutions condemning Israel's violations of human rights if there had not been continous US vetos. About half of the US population is extremely critical of some of George W. Bush's actions. Do you think half of your country's population is "anti-American"? Sadly enough, continous violations of human rights and international agreements, most prominently in Latin America and now in Afghanistan and Iraq, have created a lot of hatred and indeed something like anti-American racism. But many US citizens seem to be most worried about Europe, where most people can still distinguish between the politics of a government that takes a lot of decisions that are controversial even domestically, and the people, many of which are very popular all over the world. Get-back-world-respect 11:43, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

Er what has levels of ethnic diversity got to do with the death penalty?. I'm struggling to see a connection here. G-Man 12:06, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

I guess the anonymous who tried to spread prejudices against Canada was the same as the one who started the discussion above. No one ever said that Canada was more ethnically diverse than the US, I only said that Toronto is regarded by many as the world's most ethnically diverse city and that other big Canadian cities like Vancouver and Montreal are ethnically very diverse as well. You may want to be informed that, as with so many things on earth, ethnic groups as well have more shadings than just black and white. Get-back-world-respect 19:12, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Dear anonymous editor, as you could have concluded by now, I am neither Asian nor do I live in Canada nor do I try to hide the truth. Why do you not register and explain yourself here rather than engage in stupid edit wars? Get-back-world-respect 12:10, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Just as a point of fact, I don't know how you define "ethnically diverse," but I doubt Toronto is more diverse than New York City. -- Cecropia | Talk 17:57, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Where is the fact in your statement? I lived in Toronto for a year and read that statement in a travel guide. Given that there is no ethnic majority in Toronto, I lived in a Jamaican district with many Portuguese, on my way to university crossed the Korean district north of one of at least three Little Italies and China Towns, and came along restaurants from more than thirty countries I do not find it hard to believe. Get-back-world-respect 20:38, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)