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From: tan@ihlpg.UUCP (Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: America-bashing (the gospel according to Sevener)
Message-ID: <960@ihlpg.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 25-Jul-85 19:57:55 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihlpg.960
Posted: Thu Jul 25 19:57:55 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 27-Jul-85 03:16:06 EDT
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Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
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> == Tim Sevener
-----------------------------
> For one thing, the rest of the world sees the 6% of the world represented
> by Americans consuming over 50% of the world's resources. (this has probably
> shifted somewhat lately but the basic imbalance remains)
-----------------------------
Your 50% figure is way too high.  The per capita consumption of resources
by the U. S. is no longer grossly out of line with that of Japan or
Western Europe.  As more and more energy intensive industry (e.g. steel)
leaves the U. S., the relative consumption will decrease further.
-----------------------------
> Third World countries and even European countries look around and what
> do they see? American corporations everywhere extracting their resources.
> The current trade deficit doesn't change the control by American-based
> corporations - what has changed is that these corporations begin to
> manufacture overseas instead of in America so they can get cheap,
> non-union labor.  But the ownership and control of these corporations
> is still predominately American.
-----------------------------
Let's see.  American owned corporations provide jobs overseas, so the
population of those countries should hate America.  Great logic.
The labor may be cheap by U. S. standards, but the pay is usually good
by local scales.
-----------------------------
> Countries like Nicaragua have vivid remembrances of being occupied by
> US Marines for years to protect the holdings of the United Fruit Company.
> The Vietnamese remember that the US came in to help the French
> retain Indochina as a French colony after World War II.
> The Iranians remember that the CIA deposed the democratically elected
> Iranian president, Mossadegh in favor of the Shah in 1954.
> Now the South Africans notice that the Reagan administration has been
> shipping the South African government arms- arms which they see
> used against their own struggle to eliminate apartheid.
-----------------------------
I would agree with you, Tim, on these four points.  You could have added
a few others, for example, the coup in Chile.
-----------------------------
> People in Western Europe (as contrasted with their governments) see
> more nuclear weapons being crammed down their throats to suit
> American views of the nuclear balance - while Europeans see themselves
> as most likely to be the first to be fried if such weapons were ever used.
-----------------------------
If you are referring to cruise missiles, the European governments asked
for them, because they were worried that without European based missiles,
the U. S. would not risk Soviet retaliation to defend Europe.  All the
relevant European countries have freely elected governments.  If some
Europeans don't like decisions made by their own government, they should
vote it out of office.  Sounds to me like a pretty stupid reason to
blame America.
-----------------------------
> Over 100 countries signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Pact to voluntarily
> agree not to develop their own nuclear weapons.  Yet as part of that
> agreement, the Soviet Union and U.S. agreed to limit their own nuclear
> weapons.  They haven't -- instead they have doubled their nuclear arsenals
> in the last decade.  If the superpowers decide to have a nuclear war
> the whole world would pay the cost if the Nuclear Winter effect is valid.
> Regardless the whole world would pay the cost of massive poisoning of
> the whole ecosphere.
> The fact that the rest of the world could be wiped out due to
> either an American or Soviet unilateral decision to launch 
> a nuclear attack does not make either country well-loved.
-----------------------------
True.  However, if the U. S. threw away all its nuclear weapons
tomorrow, the very same Europeans now denouncing America the strongest
would quickly realize the simple fact that these very same weapons have kept
them from the fate of Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc., etc., etc.
-----------------------------
-- 
Bill Tanenbaum - AT&T Bell Labs - Naperville IL  ihnp4!ihlpg!tan