Mexican fans took up the chant "Osama! Osama!" during a recent
US-Canada Olympic soccer game held south of our border. Last month,
protesters in Athens chanted "Sept. 11 every day!" during an
anti-American rally.
American chief executive of the financial services firm Swift and
president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Belgium, took a seat
next to an elegant woman he recognized as one of Belgium's richest
people. During the pre-dinner chitchat in a room full of
museum-quality contemporary art, she ventured offhandedly that it was
"good that the Americans got hit on Sept. 11. Maybe it taught them a
lesson."
"She was just repeating what she had heard," he says. "The real point
is that 90% of the people she talks to every day would agree with
her."
Philadelphia transplant Susan Steele, head of Forum management company in London, has noticed that many Europeans have started using the phrase "that's American," which is shorthand, Steele says, for "not taking anyone else into consideration."
Three-time gold medalist Karch Kiraly shared his volleyball war
stories with some of the current crop of American Olympians. He
described being pelted with ice cubes, raw eggs, tomatoes and D-cell
batteries while playing in Argentina. In Brazil, assaults on the
Americans came from spitting fans perched above the court's exit.
In Britain, the United States' staunchest friend, snide remarks and
downright animosity greet many Americans these days. It's not just
religious radicals and terrorists who resent the United States
anymore.
Leading up to the Iraq war,millions of protestors took to the streets throughout Italy to protest the planned invasion.One reporter asked a protestor in Rome why he was protesting and he replied "Bush is the new Hitler and America is the new Nazi Germany and Iraq is the new Poland.They all deserve more 9/11s!Our premier is the new Mussolini and he should get what Mussolini got!"
"Why do people attack Americans?" asks Tiny Waslandek, a social worker
in Amsterdam, Netherlands. "Because they have a big, big mouth and
they mind everybody's business."
"Around the world, from Western Europe to the Far East, many see the
United States as arrogant, hypocritical, self-absorbed,self-indulgent
and contemptuous of others," Peterson says. "This is not a Muslim
country issue. It has metastasized to the rest of the world and
includes some of our closest European allies."
New Yorker Julia Magnet, a journalist who just moved to London, found
that out when she decided to throw a Fourth of July party for British
friends. Between grilled sausages and chocolate cake, her friends
launched an attack on Bush and the United States. They called Bush a
"homicidal maniac" and "stupid" and the United States the "world's
biggest terrorist."
A road trip for a group of U.S. peewee hockey players to a tournament
in Montreal turned into a foray into enemy territory as the boys were
barraged with anti-American insults and witnessed protesters trashing
the American flag, reports the Globe and Mail. Americans watched as a
crowd cheered when a protester waved the Iraqi flag, and booed the
U.S. flag. Next, the Stars and Stripes were doused with kerosene and
ignited. "It went up in a puff of smoke and flames, and the crowd went
wild. They were all cheering,""They told us we s----, gave us the
finger and said 'Down with the U.S.A.' or 'The U.S.A. s----,"
"People hate you. Everyone hates you. The whole world hates you." The
pretty middle-aged woman, a Swiss mother and scholar, at the dinner
table in Geneva earnestly wants to make that perfectly clear.She isn't
angry with me. She thinks the American people are totally ignorant,
misled by the media and a criminal president.
I was traveling on a London bus when a well-dressed woman boarded
with her equally-respectable son in his school uniform. Ahead of her
was an elderly American woman, who said, ‘I beg your pardon, I didn't
mean to bang into you.' This prompted a tirade from the Englishwoman
-- let's call her Lady E -- that resembled a verbal assault by a
brownshirt against a hapless Jewish pedestrian in 1933. The American
-- call her Mrs. A -- sat down and cowered as the tirade continued: ‘I
rejoice every time I hear of another American soldier dying!
You people all deserve to die in another 9/11. You are destroying the
world.' Mrs A fought back: ‘I personally am NOT destroying the world.'
This only provoked Lady E more, and as the bus driver and passengers
laughed, she screamed into the American's face ‘I wish every one of
you would leave this country and not set foot in it ever again,' and
Mrs A began to wince, crying. ‘Thank you for ruining my day and my
trip.' At this point Lady E lunged at the American and began to shake
her. I jumped up and shouted at the top of my voice for the driver to
stop and for her to leave the woman alone, prompting Lady E to come
over to me and grab me. ‘Another bloody American
accent! You come here and think you can strut about, well, you are
scum.' Thankfully, the woman next to me pushed her away. I left the
bus as the American woman sat sobbing.
A few weeks before, I had attended a party at which I was lambasted,
intimidated and mocked by a group of people I had known for some
twenty-odd years. It reminded me of a comment made to me by an
American expatriate shortly after 9/11: ‘Now I know what the Jews felt
like in pre-war Germany.'
During the tea break I asked a man at one of the booths for a
leaflet. Instead of welcoming me and asking for a donation, he had
detected my accent and duly launched into a loud and red-faced
screeching session about the evils of the American Empire and of the
‘Naziism' and ‘Fascism' promulgated by the United States. A black man
came over and began shouting about America having ‘invented slavery'
and soon a delicate elderly lady joined the fray to bellow about the
Zionists running America (did she mean Robert Rubin, Dennis
Ross, Sandy Berger -- after all, it was the pre-Wolfowitz/Perle time
zone) and the ‘genocides' perpetrated by Americans since the days of
William Penn."You Yanks should look at yourselves in the mirror and
wonder why every so often there is a Holocaust or massacre or pogrom.
You bring it on yourselves. Just look at the way you are and then
figure out why the rest of the world wants to flatten you."
The English are not known for public displays of fury except perhaps
at soccer matches, but there is something about an American accent
that brings out their pent-up rage.
Many Americans are leaving their homes abroad and returning home after
decades in foreign countries. Notwithstanding the loss of free medical
care and pills (and that is one hell of a sacrifice!) afforded by
their adopted countries, they can no longer endure the daily abuse and
the ugly posters and stickers that proliferate across European cities.
When the many anti-war rallies were held in February 2003 young people
in European cities were seen wearing headbands with slogans wishing
death upon Jews and Israel.
US-Canada Olympic soccer game held south of our border. Last month,
protesters in Athens chanted "Sept. 11 every day!" during an
anti-American rally.
American chief executive of the financial services firm Swift and
president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Belgium, took a seat
next to an elegant woman he recognized as one of Belgium's richest
people. During the pre-dinner chitchat in a room full of
museum-quality contemporary art, she ventured offhandedly that it was
"good that the Americans got hit on Sept. 11. Maybe it taught them a
lesson."
"She was just repeating what she had heard," he says. "The real point
is that 90% of the people she talks to every day would agree with
her."
Philadelphia transplant Susan Steele, head of Forum management company in London, has noticed that many Europeans have started using the phrase "that's American," which is shorthand, Steele says, for "not taking anyone else into consideration."
Three-time gold medalist Karch Kiraly shared his volleyball war
stories with some of the current crop of American Olympians. He
described being pelted with ice cubes, raw eggs, tomatoes and D-cell
batteries while playing in Argentina. In Brazil, assaults on the
Americans came from spitting fans perched above the court's exit.
In Britain, the United States' staunchest friend, snide remarks and
downright animosity greet many Americans these days. It's not just
religious radicals and terrorists who resent the United States
anymore.
Leading up to the Iraq war,millions of protestors took to the streets throughout Italy to protest the planned invasion.One reporter asked a protestor in Rome why he was protesting and he replied "Bush is the new Hitler and America is the new Nazi Germany and Iraq is the new Poland.They all deserve more 9/11s!Our premier is the new Mussolini and he should get what Mussolini got!"
"Why do people attack Americans?" asks Tiny Waslandek, a social worker
in Amsterdam, Netherlands. "Because they have a big, big mouth and
they mind everybody's business."
"Around the world, from Western Europe to the Far East, many see the
United States as arrogant, hypocritical, self-absorbed,self-indulgent
and contemptuous of others," Peterson says. "This is not a Muslim
country issue. It has metastasized to the rest of the world and
includes some of our closest European allies."
New Yorker Julia Magnet, a journalist who just moved to London, found
that out when she decided to throw a Fourth of July party for British
friends. Between grilled sausages and chocolate cake, her friends
launched an attack on Bush and the United States. They called Bush a
"homicidal maniac" and "stupid" and the United States the "world's
biggest terrorist."
A road trip for a group of U.S. peewee hockey players to a tournament
in Montreal turned into a foray into enemy territory as the boys were
barraged with anti-American insults and witnessed protesters trashing
the American flag, reports the Globe and Mail. Americans watched as a
crowd cheered when a protester waved the Iraqi flag, and booed the
U.S. flag. Next, the Stars and Stripes were doused with kerosene and
ignited. "It went up in a puff of smoke and flames, and the crowd went
wild. They were all cheering,""They told us we s----, gave us the
finger and said 'Down with the U.S.A.' or 'The U.S.A. s----,"
"People hate you. Everyone hates you. The whole world hates you." The
pretty middle-aged woman, a Swiss mother and scholar, at the dinner
table in Geneva earnestly wants to make that perfectly clear.She isn't
angry with me. She thinks the American people are totally ignorant,
misled by the media and a criminal president.
I was traveling on a London bus when a well-dressed woman boarded
with her equally-respectable son in his school uniform. Ahead of her
was an elderly American woman, who said, ‘I beg your pardon, I didn't
mean to bang into you.' This prompted a tirade from the Englishwoman
-- let's call her Lady E -- that resembled a verbal assault by a
brownshirt against a hapless Jewish pedestrian in 1933. The American
-- call her Mrs. A -- sat down and cowered as the tirade continued: ‘I
rejoice every time I hear of another American soldier dying!
You people all deserve to die in another 9/11. You are destroying the
world.' Mrs A fought back: ‘I personally am NOT destroying the world.'
This only provoked Lady E more, and as the bus driver and passengers
laughed, she screamed into the American's face ‘I wish every one of
you would leave this country and not set foot in it ever again,' and
Mrs A began to wince, crying. ‘Thank you for ruining my day and my
trip.' At this point Lady E lunged at the American and began to shake
her. I jumped up and shouted at the top of my voice for the driver to
stop and for her to leave the woman alone, prompting Lady E to come
over to me and grab me. ‘Another bloody American
accent! You come here and think you can strut about, well, you are
scum.' Thankfully, the woman next to me pushed her away. I left the
bus as the American woman sat sobbing.
A few weeks before, I had attended a party at which I was lambasted,
intimidated and mocked by a group of people I had known for some
twenty-odd years. It reminded me of a comment made to me by an
American expatriate shortly after 9/11: ‘Now I know what the Jews felt
like in pre-war Germany.'
During the tea break I asked a man at one of the booths for a
leaflet. Instead of welcoming me and asking for a donation, he had
detected my accent and duly launched into a loud and red-faced
screeching session about the evils of the American Empire and of the
‘Naziism' and ‘Fascism' promulgated by the United States. A black man
came over and began shouting about America having ‘invented slavery'
and soon a delicate elderly lady joined the fray to bellow about the
Zionists running America (did she mean Robert Rubin, Dennis
Ross, Sandy Berger -- after all, it was the pre-Wolfowitz/Perle time
zone) and the ‘genocides' perpetrated by Americans since the days of
William Penn."You Yanks should look at yourselves in the mirror and
wonder why every so often there is a Holocaust or massacre or pogrom.
You bring it on yourselves. Just look at the way you are and then
figure out why the rest of the world wants to flatten you."
The English are not known for public displays of fury except perhaps
at soccer matches, but there is something about an American accent
that brings out their pent-up rage.
Many Americans are leaving their homes abroad and returning home after
decades in foreign countries. Notwithstanding the loss of free medical
care and pills (and that is one hell of a sacrifice!) afforded by
their adopted countries, they can no longer endure the daily abuse and
the ugly posters and stickers that proliferate across European cities.
When the many anti-war rallies were held in February 2003 young people
in European cities were seen wearing headbands with slogans wishing
death upon Jews and Israel.
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