Why everyone in Germany is so against the U.S.

Sara - I think I love you.

As I said before, I don't see how the "innocence" of a victim can be an issue (unless in cases of selfdefense, i.e.when sombeody becomes a "victim" due to their own actions). Other than that I agree with your post.

Bierchen gefällig?

Since you love your wiki links :

Indian reservation

Wounded Knee Massacre

Pine Ridge Campaign

Dakota War of 1862

Apache Wars

Nez Perce War

Indian Removal

Long Walk of the Navajo

Trail of Tears

If someone dies on the battlefield, or of disease, are they generally considered a 'victim' of another person? That is my point. Not every Native American who died was a victim.

While we are at it, why don't we decide exactly what time period we will look at and exactly what actions are to be considered when deciding a Native American was a victim of the US? Let's not forget that there was no United States until either 1776 or 1783.

What about those Native Americans who died fighting as allies of the British in wars fought in North America? Are they victims? What about Native Americans killed by British subjects or British troops in the French and Indian War? Can't blame that on the US, right?

My point is that it is not so simple. Europeans love to bring up the Native Americans as a cudgel with which to beat the US, but it is not so simple, as you can see.

Since you provided these links, why don't you analyze and explain them in detail and tell us exactly why you posted them. What exactly are you saying, exactly what accusations are you making? Details, please, not just links.

Others on here do have jobs...

Are you serious? Who the hell is that daft? Do they think all the nations of North and South America just sprang up out of nowhere with no European involvement? Someone tried to tell you that? Nobody is that stupid.

Agree with that. I hear comments about American foreign policy (never about domestic) in daily life, but nothing anywhere close to the "screw 'em, nuke 'em, let the Ami civilians die and see how they like it" rhetoric that occasionally gets posted here. I think it's just the anonymous nature of this board confirming John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.

So the Spaniard is therefore a ...

Thanks Mr. Baldi. The people in the next office are now wondering why I'm cleaning coffee off my keyboard.

TRANSLATION: You are too lazy to do any research or analysis, just a quick search on Wikipedia for a few links that MIGHT be something to back you up. You cannot answer the questions because you are not familiar enough with the topic and haven't thought in depth about it.

miwild posts any old thing as well.

EDIT: Now here is a link that we should all read:

http://p10.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk...in_germany.html

http://www.berresheim.com/bweigandt/Senior...%20Weigandt.pdf (for those who actually want to think instead of eagerly soaking up anti-American propaganda)

Your government does not think so. The latter days of the Ottoman empire, Armenians suffered a similar fate and USA Recognizes the Armenian Genocide.

Most of the people with strong Anti American feelings here tend to be among the upper classes. The groups here that seem to think well of Americans seem to be the Auslander. America is an immigration society so these people regard the US highly.

Ozen, I have long been fascinated with the history and culture of the Turkish people, and once considered learning Turkish instead of Arabic.

You might not realize that there is a rather significant and politically powerful Armenian-American community in the US. It is that community which has pressured for the recognition.

I am not familiar enough with the matter to comment on it, but there may well be differences that lead some to characterize one situation as genocide, but not another. I am open to your opinion as to whether or not the Armenians were victims of genocide. I simply do not know enough about it to say.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_mass...#Academic_views

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

Many of these scholarship winners, if not the majority, are either immigrants to the US, or the children of immigrants (as suggested by their knowledge of languages such as Russian and Tamil). Now do you think these indivduals are not primed for great success?

http://www.siemens-foundation.org/competit...6/Nationals.htm

I suppose that you will fail to acknowledge deaths of European- and African Americans killed by Native Americans since it doesn't fit your negative view of the US, but...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_massac...st_of_massacres

While I look for more sources, I find this quote rather telling:

"...epidemic disease was by far the leading cause of the population decline of the American indigenous peoples after 1492.."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_hi...igenous_peoples

that's funny.

No, TRANSLATION: I have a job and I don't have the time to explain historical events which are taught in every hichschool history class to someone who therefore should know them. Since you are on here 24/7 you can't really be that busy, apart from attacking people who don't agree with you, so read 'em yourself.

All these links I posted were wars, massacres and deportations on Native-Americans following the Indian Appropriations Act by the Congress in 1851.

I don't know what these two links you posted are supposed to inform us on, but the first one is nothing but baseless pow-wow and the second one (I read the introduction and conclusion) lacks any kind of scientific approach to the issue - the guy proofed what he wanted to prove.


You getting lazy?


You gotta be kidding, right? We agreed on the fact that immigrants in Europe and th US differ vastly in where they come from, their previous education (or their parents one) and therefore their whole attitude towards their new home... now you come and wanna show me how well they do and you present me a German company foundation in the States that sponsors immigrants? Mate, I'm sorry but I find this rather amusing...

Anybody care to comment on this?

http://mki.wisc.edu/HGIA/Settling.htm

"In part because of contacts between German-speaking immigrants and Native Americans, Germans back home developed a fascination with Indians that has continued unabated to the present. In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, hundreds of fictionalized treatments of American Indians appeared in Germany, the best known of which are the novels of Karl May (1842–1912), whose only visit to America—in 1908—came after he had completed most of his works. Today, there are an estimated 200 “Indian clubs� in Germany whose members don feathers and war paint and “recreate� traditional Native ceremonies. An important corrective to these activities is the Native American Association of Germany, e.V., founded in Kaiserslautern in 1994 by Lindbergh Namingha, a former U.S. serviceman and member of the Hopi Tribe. Back in the U.S., the novelist Louise Erdrich (b. 1954), whose mother is Ojibwa Indian and father German-American, has thematized German-Indian cultural contact to great acclaim."

is this is why some Germans on this board are making an issue of the Native Americans?

Hahaha... don't stop please! I just splashed a mouthfull of coffee over my workscreen!

Don't make a fool out of yourself and accept the fact that every country has it's dark pages - doesn't make it a bad country, in fact it makes it a more normal country and therefore much more sympatico than the bloody picture of Perfectanistan you try to sell to us here.

yes, conquistador, you hit the nail!

Looks a bit more like Neanderthalians to me...

Helter Skelter- perhaps you realize that links on the DDR propaganda had nothing to do with our exchange.

I merely posted two links I looked at briefly on the Armenian/Turkish issue- I did not represent them as comprehensive resources.
EDIT: I specifically said that I was not familiar with the issue, so your plaint is irrelevant.

As for your Wikipedia links, I am, of course, well acquainted with the role of Native Americans in US history, and no, I do not suggest that there has never been wrongdoing by Americans. Quite to the contrary, I admit my regrets for such black marks on my country's history. What we see on this board is often slander of the US, and I am merely responding to these vicious attacks, many of which are extreme and inaccurate. It is fashionable to criticize the US, for some it is done to deflect guilt from the genocides carried out by Germans, for others it is pure and simply jealousy, and there are no doubt other motivations.

I suggest a thorough look at the history of the Native Americans in the US, not just a reliance on the discredited Ward Churchill.

Why don't you excoriate your countryman miwild?

EDIT: the science awards to which you refer as being awarded by a German company originated with Westinghouse, an American company later partially purchased by Siemens. It is completely irrelevant to my point- which is that nonwhite American immigrants can have great opportunities in the US. Someone reading your post on Schwarzenegger might have thought you implied otherwise.

So I guess all those Americans dressing up in fake Dirndl and Lederhosen and hanging out at would-be Oktoberfests all around the US are the reason why some Americans are making an issue of Germans (as can be seen on this forum)?

Wouldn't you just love to be like us!

Sounds rather non sequitir to me, but I can't speak for others. Of course, Americans discussing Germans could be because this is a expatriate board primarily dedicated to life in Germany. The history of the Native Americans usually is not part of this board unless it is brought up by a German.

No, I have no desire to be "just like you", but it is a personal choice. Maybe some do.

What I'm talking about is that it's rather far-fetched to claim that people on this board bring up Native Americans in discussions just because some Germans like to dress up as Native Americans or take an interest in a stereotypical idea of what Native Americans are all about. Just as it would be far fetched to say that Americans discussing Germans here have no idea what they're talking about just because some Americans love to dress up as Bavarians and go for the stereotypical idea of "Lederhosen-Germans". Btw - Native Americans were mentioned after you (I think) claimed that the US has no major problem with immigrants. Pointing out that the vast majority of the population in the US ARE descendents of immigrants who caused a LOT of trouble to the original indigenous population wasn't the most inspired argument ever, but certainly not the vicious attack on everything the US stands for that you have apparently come to expect no matter what people actually say.

Descended from European immigrants for the most part. If you are going to make an issue of this, you should also accept that many of those who fought against the Native Americans were immigrants themselves.

No, the US generally has a positive view of legal immigration today. What you are talking about with Native Americans happened prior to 1890. Most of the immigrants to the US since the founding of the country actually arrived after 1890.

I did not claim, I asked.

What I was talking about was what actually triggered the "Native-American" discussion - a post that wasn't by me btw. and that I understood as a quip rather than a serious argument. A quip that you jumped upon and lapped up like ambrosia because it gave you a chance to go into detail about YOUR idea of every German's view on Native Americans, and on how the the US dealt with them. You've just done the same thing with this post again - defending yourself against accusations I hadn't made and making a major issue out of things that are at best peripheral to the actual discussion, while jumping ahead at things you assume I might be getting at ("if you are going to make an issue of this"), but which I never meant to get at. Frankly, what you're doing here looks a lot like a kind of Rechterfertigungswahn to me (I think I just made that word up so don't incorporate it into your active German) - a manical urge to justify things that were never critizised to begin with. Yep, native Americans did get a rough deal by "immigrants". That's the post which started this discussion. You never denied that they did - fair enough. You could have left it there. Yet you immidiately went on pointing out that Native Americans were no angels etc. etc. as if anybody had claimed that they were - completely beside the point, unless it was an attempt at blaming them for what went on and diverting blame from the US (the same thing, btw, you keep accusing German posters of doing when they mention Native Americans) - funny thing is that nobody had laid any blame on the US at that point. I'd say the lady does protest too much, but I have no intention of riling you up. I've seen before what happens when the same people "discuss" the same issues again and again - instead of listening to what the other person actually has to say, they jump on key words and reply to what they think must have been said and instead of using arguments, they show knee-jerking reactions. Goes for both sides btw. It's not only futile, it also doesn't help in finding a common basis or - god forbid - come to an agreement at least in some points.

OK, rant over. Time for the Biergarten.

There was far less criticism of US policiy in Germany under Clinton. People then where looking at Yugoslavia where the US demonstrated how badly their leadership was needed at the time. So feelings where moch more positive towards the US. I think part of the reason for the extremely harsh criticism of Bush is that the Germans had a very high opinion of the US (at least foreign policy) at the time and therefore where very disappointed.

One other thing that comes to my mind is this: In Germany you grow up being educated about the Holocaust and whatever else is bad about Germanys history. Starting from the 5th grade I don't think there was a year where we didn't do an intensive study of one aspect of the NAZI regime. I don't complain about that. In fact I am grateful for it and most Germans probably would agree that it is very important. To understand what your ancestors did wrong and what went wrong in your own culture is important if you want to prevent it from happening again. There should be an understanding of these things that goes beyond mere knowledge of facts. Consequently, if someone denies or belittles the crimes committed by their own people, that is seen as something very dangerous by most young Germans. So the critique is not that the killing and deporting of Native Americans (for example) happened, but that it is somehow not aknowledged by the people today. Washington D.C. has tons of war memmorials and memmorials to US presidents. Does it have a memmorial to the Native Americans killed during the settlement of the west? I didn't find one. That, I think, is what Germans have a problem with.

The other thing is the different culture of debate in Germany and the US. Germans love to debate about politics, philosphy and many other things. These debates are usually quite heated and often go over several evenings. Poeple deliberatly meet with others that disagree with them to discuss. To quote Einstein: "Ein Abend, an dem alle Beteiligten einer Meinung sind, ist ein verlorener Abend."
In the US a discussion is more like an exchange of facts to support a common point of view. People often ask if you like Bush before starting a rant about him. I keep getting mails from MoveOn inviting me to parties to meet other supporters of ... . Whats the point? These people already agree with me. I want to challenge my view of things. I want to talk to someone that disagrees with me and can make it clear why. I want to unterstand how somone can take his position.
If I confront someone in Germany with a view different from his own, I hope to start en extended discussion. Maybe meet again to discuss more. If I do the same in the US that person is likely to decide that they don't like me and avoid talking to me.
So the point is: This is (partly) again just a difference in mentality that leads to misunderstandings. I can imagine very well how many Americans in Germany must feel about this because I know how things are handled here in the US. A German would probably feel in paradise for having so many people to debate with.

There's the amazing National Museum of the American Indian...

The problem that I have is that over time people have tried to equate what happened to Native Americans with what happened to "undersirables" during WWII, and there is simply no comparison, any which way you look at things.

As far as the second part of your post is concerned...

Maybe that's the way you are, but most of the people I have dealt with are more interested in lecturing or scolding me than any kind of real debate.

I don't know when you were in DC, but since 2004, there has been a Museum of the American Indian. This link has some photos:

http://americanindian.net/2004s.html

There might not be any memorials because of the museum's presence, not sure about that.

There are also battlefield memorials and markers in many places in the Western US where the battles occurred.

The history of the Native Americans is taught as part of US history, but given the diversity among tribes, it could merit years of study on its own.

Zargorn, what do you think would be the correct course of action if negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program do not reach a satisfactory conclusion, and, say, they build some bombs?

In American history books, the Indian Wars have often been treated as a relatively minor part of the military history of the United States. Only in last few decades of the 20th century did a significant number of historians begin to include the American Indian point of view in their writings about the wars, emphasizing the impact of the wars on native peoples and their cultures.

From the Wikipedia website on the Indian Wars: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Wars#Historiography

"A well-known and influential book in popular history was Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1970). In academic history, Francis Jennings's The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest (New York: Norton, 1975) was notable for its reversal of the traditional portrayal of Indian-European relations. A recent and important release from the perspective of both Indians and the soldiers is Jerome A. Greene's INDIAN WAR VETERANS: Memories of Army Life and Campaigns in the West, 1864-1898 (New York, 2007).

Some historians now emphasize that to see the Indian wars as a racial war between Indians and White Americans simplifies the complex historical reality of the struggle. Indians and whites often fought alongside each other; Indians often fought against Indians. For example, although the Battle of Horseshoe Bend is often described as an "American victory" over the Creek Indians, the victors were a combined force of Cherokees, Creeks, and Tennessee militia led by Andrew Jackson. From a broad perspective, the Indian wars were about the conquest of Native American peoples by the United States; up close it was rarely quite as simple as that."

I was in Munich when Clinton and the whole Monica Lewinsky thing was going on. He was a joke to the Germans and they made fun of him just like they do Bush. Here is a news flash, they hate the US, not just Bush. Don't forget it, when Hillary or whoever you like gets in office, the Germans will hate them too. Don't be a eurovol, seek reality.

Don't you think that's going a bit far, LHM?

The Monica Lewinsky thing wasn't about Europeans "hating" Clinton. They just didn't get that there was any need for scandal and impeachment over what they considered to be a ridiculous situation. I'd say there is probably always a certain amount of cynicism and perhaps unease abroad concerning any US administration, but I think Dubya's is drawing a lot more vitriol than what you'd expect merely from being the world's only current superpower.

You have no idea. The Bush administration's foreign policy and Rumsfeld's "Old Europe" rhetorics were very effective in swaying public opinion here. Freedom fries didn't help, either.

That's complete nonsense. It wasn't Clinton that people made fun of, it was the bigots who made a big deal out of a blowjob. What baffles many Europeans (not just Germans) is that many Americans look for moral guidance in their political leaders. Maybe our attitude is just a lot more cynical in this respect. For most Europeans politicians are people who are supposed to do a job - and as long as extramartial affairs don't interfere with that job they are basically nobody's business. While Clinton's impeachment wasn't about sex as such (but about him lying to congress), for somebody used to the European attitude towards politicians (and sex), the entire fascinated peeping tom attitude of the US media covering the affair smacked of hypocrisy ("now tell me every detail - oooh, how shocking!"). Clinton got laughed at when he tried to redefine what constitutes sex and what doesn't - but there again people laughed about the absurdity of the situation. Most people here liked Clinton and at the time had a rather positive view of the US.

The negative attitude of most Germans towards Bush today is mainly due to US foreign politics in the past couple of years. Most people here found it very hard to understand why Bush got re-elected (remember - to us it's the US foreign policy that's most visible and that opinions are based on - most people here tend to forget that US voters may have had other reasons/concerns when voting for Bush) - and at that point people started to hold US citizens responsible for actions of the Bush administration. This may explain why Americans get asked whether they voted for Bush or not, often I guess with an undertone of "but how could you do that?".

Btw - I've come across this "[insert nationality] simply hate the US and it's got nothing to do with anything the US has ever done" attitude a lot of times before. To me this is one of the negative aspects I associate with some Americans - the complete refusal to face criticism and probably accept that there may be reasons for this criticism. "You criticise the US? Obviously you hate every American. Reason for this hatred? You're jealous because we can bomb the shit out of every other nation on the planet. Logical consequence? We don't have to change, it's all other people's fault".

Nobody likes to be critizised, but this attitude is simply delusional.

Why do they hate US?

Most US citizens have no idea why anyone could hate them. This is not surprising considering their ignorance of US foreign policy. Citizens of many countries have been the victims of US subversion, US support for corrupt dictators, and US state terrorism.

http://www.doublestandards.org/enemies.htm

And the author of the doublestandards.org website says he "has no poltical agenda". But of course the topics are all political ones.

http://www.doublestandards.org/about.html

Here is an entry one finds under "Germany":

http://www.doublestandards.org/klemperer.html

EDIT: This website is an example, although not the very worst I have seen, of the extremist propaganda that some people direct towards the US. These people have NOTHING good or honest to say about the US.

Can you tell me what it is you find remarkable about that bit? I only skimmed it, since I have little time right now, but it didn't seem offensive to me. Did I miss anything?

Here is an opinion piece written by a German:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/german...,474636,00.html

"Not a day passes in Germany when someone isn't making the wildest claims, hurling the vilest insults or spreading the most outlandish conspiracy theories about the United States. But there's no risk involved and it all serves mainly to boost the German feeling of self-righteousness."

Good to hear it so concisely put.

EDIT: Although it is a few years old, it is still accurately describes a current phenomenon:

See the October 21, 2003 entry

http://cumgranosalis.blogspot.com/2003_10_...is_archive.html

http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/3458371.html

Conqui - before you go on posting more "opinion pieces" which are just that - opinions - would you reply to my question above?

Yeah, and a lot of people assume that, coming from England, I´m intimate with the royal family.

Sure, it was to juxtapose the massive vitriol expended at the US with the comparatively mild critcism of Germany. As for the opinions, since it is a subjective issue, the best resources on the phenomenon of anti-Americanism in Germany are opinions. They are well-reasoned, and worth further discussion, give them a good read.

I suspect that most Germans are not anti-American, but it is clear from the posts of a few Germans on this board that there are some Germans who carry what seems to be a pathological hatred of the US.

Hmmm... Then again do Germans like anyone else when it comes to these kinds of things? Not really.

I didn't actually catch how that article was about Germany at all - you sure you linked to the right site? Looks to me that the authorn's mainly dealing with Ahmadinejad's denial of the holocaust there.

Whatever:


I'd much rather read your opinion. Some reasoning wouldn't come amiss either.


And vice versa. If I went by the opinions expressed by some people on this board, I'd have to assume that every foreigner who's friendly to my face in fact considers me a rude nazi robot and is only too polite to say so.

Or worse - they're all out to hug me!

Democracy? You mean industocracy.

I guess we like the Irish.

Yup. Definitely.

The reason the everyone in Germany is against the US is that everyone in Germany thinks that everyone in the US is of the same opinion.
I hate it when everyone always generalises in that way.

It seems that everyone in Europe is does too! That is terrible. So I agree that we need to somehow teach everyone in Europe to stop doing it.
Its lucky that no one here on TT does it though. Everyone on this forum is too busy pouncing on newbies and being generally negative all the time!

Bush. Give it two years. By then Germany will be in its rightful position - on its knees tongue-bathing America's taint. You know it's true.

That's quality, folks. Nobody could mix pith, crass sexual innuendo, arrogance and frustrating accuracy quite like an American.

You forgot masturbatory/congratulatory self-love.

Let's just hope Hillary wins then - I would hate to have to imagine our European friends getting funky with anyone else.