'I Feel Sorry for Americans': A Baffled World Watches the U.S.

[octoberlib]

Link to tweet

Just let this quote sink in:

“I feel sorry for Americans,” said U Myint Oo, a member of parliament in Myanmar. “But we can’t help the U.S. because we are a very small country.”


From Myanmar to Canada, people are asking: How did a superpower allow itself to be felled by a virus? And why won’t the president commit to a peaceful transition of power?


BANGKOK — Myanmar is a poor country struggling with open ethnic warfare and a coronavirus outbreak that could overload its broken hospitals. That hasn’t stopped its politicians from commiserating with a country they think has lost its way.

“I feel sorry for Americans,” said U Myint Oo, a member of parliament in Myanmar. “But we can’t help the U.S. because we are a very small country.” “The U.S.A. is a first-world country but it is acting like a third-world country,” said U Aung Thu Nyein, a political analyst in Myanmar.

The same sentiment prevails in Canada, one of the most developed countries. Two out of three Canadians live within about 60 miles of the American border. “Personally, it’s like watching the decline of the Roman Empire,” said Mike Bradley, the mayor of Sarnia, an industrial city on the border with Michigan, where locals used to venture for lunch.

Amid the pandemic and in the run-up to the presidential election, much of the world is watching the United States with a mix of shock, chagrin and, most of all, bafflement.


https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/25/world/asia/trump-united-states.html

[wryter2000]

1. My editor is Canadian

She says she felt when she saw how the Republicans were going to steal the open seat.

[octoberlib]

2. It makes me sad.

[renate]

3. Myanmar was also under the thumb of a BRUTAL, CRUSHING dictatorship until just a few years ago

For them to feel sorry for us... damn.

[tulipsandroses]

5. I feel sorry for us too

Over 200,000 of our fellow citizens are dead, and those that have survived, many have not fully recovered and may never fully recover. A doctor on MSNBC yesterday said, we will have to relearn medicine, the way we relearned medicine for HIV. He was talking about treating survivors of Covid who have a myriad of ailments. The healthcare workers treating them, many have or will have PTSD from seeing so any of their fellow citizens die. They are not used to seeing this level of death.

And what we have from our leaders and many of our citizens? Apathy. I feel sorry for us.

[Solly Mack]

4. You'd think after all the racism, extraordinary rendition, torture, Katrina response, idiots

losing their minds because a black man became President, and idiots who can't afford or don't have healthcare fighting against "Obamacare", and other idiots claiming that the government needs to stay out of their Social Security and Medicare - and then Trump - that no one would be baffled or shocked.

It's almost as if those outside the US buy into the "USA! USA!" hype more so than a lot of Americans.

Yeah, yeah. I know the U.S. has a certain reputation for being the democracy people, but we didn't wake up one morning to things suddenly changed. Those changes took time - having been chipped away a little bit at a time over time. Some of those things have never changed - the full impact of racism, for one.

Right-wing religious wackadoodles demanding their beliefs are equal to science and that their religious beliefs be taught in school. Worse, getting their way in that. Spare me. Some areas of the US teach that their ignorant beliefs - Yes, ignorant - are just as valid as evolution. Look it up. Some biology teachers in public schools won't teach evolution to avoid confrontation with students and teachers who erroneously believe that their creation story is the equal to science.

Baffled? Shocked?

Why?