"I don't understand you Americans."

[eridani]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/sep/15/europe-us-healthcare-economy

Lounging one evening in one of Budapest's elegant thermal baths larger than an Olympic swimming pool, with Europeans of all ages and nationalities soaking their limbs in relaxed leisure, I was treated to a dose of the common wisdom that is taking hold here. Introducing myself as an American evinced a swift reaction from one sweating sauna companion:

"I don't understand you Americans. You blow billions on a useless war in Afghanistan and Iraq, and billions more to bail out banks that nearly bankrupted the world economy, but you don't ensure healthcare for your own people. Even Obama can't make a difference. It's as if your democracy doesn't work anymore."

He was Austrian but spoke in a near-perfect English that was as good grammatically as that spoken by some of my relatives.

And his reaction was typical. As Europeans watch the United States flailing about over something as basic as healthcare, they are reminded once again of the impotent US response following Hurricane Katrina. TV images of stranded, poor, black people in New Orleans have been melded to those of this new healthcare insurgency with pitch forks, leaving an indelible impression. The last remaining superpower is not looking so super anymore, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan, healthcare, the economy – not anywhere.

[Captain Hilts]

1. I don't 'get' it either. nt

[annabanana]

13. Not too complicated. . .

The complete takeover of the government by corporate interests with nothing but short-term gain on their minds.

[Deja Q]

19. Good. If that's the case then they can pay back the national debt; the people they helped to create

it for them and all...

[loudsue]

36. That's exactly right. And now it's time for the PEOPLE to take it back.

We have to fight corporations at every turn, and at every level of government. We need a huge push to get corporations out of lobbying ANY politician, and get corporate personhood revoked.

This "republican" form of government does not work. We are supposed to be a representative government, but it is only the corporations that have any representation at all, and the PEOPLE are supposed to be little consumer units that keep the wheels turning. It is sick on every level. It has to stop.

[mwb970]

2. Sadly, the truth about America is plain to see.

We decent Americans are held hostage, apparently permanently, by a coalition of the greedy and the stupid, two groups that we have here in overwhelming numbers. The greedy are the corporate fascists and the stupid are the religious nuts lost in Beckistan. Put 'em together and what have you got? AMERICA!

[Selatius]

3. The part about Katrina struck me a little hard. I survived Katrina and saw the death toll.

FEMA wasn't functioning, and the state-level authorities completely failed to evacuate people who were sick, elderly, or simply unable to obtain a car to drive out. Many of them died as a result. Mind you, I wasn't in New Orleans. I was on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

[jasi2006]

4. It is well worth passing this on to anyone you know.

Maybe it will influence people to take more positive stands against RW, neocon control. Maybe some Congressmen need to read this.

[Ineeda]

5. Unfortunately...

Many Americans, particularly Faux-watchers, don't give a hoot about what other countries think of us. As a matter of fact, they scoff at foreign opinion. They're too busy waving the flag, spewing hate and shouting, "USA, USA, we're number one!!1!!" Disgusting.

[barbtries]

6. curious: how did you respond?

i do believe our country is very sick, has been for a long long time. gw's reign brought us to ruin or damn near close.

[LeftHander]

50. "Would you loofa my back for me..."

lol That is how I would respond...

[Festivito]

7. Our democracy is sold to the highest bidder, instead of ourselves.

We refuse to pay for our own elections. We pay little to nothing, we get what we pay for.

[demodonkey]

22. Yes, and now ONE company owns 80% of our votes

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x514212

Pay Attention. SUPPORT THE ELECTION INTEGRITY ORGANIZATION OF YOUR CHOICE.

[Festivito]

32. Our election integrity was and remains sold to the highest bidder.

Election integrity in America is like asking the good gang to surrender their knives while whispering to the bad gang that they should not have come with those guns. Integrity, yeah, right!

[demodonkey]

35. So, how about helping us wrestle it back from the highest bidder?

It CAN be done, with voter-marked paper ballots, audits of elections, and citizen oversight of everything.

Get involved. Support the election integrity organization of your choice.

[Festivito]

37. Thanks for the list. I'll work on the idea.

Need to manufacture more time. Getting tired of making more time all the time.

Got any good manufacturing methods? By the time I read enough, I've run out of time to get my day job accomplished.

In any case, thanks for the efforts you're making.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

8. The rest of the world

has been watching us for the last eight-plus years, wondering what the fuck is going on.

I was in Italy not long after Fuckface "won" his second term. My friends there kept asking me what was wrong with Americans. I tried explaining Ohio to them, after the Supreme Court fuck-up, but they just kept asking why he was even a candidate? They could see what an idiot he was.

And that was the time when people in the world started hating America. Still loved Americans, but they began to hate the imperialistic bullshit that Fuckface spawned.

With Obama's election, it became OK to like America again, and I'm happy about that. Still, my friends abroad ask me questions like what the Austrian gentleman said in the sauna.

That his English was perfect is telling. All over the world, kids learn English in school. We're lucky if our kids learn English in school.

Yes, it's mad that we're pouring billions down that rathole we've built in the Middle East while our citizens can't afford their medications and are drying because of it, that people can't go to doctors, can't get medical help, have to go bankrupt because of medical bills.

It's madness. We're owned by the corporations who own our elected representatives, and yes, it's that simple.

We're screwed. That's all I can now tell my foreign friends who, kindly, because they pity us, no longer ask........................

[gateley]

42. A friend of mine was in Tibet and a native grabbed his arm and

said, very concerned, how are your people doing after the coup?

Everyone saw it for what it was, except the majority of Americans.

[girl gone mad]

9. This is why I have told my son many times..

that I want him to take a couple of years before college to travel the world. He may decide he likes it better somewhere else. He's still young and brilliant, so he can take his pick.

[soverywendy]

16. This is my message to all young people

Learn a second language, study something that matters, plan to leave this wretched mess of a country.
You will be much happier as a result.

[polichick]

10. "It's as if your democracy doesn't work anymore." - It doesn't. nt

[DrDan]

11. yep - right on target

[AllentownJake]

12. It doesn't work anymore

I'm volunteering on a State Senate Race right now. Between the Republican and Democrat over one million dollars will be spent. This is on a state senate race.

The amount of money that needs to be raised and the promises that need to be made to get elected is absolutely staggering.

The congressional race in my district in 2010 is estimated to cost $5 million dollars between the Republican and the Democratic challenger.

That $5 million is not going to come from everyday working folks so I doubt their interest will be represented by either candidate. The only reason the democrat is better is he at least has to rely on organized labor for some of his money and manpower.

Joe Sestak will raise around $7 million and Arlen Specter will raise around $13 million for their prospective primary than raise around $20 million for their general election.

[boobooday]

14. We don't really have Democracy right now

If we did, it might work. That gives me hope, for whatever it's worth.

[Rabrrrrrr]

15. It's good to remind the Europeans that they sent all their dumb people to America

Like Bill Murray said in Stripes, "Our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world".

:P

[whathehell]

46. Oh yes...That's why a few years later

we "dumb people"..had to come over and rescue their asses from their own wars:P

[davidpdx]

17. I've lived overseas for almost six years now and people ask me

why Americans let things get as bad as they have. The reason is the gross mismanagement over the majority of the last 28 years which have run large deficits and cut social programs. While we made some headway while Clinton was in office, that was quickly lost during the last 8 years. Two wars overseas a military that is stretched to the brink, thousands of Americans who have lost and families that have been shattered. Then the economic meltdown with the housing crisis and the bank bailout and on and on.

The writer is right though, we should be able to provide health care like European countries if we are truly the most powerful nation on this earth. I have better health care here in Korea then I did in the US and Korea is the 11th largest economy in the world. What the hell is wrong with us?

[MattSh]

27. Why have Americans let things get as bad as they have?

Well, they never had a choice otherwise. For the longest time, it's been a vote for the Corporate party or the Corporate Lite party.

In ten days, I'll commemorate my 4 year anniversary outside the US. And while there certainly are problems here in Ukraine, the "American Dream" is more alive here than in the states. When Obama was elected, I had regrets that I was outside the USA. Those regrets now are long gone. I agree. What the hell is wrong?

[spanone]

18. It's as if your democracy doesn't work anymore." +1

[Deja Q]

20. Well, if the world economy was bankrupted, Mr. Indoldent, who's peeing in his sauna water, would

be just as worse off with everyone else if it collapsed as I doubt he's too bored to be bothered with a damn thing.

I don't understand you Europeans.

[Roland99]

21. What democracy? We live under an oligarchy. He's quite right about Obama.

The Progressives are continually vilified by the right, the media, and now Obama is calling the push for Single-Payer as "radical".


We're fucked.

[imdjh]

23. A sauna always makes me connect Iraq, health care, and Katrina.

[KittyWampus]

24. Who is dumping nuclear waste off the coast of Somalia? Who benefited from Rwanda? (hint-France gets

nuclear fuel from there).

Whose country just had its railway fall apart in its capital due to privatization? (Germany/Berlin)

The USA may lapse behind in certain respects but we are doing the dirty work in colonialism that the Europeans also benefit from.

[Overseas]

29. Oh I see, France and other countries do terrible things too, so hey,

the US' cruel Pay-to-Play medical insurance system that leaves 46,000,000+ uninsured and lets millions more go bankrupt from medical bills is just fine.

Guess the Austrian in the pool should have listed the fifteen biggest crimes his country has committed before he dared to criticize the USA.

[KittyWampus]

39. the Austrian should take a look in his own backyard. That's the point.

[Overseas]

51. No. The point is- their sins don't make our cruel system any better.

You can tell people from other countries to SHUT UP BECAUSE YOU"RE NOT PERFECT !! -- and that will not make our system any less inhumane.

Most industrialized nations, whatever their past crimes, provide national health insurance or free medical care to all, as a basic human right. They don't leave 34,000,000 uninsured and watch that figure grow to the current 46,000,000 in a decade and still fight to defeat national health insurance.

But furthermore, by your kind of logic-- countries that commit crimes against humanity are not allowed to criticize others-- the USA dropped atomic bombs on civilian populations in Japan, and more recently, started a war on Iraq on premises our leaders admitted were false and committed war crimes it executed others for after WWII, so you are not entitled to criticize any other country about anything,

so how dare you criticize them for criticizing us for considering health care a Privilege for those who can afford it, rather than a basic human right.

[KittyWampus]

52. I wasn't being an apologist. And I sure as hell can tell Europeans to shut the fuck up

since they pretend to be perfect.

[eridani]

34. Get back to us when any European power--

--establishes 800 military bases all over the world. Not eventhe Soviet Union was able to do that.

[KittyWampus]

38. the truth escapes you entirely. The Europeans don't HAVE TO. We do the dirty work

what part of my post didn't you get?

[eridani]

44. You have a weird assumption going on here

--namely, that the dirty work of making the world safe for dollar a day labor and resource ripoff benefits either average Americans or average Europeans.

[KittyWampus]

53. Of course it benefits average Europeans. WHERE DO YOU THINK FRANCE GETS IT NUCLEAR FUEL?

Answer, Rwanda. Which goes back to my first post.

[eridani]

55. And they still get it even though they backed the Hutus in the genocide

And the US most explicitly did NOT intervene there. Africom was not at all relevant or useful. Nor is Centcom. The Japanese had to have their arms twisted to support the first Gulf war, and were not impressed by the appeal "Aren't you worried about Iraq's oil being under the control of a madman?" A Japanese diplomat reportedly answered "We think that whoever owns the oil will realize that they have no alternative but to sell it."

[whathehell]

47. Had the Soviet Union been able to build military bases all over the world,

they may well have...They tried "expanding" with Cuba and got knocked down...With their failed economic policy, they drove themselves into extreme deprivation just building home based weapons and so their sytem collapsed.

Europe, in its colonial phase, was every bit as imperialistic as the US, and had they had the ability, they would almost certainly followed a similar pattern to the US.

Not long ago, someone here started the thread with this: "Let's face it, this country sucks".

One comment from a DUer always struck me: "All empires suck..but the Euros were no saints..They just didn't get the opportunity to screw up the second half of the twentieth century".

[eridani]

56. Nor was there ever any such thing as a united European empire

The Euro imperial powers fought against each other as well as doing imperial conquests abroad, which limited the scope of every one of their empires save the British. And even the British had fewer than 50 military installations around the world at the height of their "sun never sets" phase. The Romana had about 35.

The rivalries were beneficial to countries like Siam, which managed to play the British off against the French in southeast Asia and stay uncolonized. Third world countries during the cold war got a similar benefit from the US/USSR rivalry.

[hgovernick]

25. Next time someone says that to you...

... just tell them, "You mean you don't understand our government policies. That's easy enough: Profit...

...now, if you want to understand Americans as individuals, that's easy enough: Dazed and Confused."

[jotsy]

26. We were once a nation of notions, Bushkins saw it the other way around.

Welcome to Democratic Underground!

[hgovernick]

45. Thank you Tweety...

I taut I taw a puddy tat!

[Taverner]

28. On our way to becoming a Third World Country...

The GOP is salivating - they're excited because a day will come soon when they can watch their employees fight each other to death for a $5 bill

[Kablooie]

30. How many Americans understand us? Certainly not educated liberals.

[Raineyb]

31. I'm with him. I don't get us either.

My sisters who live in Europe keep trying to get me to consider going there for similar reasons.

[earth mom]

33. What's worse is that there are people here on DU who are excusing Obama

when he ran as the hope & change candidate.

Hope & Change-what a crock. :thumbsdown:

[butterfly77]

40. That is because...

Republicons don't think that OUR MONEY should be used to help us and BLUE DOG DEMS don't either but,when they want to pretend that they are charitable they send money all over the world but get angry as hell if the American people need food,shelter and jobs.

[Twist_U_Up]

41. did you ask them how they felt about 9/11/01?

i bet they say inside job

[Echo In Light]

54. Those outside looking in often see what those inside the dilemma refuse to acknowledge

[TxRider]

43. He shouldn't feel bad, we don't understand us either.

[LWolf]

48. "It's as if your democracy doesn't work anymore."

I don't know how well our representational democracy ever worked, but it's certainly been comatose for awhile.

[whathehell]

49. Something the Austrian may not have considered

The Single Payer system in Europe came about after World War II, when: 1. Their industries were devasted and unable to support jobs. 2. Euope had not yet experienced much in the way of immigration and was still a largely homogenuous society.

Europe's establishing the single payer system was, in large part, compensation for not being able to offer their citizens jobs.

Post-World War II America, was in a very different situation..Our industries had NOT been devasted, in fact they were quite sound and employer-based health plans were a related offshoot of the situation.

As to point two: The homogeneity of Europe tended to cancel out the unfortunate resentment of so much of America (which has NEVER been "homogenous") and so there was little or no sense of "us vs/ them". It was all "us".

Salon's Joan Walsh, discussing racist reactions to the Obama administration, suggested this as being the major reason America lacks the type of "large social welfare programs" Europe has.

She blamed racial antagonisms and the "us and them" mentality for it and, looking back on the differing histories of America and Europe, I tend to agree.

[eridani]

57. Agreed. Racism has always been one of the drivers of American "exceptionalism" n/t