Is the U.S. Crazy?

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/world/us-crazy



Americans who live abroad -- more than six million of us worldwide (not counting those who work for the U.S. government) -- often face hard questions about our country from people we live among. Europeans, Asians, and Africans ask us to explain everything that baffles them about the increasingly odd and troubling conduct of the United States. Polite people, normally reluctant to risk offending a guest, complain that America’s trigger-happiness, cutthroat free-marketeering, and “exceptionality” have gone on for too long to be considered just an adolescent phase. Which means that we Americans abroad are regularly asked to account for the behavior of our rebranded “homeland,” now conspicuously in decline and increasingly out of step with the rest of the world.

In my long nomadic life, I’ve had the good fortune to live, work, or travel in all but a handful of countries on this planet. I’ve been to both poles and a great many places in between, and nosy as I am, I’ve talked with people all along the way. I still remember a time when to be an American was to be envied. The country where I grew up after World War II seemed to be respected and admired around the world for way too many reasons to go into here.

That’s changed, of course. Even after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, I still met people -- in the Middle East, no less -- willing to withhold judgment on the U.S. Many thought that the Supreme Court’s installation of George W. Bush as president was a blunder American voters would correct in the election of 2004. His return to office truly spelled the end of America as the world had known it. Bush had started a war, opposed by the entire world, because he wanted to and he could. A majority of Americans supported him. And that was when all the uncomfortable questions really began.

In the early fall of 2014, I traveled from my home in Oslo, Norway, through much of Eastern and Central Europe. Everywhere I went in those two months, moments after locals realized I was an American the questions started and, polite as they usually were, most of them had a single underlying theme: Have Americans gone over the edge? Are you crazy? Please explain.

[hobbit709]

1. I wouldn't bet against it.

[Roy Rolling]

33. A bit of Nuance

America isn't crazy, but it is becoming infested with people who are hero-worshippers as a shortcut to having to think themselves.

Crazy people have a medical condition that deserves empathy and treatment. Political idiocy is self-inflicted.

[randys1]

51. Hero worship? Do you think righty worships their rightwing leaders?

[newfie11]

2. I've been saying that for some time

And I think the insanity is getting worse.

[JonLP24]

3. I have spoken to people from countries in Africa, India, Nepal

who have never been to America (TCNs employed through a subcontractor of a subcontractor of Halliburton -- if they only knew) have a view of a America that is much, much brighter than reality. They want to come here, they ask me what it is like -- they view it as this wonderful place and where they're coming from it is but it really is but they view America through rose colored glasses. That probably isn't the view everyone has like any generalization, just sharing my experience and there were more of them than US troops at military bases and convoys.

[Lurks Often]

20. America is still a wonderful place, it is a matter of perspective

Even the poor in the U.S. are wealthy in comparison to someone trying to survive as a subsistence farmer in Nepal.

The last number I heard was from the 1980's, but the average Gurkha family in the foothills of the Himalaya's had annual income of about $300 in U.S. dollars.

And India has seen it's fair share of religous, racial and class warfare.

[JonLP24]

25. Yes, I pointed out it is wonderful from where they're coming from

It is still rose colored glasses contrary to the "uncomfortable questions" described in the above article.

As you kindly put, allow me to share some information of my own about the very same people we're talking about.

Blood, Sweat & Tears:
Asia’s Poor Build U.S. Bases in Iraq

Jing Soliman left his family half way around the world in the Philippines for what sounded like a sure thing – a job as a warehouse worker at Camp Anaconda in Iraq. He would be working for Prime Projects International of Dubai, a major, but low-profile, subcontractor to Halliburton’s multi-billion-dollar deal with the Pentagon to provide support services to U.S. forces.

But Soliman wouldn’t be making anything near the salaries starting at $80,000 a year and often topping more than $100,000 paid to truck drivers, construction workers, office workers and other laborers recruited in the United States by Halliburton’s subsidiary, KBR. Instead, the 35-year-old father of two looked forward to earning $615 a month – including overtime. For a 40-hour work week, that’s just over $3 an hour, but Soliman made even less. He says the standard work week was 12-hour days, seven days a week, so he was actually earning $1.56 an hour.

For a year’s work, Soliman would receive $7,380(from a paycheck that is handed down from a US defense contractor). He planned to send most of his paychecks home to his family, where the combined unemployment rate tops 28 percent and the average annual income in Manila is $4,384. Nearly half of the nation's 84 million people live on less than $2 a day, according to the World Bank.

<snip>

TCNs frequently sleep in crowded trailers, wait outside in line in 100 degree heat to eat “slop,” lack adequate medical care and work almost every waking hour seven days a week for little or no overtime pay. Frequently, the workers lack proper safety equipment for hard labor

<snip>

Adding to these hardships, some TCNs complain publicly about not being paid according to their contracts and they also accuse their employers of “bait-and-switch” recruitment tactics where they are falsely recruited for jobs in the Middle East and then pressured to work in Iraq. Once in Iraq, their passports are held to prevent them from escaping. All of these problems have resulted in labor disputes, including labor strikes and work stoppages at US military camps.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=12675

Baghdad Bound, Forced Labor of Third-Country Nationals

http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~review/vol60n3/Brown_Macro%20%28no%20time%20stamp%29.pdf

After 12 years of war, labor abuses rampant on US bases in Afghanistan

Over the past decade, the U.S. military has outsourced its overseas base-support responsibilities to private contractors, which have filled the lowest-paying jobs on military bases with third-country nationals, migrant workers who are neither U.S. citizens nor locals. As of January 2014, there were 37,182 third-country nationals working on bases in the U.S. Central Command region, which includes Afghanistan and Iraq — outnumbering both American and local contract workers.

<snip>



These laborers do the cooking, cleaning, laundry, construction and other support tasks necessary to operate military facilities. In Afghanistan they primarily come from India and Nepal and are employed by subcontractors for one of two large American companies, Fluor Corp. and Dyncorp International, which manage U.S. bases in Afghanistan under the Department of Defense’s Logistics Civil Augmentation Program. Dozens of subcontracting companies, mostly headquartered in the Persian Gulf, work on Fluor and Dyncorp contracts.

South Asian workers are at the bottom of the social hierarchy on U.S. bases. They earn far less than American or European contractors, work 12-hour days with little or no time off and, on some bases, aren’t allowed to use cellphones or speak to military personnel. On the base we visited, Camp Marmal, most were surprised and nervous when we approached them, concerned that talking to journalists could get them in trouble. One young man’s face contorted in terror when asked whether he had paid a recruiting fee. He shook his head no, fearful of any reprisals. “To come here, you have to use an agent,” another worker told us. “There is no other way. So we pay money to come.”

An agent is a person from a recruitment agency hired to find laborers for a company — in this case, the subcontractor. Sindhu Kavinamannil, a certified fraud examiner who has investigated labor networks between India and the Middle East, says there are tens of thousands of recruitment agencies in India and Nepal, the majority of them unregistered. They might be headquartered in large cities, she adds, but they each have hundreds of agents and subagents spread out across small towns and villages.

At Camp Marmal, the most prominent Fluor subcontractor is Ecolog International. One current Ecolog employee we met, who didn’t want to be identified, said he paid $4,000 to an agent in his village for a job he was told would pay $1,200 per month. His recruiter told him the final papers would be signed in Dubai, a crucial stopping point for workers en route to Afghanistan. In Dubai he learned his salary would be only $500 per month. Because he had borrowed money at a high interest rate to pay his recruitment fee, he had no choice but to work for an entire year just to earn enough money to pay off his loan.

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/3/7/after-12-years-ofwarlaborabusesrampantonusbasesinafghanistan.html

There are more & more horror stories I could post if you're interested. Do I have to mention they take their passports as soon as they arrive? North Korea does this too. I have stories myself not so much on the corruption end put the danger, fiberglass vehicles, no weapon or armor while enduring this and bigotry from many US troops they all took it in stride they did most of the work in those deployments for meager pay while people here talk about the disparities of what the troops make compared to American citizens working for contractors. We drove convoys they made up roughly 25 vehicles in a 30 truck convoy and all of them except 1 made about $300 a month -- they're boss the one who usually understands the most English made about $600 driving through fucking war zones.

Here, they aren't recognized by the media. The only time you see them is when Obama is being served food in a chow line. They aren't counted in death statistics, we can't even give them a thank you. We treat them like slaves. Americans are only outraged when Qatar does it. They certainly have seen there "fair share" of class warfare from the US and they have never even been in the country. This is what I mean, among countless other things by "rose colored glasses". I wish I was asked those uncomfortable questions.

[eppur_se_muova]

41. Don't forget this incident ...

In 2013, KBR was ordered to stand trial yet again, accused of human trafficking in the case of twelve Nepali men, eleven of whom were murdered. The men’s families say that in 2004 they were promised safe jobs in Jordan, but instead were smuggled to Iraq, destined for a KBR-run U.S. Air Force base. They were intercepted by insurgents en route, and their passports confiscated. Eleven were beheaded; the twelfth survived, and is among the plaintiffs in this case, filed in a district court in Texas.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101699000

[JonLP24]

43. That is terrible

A KBR convoy was hijacked in Southern Iraq which we were informed of during the mission brief before heading back to Kuwait from CSC Scania, if my memory is correct that made the news as they were later beheaded. It had to sometime After winter in 2007, I think.

Civilian vehicles & convoys are incredibly risky. In our convoys, for some reason the early border of Navistar in Kuwait & Iraq was a hotspot for truck hijacking attempts (but they would keep the vehicles and drive off into the dirt) but they would only target the TCN vehicles I guess because they were fiberglass Mercedes semis. Another time and we make an effort to only drive at night because of curfew (enforced by the US) & less visibility so keep that in mind when there was soccer game going on to the left us in country land next to the major Iraq of southern Iraq when spontanously the all started trying to hijack TCN vehicles but the gun trucks drove them away (didn't even shoot).

The only time a convoy I was on was receiving small arms fire (which you have no idea where its coming from and who it was hitting) all appeared to be aimed directly at one TCN vehicle which shredding the tires and there was even a bullet entry an inch below where the man's feet was on the floor of the driver's side.

Not only what they did was incredibly risky, they were often the primary targets and a lot of these guys are Muslims so I hope some take that into consideration when discussing the faith as a whole.

[whathehell]

34. "Even the poor in the U.S. are wealthy in comparison to a subsidence farmer in Nepal"

No kidding, but that's lowering the bar a bit, isn't it ?

I mean, why would you be comparing one of the richest First World countries to a poor Thirld World one? That's a false

comparison, isn't it?

A legitimate one would look at how well our poor do relative to OTHER First World nations like Australia, Canada,

and the European countries. Do that and I think you may find us a little less "wonderful".

[Lurks Often]

37. My point was correct in the context of the post I was responding to

Try working on your reading comprehension, it needs improvement

[whathehell]

45. No, I'm afraid it wasn't.

A proper response would have inserted the phrase "compared to those countries" before the statement "America is a wonderful country"

As it stands, it sounds a like a deliberately misleading ad made by the Koch Brothers.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/175302/charles-koch-poor-let-them-eat-economic-freedom

Try working on your writing skills. They need improvement.

[JonLP24]

68. My post said this "they view it as this wonderful place and where they're coming from it is"

why is it necessary to explain that all over again to me unless you didn't catch that part?

They were imagining a place that was better than it really was, which was the context of my post.

[randys1]

53. That sounds exactly like something the Koch bros told us recently

[Lurks Often]

55. If you think it's so horrible, feel free to immigrate if you can find a country that will admit you

[randys1]

56. Can I come to you when I want to know what the talking points are?

[Lurks Often]

57. No, I have no interest in you or anything you say or think

[randys1]

58. That makes perfect sense...It really does. I am a liberal, a very passionate, informed

liberal.

Someone who considers the entire agenda of the republican and teaparty to be horrific and deadly.

So having no interest in what I think or say would make sense to certain people.

[Lurks Often]

59. You keeping thinking you're the purity police and determiner of all things

[randys1]

61. Nope, I am a determiner of who I think is a liberal and who isnt, based on years of

interaction with people.

I know of no liberal on the PLANET who would make certain points that I have seen made here by certain people.


For instance I can tell pretty quickly if a person is an overt racist or a default racist, i.e. ALL white Americans are racist, liberals usually are only so by default and work hard not to be, etc.

As to the rules of this board, I dont dare point at anyone and call them anything, no matter how well I know in my own mind what they are or are not.

This purity bullshit is ridiculous, ALL human beings determine based on experience and interaction who they think they have things in common with and who they dont.

Not complicated...

And for the record, I wouldnt spend so much time pointing out who I think does NOT share liberal ideologies if it werent for a system where a liberal can be silenced for expressing liberal ideology if he or she is unlucky enough to get the wrong people deciding whether to hide them or not

[Lurks Often]

62. Aren't you arrogant and full of yourself

[hfojvt]

81. of course

that, after all, is the mark of a "true" liberal. To think that the rest of the country is stupid or racist or crazy.

[Lurks Often]

104. An approach that works oh so well in convincing people to agree with them

[Jim Beard]

66. This is a problem I see on these boards, it isn't loved enough

It is a wonderful place to post, I just love DU.

[JonLP24]

70. Ironically

this is what I said in 2010

(this was after I broke my arm shortly after February and couldn't do convoys anymore)

Ok so what I did was head count, enforce DFAC rules, and supervise TCN's which consisted nothing more of checking food temperatures(which were always in the acceptable range) and relaying information to the head guy(as I explained in my previous post) so he can relay it to the other workers because they knew little to no English at all. This man was from Nepal a country north of India and let me tell you he was one of the nicest people I ever met. He was also a very good worker and whenever one his workers did something wrong(which was rare) he would handle it right away. Made our jobs for the most part easy. However I must say enforcing DFAC rules is the most stressful job I ever had especially when it comes to letting know high ranking officers that they broke a rule but for the most part they weren't a problem. Some US civilian contractors like KBR gave me the hardest time hands down. Anyways his dream was to come to America and he would constantly ask questions about here. For those two months I was there were only handled two meals(Midnight and Breakfast) so we had a lot of down time to talk. I even looked online for him on information on how to immigrate but I couldn't find information relevant to his case. I found info like must be highly skilled in an area for example like playing sports or highly skilled scientist. Things like that. I found information on immigration for Iraqis or Afghan people that helped US forces but that didn't apply because he is from Nepal. I felt sad but then I think of some of the people here like teabaggers then I think it might not be so bad. I think about him a lot and I do hope he's made his way to the US. He would make an excellent civilian as well as many TCN's who work their ass off for little pay.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4322511

There was this guy that wanted so badly to immigrate here that I did searches and nothing I could find fit. I do remember if he was from India he was the perfect candidate for the immigration type but he was from Nepal which wasn't on the list and ruled him out.

This was the guy I was thinking of when I made my post (among others sitting in trucks drinking tea, they'd always offer tea. All-the-time they'd offer you a cup of tea).

About those convoy TCNs. When we arrived at bases, we staged the trucks we went to tents, trailers or a building. Do you know where they went? stayed with the trucks, in fact we had to assign a couple of people to watch the TCNs. Can you believe that? There was only 1 base north of Baghdad where they had their own staging area where they could hang out and socialize with other TCNs, contracters "watched the TCNs" so that part wasn't a problem. This is also a place where we'd be able to acquire alcohol because the only way unless a family sent it to us in a way that was caught by Navy Customs.

They wouldn't risk acquiring alcohol to sell to us until leaving or before arriving to Kuwait because while we went through the border we had to stop and wait for Kuwait to search the TCN vehicles and if they found alcohol, they were on their own.

The thing that makes everything more messed up than it already was, even with things like having people assigned to "watch the TCNs" is they were among the nicest group of people I ever met who went out of their way to be helpful and constantly offered me or anyone that was there tea. One I know of wanted to immigrate here badly, I wonder where he is today.

[Lurks Often]

72. I'm not always real happy when I find some of the details about our immigration policy

and I'm not saying this country is perfect, it isn't. I do know that a lot of people around the world want to come here and that the U.S. has far less stringent immigration policies then most of the other countries of comparable economic status

[JonLP24]

73. I really wasn't making a case against you

Just using the opportunity to tell more of their story, others may not be interested but I do feel their story needs to be told as your initial reply provided that great opportunity so I appreciate you for it. I have nothing against you so I wouldn't worry about it.

[Lurks Often]

74. Didn't think you were

[barbtries]

4. i believe we are a sick nation.

and i blame it on republicans and the kochs the NRA etc. the gw administration and endless war. greed.

[daleanime]

23. They are just a symptom.....

the disease is $$$$$$.

[Vattel]

5. Our militarism is part of our national culture. We are wedded to it.

It is sick. Most Americans still celebrate the population bombing the USA did during WWII. Yes killing babies is very popular among even Democrats. Most Europeans recognize that the fire bombing and nuclear bombing we did in Japan was a moral obscenity. Not Americans. We still trot out the stupid argument that but for all that murder, we would have had to kill even more people by invading the Japanese main islands. If it is that easy to convince an American to kill hundreds of thousands of civilians in war, then, yes, we are crazy.

[KingCharlemagne]

50. Not being snarky but genuinely curious. If one rejects a conventional attack on the

Japanese home islands (estimated 2 million civilian casualties and tens of thousands of allied casualties) and one rejects a nuclear attack on Japan (250,000 civilian casualties), just what options are left? A naval quarantine would have caused mass civilian starvation. Were the Allies simply supposed to 'live and let live'? How would that be appropriate for Asian and American victims of Japanese imperialism?

[Vattel]

63. There is no reason to think that mass murder was necessary to get

Japan to give up its conquered territory and to release American POWs. Negotiations would have been a first step to achieving these aims without mass murder. Not even trying to negotiate before resorting to mass murder was morally horrific.

[KingCharlemagne]

82. It's been quite awhile since I studied the history of the period, so I'm relying on some

memories and scholarship that may by now be outdated. If so, apologies up front.

That said, my general sense is that Hirohito was surrounded by a bunch of gung-ho militarists who make Cheney and Wolfowitz look like choirboys by comparison. Hirohito may have encouraged (or not discouraged) private exploratory back channel peace negotiations but there was no way he was going to pursue publicly a course of negotiated peace and surrender of conquered territory and release of POWs (not just Americans but many other Asian countries). These Japanese militarists were quite prepared to see the home islands invaded and Japanese civilians sacrificed to preserve Japan's 'honor'. At the time of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, few of those who surrounded Hirohito had lost their stomach for the fight.

This goes to the question of what 'defeat' means. At the risk of sounding like some hard-head myself, I would say that a crucial part of 'defeat' involves destroying an enemy's will to resist. As I wrote earlier, a conventional invasion would have resulted in the deaths of 1-2 million Japanese civilians (by our allied war planners' estimates). As horrific as Hiroshima\Nagasaki was, fewer civilians died as a result of it. "Mass murder" had already happened to the Japanese when the Allies fire-bombed Tokyo, killing over 100,000 in a single raid. So, with all due respect, that strikes me as a bit of a canard.

[Vattel]

85. I wasn't talking only about Hiroshima and Nagasaki; so I don't see what the canard is.

I would urge you to revisit the history. Of course, we can never know for sure what terms would have been acceptable to Japan because we made no effort whatsoever to explore peace on any terms other than unconditional surrender. There is plenty of evidence, however, that in the early summer of 1945 (if not earlier in the war) peace was very possible on terms that would have involved Japan losing its occupied territory.

I would also suggest that you consider whether if we had any interest in minimizing noncombatant deaths, we would have bombed Nagasaki only three days after Hiroshima. The Japanese leaders didn't even have a chance to get the reports from their scientists about Hiroshima before the second bomb was dropped. That second bomb was certainly murder most foul.

[Half-Century Man]

79. I once took a multi-discipline course on the Atomic Bomb .

History, Philosophy and the Physics behind it all. We used Howard Rhodes's "The Making Of The Atomic Bomb (1986) as our main text and a used a several hundred page university generated inter discipline work book.

Toward the end of the course we were asked by the professor of Philosophy to take a stance on the moral issue of using an atomic weapon as we did. One of my class mates in justifying his position opposing the use as we did, suggested this: He researched 1945 maps of Japan and found a bay with good beaches and clear sea side approaches. It was centrally located on Honshu (the central island) surrounded by mountains yet with good roads ( I think it might have been Owase. I seem to remember the island to the north).
He suggested what might have been a more humane course of action. Trick the Imperial Japan's military into the valley and use the bombs there.
We (the United States) had very specific landing site preparatory strategy. It was well known by the Japanese war planners. If we focused our attention there, they would have had too as well.
I know this was 68 years retrospect, but an intriguing idea.

[Demeter]

6. Certifiable, IMO

Good morning, X! Baby, it's cold outside! I've got to put on 3 layers and get going...

[xchrom]

7. morning!

[Snarkoleptic]

8. Fox News appeared in 1996 and took a few years to whip up

their special recipe of fear, blame, hate, xenophobia and anger (all wrapped in the flag).

I truly believe this is the single largest contributor.

Also to blame is St. Ronnie Raygun for setting the wheels in motion to crush the middle class.

[BlueJazz]

24. I feel the same way. As soon as Fox started in with the "We are fair and balanced" diatribe...

..., I knew it was a Republican propaganda dog-and-pony-show. Reminded me so much of "I am not a crook".

...and even Bette Davis knew "Ronnie was one of the most boring men I've ever met and quite frankly, not very bright"

[certainot]

88. fox is the visual icing on talk radio's lie turd pie. talk radio's idiot little brother

fox reaches fewer, can't do the repetition, has to tone their crap down, has to pretend to be balanced, even has countering opinions occasionally, and exists in a medium in which there is usually an alt for politics a click away. it piggybacks talk radio.

republicon radio got started for good ten years earlier when reagan killed the fairness doctrine. in most parts of the country there are no free alts while driving or working. it dominates its medium 95 % to 5%. it gets a free speech free ride from the left- the people it attacks the most ignore it nearly completely. there is no written record of it to read. except for some of the racism and sexism, what the talk radio gods say is seldom challenged or monitored. the 400 think tank guided liars have call screeners to protect them and they can lie as much as they want, as long as they want. and talk radio can be targeted/coordinated to local and state levels fox cannot.

IMO fox would not exist without talk radio PSYOPS doing the unchallenged repetition. see post below

[Blue_Adept]

9. Crazy. And sick.

And it's just getting worse. I can feel myself retreating from a lot of it as a self preservation aspect.

[Helen Borg]

10. Yes. And they want to make the entire world as crazy.

That is why they are trying to push hard for these trade agreements. The US is a country run by nonhuman automata at this point, corporations. That is why it's crazy. It's crazy because it is not run by humans with human needs and feelings.

[pampango]

11. Americans don't see "the intimate connection between a country’s domestic and foreign policies"

often trace America’s reckless conduct abroad to its refusal to put its own house in order. They’ve watched the United States unravel its flimsy safety net, fail to replace its decaying infrastructure, disempower most of its organized labor, diminish its schools, bring its national legislature to a standstill, and create the greatest degree of economic and social inequality in almost a century. They understand why Americans, who have ever less personal security and next to no social welfare system, are becoming more anxious and fearful. They understand as well why so many Americans have lost trust in a government that has done so little new for them over the past three decades or more, except for Obama’s endlessly embattled health care effort, which seems to most Europeans a pathetically modest proposal.

What baffles so many of them, though, is how ordinary Americans in startling numbers have been persuaded to dislike “big government” and yet support its new representatives, bought and paid for by the rich. In Norway’s capital, where a statue of a contemplative President Roosevelt overlooks the harbor, many America-watchers think he may have been the last U.S. president who understood and could explain to the citizenry what government might do for all of them. Struggling Americans, having forgotten all that, take aim at unknown enemies far away -- or on the far side of their own towns.

The countries that take the best care of their own citizens also do the most for the rest of the world. They see those policies as linked - "the intimate connection between a country’s domestic and foreign policies". The countries that do little for their own citizens do less good and much evil for the rest of the world.

I was asked here last week whether I lived overseas, as if experience in or knowledge of how progressive countries handle issues like taxes, regulation, safety net and trade are not welcome in liberal American politics. American exceptionalism rearing its head again.

[Diclotican]

16. pampango

pampango

My grandfather on my mothers side - allways put some roses on FDRs statue in Oslo at the date when FDR died in 1944 - who stand in the shaddows of the Akershus Fortress and Castle - and he was also stationed there for man years as a officer in the army - and like clockwork every year - walked down to the statue - and gave his roses to the President who helped Norway so mutch under the war - when the rest of the world turned their faces away from the plight of norwgigians - your President was one of the few who was trying to help us as best as he could - and even housed our royal familiy in the White House for a while - when even the royal familiy in Sweden had no will to help them against the germans... Something that our current King Harald V, have stated rather clearly over the years - about the close conection between the Roosevelts and the royal familiy - King Olav V, who then was crown prince was good friends of the Roosevelts - and the whole royal familiy expressed deeply sadness when FDR died right at the eve of the World War Two's end in 1944 - the last trip to Yalta was rather hard on him I suspect...

http://www.fotosearch.com/ULY100/u22748133/

Diclotican

[pampango]

22. Thanks for the picture and the history of FDR's support for Norway.

It always strikes me as ironic that it is the European countries like Norway that still follow FDR's policies (high/progressive taxes, a strong safety net, more effective corporate regulation, legal and popular support for unions, liberal trade policies, etc.) more than the country he was president of.

[defacto7]

96. I am a great admirer or FDR....

but he did make one very difficult decision that started a chain reaction that is evident to this day, and in this post. I fall short of calling it a mistake because I'm not sure there was any other choice he could have made. During WWII he chose to give the military contracts to the largest and most powerful corporations and allowed the powerful contractors to swallow up smaller companies for the manufacturing of military weaponry making many companies into huge corporations without competition and that could wield great power. I have a feeling he didn't mean for that to last after the war but the military-industrial complex was formed, Eisenhower warned us about it, and we have it to this day. Most of the names of those few corporations are the same today as they were then.

It's an unfortunate outcome of that war I'm afraid, but I still think he was one of the greatest presidents.

[JonLP24]

26. See post #25 for an intimate view

The troubling this is you can tell them but they don't care. I just don't get the disconnect with other humans as if whatever the US is doing overrules what they're being put through as a result of it.

[Katashi_itto]

12. We are in the process of committing national suicide.

It's a slow process but...

Lots of other countries have done the same.

[KingCharlemagne]

52. Imperial suicide, I prefer. Just like the Romans' and Brits'

before us, our empire is badly over-extended and centrifugal forces will dismember it.

The 'national suicide' requires a bit of explication on your part, as I don't see it here in California where, as the world's 8th largest economy, we'd be a hotbed of secession, one would think, were the suicide in motion.

[Katashi_itto]

75. Nicely phrased!

[RoccoR5955]

13. When I was in Europe this past fall

I simply told them that they were correct. Most Americans are crazy. I am not one of them. I am also looking to leave the US to a place where Socialism is not a dirty word, it is okay to be an atheist, and they don't spend most of their budget on military.
I can retire in a couple of years, and hope to hell that I can do this, because if I cannot, I shall remain a stranger in a strange land. This is not the US that I was brought up in.

[UglyGreed]

14. Glad someone posted this article

it really shows how this country has become what we used to rally against. Dog eats dog, we are the new American way.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

15. "Don't ask me, I'm from California" shuts down these discussions pretty quickly

I just say North America is an accident of history that created three large, dysfunctional and generally ungovernable countries where backwards regional minorities run roughshod over more populous and urbane regions.

[Alkene]

17. Yes.

And, as with many "behavioral health" patients, we are the least aware of our condition.

[TBF]

18. Well I am living in TX currently

so I may be biased - but my answer is yes.

We came here for a great job & low cost of living. I thought I could raise my kids in one of the urban areas and it should be manageable. I underestimated how crazy these people would be ... but I am also in the suburbs so that is probably not much better than being out in the country. Ultra religious, violent undercurrents (everyone owns guns), bigoted, and selfish.

[Fumesucker]

39. In my experience the suburbs tend to be more reactionary than in the outright country

Country folks tend not to rub together quite so much and often have more of a live and let-live attitude. The suburbs are the places of homeowners associations that seem to be universally run by the local fascist wannabees..

[TBF]

46. I think that's true

based on growing up in the country in the midwest. Some of those folks have been sort of tricked by the "gods and gun" arguments, but other than that they seem to largely accept everyone who lives there and life goes on. I've lived in country, city and suburbs now and my least favorite is definitely suburbs.

[truebluegreen]

19. Without question.

The entire nation is in the grip of a collective psychosis. What's worse is it is contagious internationally, although there is far more awareness of the problem abroad than at home.

[Turbineguy]

21. The now main-stream republican party

was the lunatic fringe of the 1950's and 1960's. The inmates are now running the asylum.

[abelenkpe]

27. Crazy and cruel. Yep. Nt

[bemildred]

28. Why yes, yes we are. nt

[yuiyoshida]

29. Amerika wa totemo Baka tare!!!

Yes, we are crazy! (America is totally crazy)

[DetlefK]

30. Yes:

Just from the top of my head:

- 2nd Amendment: Written during wartime for a bunch of disorganized settlers fighting off a professional army. And it is treated as if it still made sense today. (Isn't malware the weapon of the 21st century? Shouldn't the 2nd Amendment include the right to bear viruses, worms, trojans, bots... and the right to own internet-access?)

- Electoral College: We have means of communicating faster and farther than a man on horseback nowadays.

- Elections held on a work-day, refusal to adopt more primitive and more secure means of casting ballots, refusal to adopt one coherent nationwide system how elections are held...

- The collusion between Big Money and politics is infusible.

- Secessionism and too much federalism.

- The culturally deeply ingrained attitude that your freedom is more important than other people's freedom. The refusal to acknowledge that you are supposed to pay a price for the right to enjoy the comfort and security of a community.

- "We are special snow-flakes. Because our country is special. And our God is special. That's why it's not okay if you do it but it's okay if we do it."

- The fast-paced rhythm and ever-connectedness of media and society that drives you on and on with fear and news until the important stuff, that affects millions and billions of people, gets drowned out in week-long coverage of a minor incident that affects a few hundred people at best.

[Alkene]

35. +8 n/t

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

31. Yes. Just wait tho.....

We will consider these the sane times.

[The Wizard]

32. Most Americans are normal

Unfortunately, a band of radicals has managed to game the system and seize power, thus putting the levers of that power in the hands of the unstable and predator capitalists.
To effectuate any return to a semblance of sanity we must rid the landscape of Pox News and hate radio. I know this violates free speech, but free speech is not all encompassing. For instance, yelling fire in a crowded theater is illegal, as it would cause people to harm themselves and others from the reaction.
Pox News and hate radio do just that, but with a delayed reaction to the crime of lying to create disorder.
The blueprint for Pox News and hate radio was written by Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.
So instead of trampling each other in the rush to a escape an imaginary inferno, a large number of citizens unwittingly eviscerate their own and others living standards by taking Pox News seriously and electing those who have an agenda detrimental to the vast majority of Americans.
The Military Industrial Complex Eisenhower warned against has now seized the media as well, and uses that media to promote unwarranted fear so as to convince the average voter to support all wars and military expenses associated with those wars and foreign military adventures. And like all former empires we're headed to History's dust bin because we squandered our resources becoming the ugly Americans.
A good start to restoring some sanity at home and cleaning up our image abroad would be to silence all right wing propaganda outlets that deliberately poison the minds of the public to effectuate a government that represents the vicious predators who seek to dominate our lives and steal our resources to use them against us.

[mountain grammy]

36. I'm not buying that most Americans are normal

I don't think the system could be as corrupt as it is without majority complicity.

[KingCharlemagne]

54. Under capitalism, 'Free Speech' is like money; some has lots more of it than others. There

is no such thing as abstract 'Free Speech'.

[marions ghost]

108. +++ seconding that

--curb all right wing propaganda outlets. Their lies are killing us.

[Octafish]

38. Yes. And if you're not crazy, you've got something wrong.

“The thing about people who are truly and malignantly crazy: their real genius is for making the people around them think they themselves are crazy. In military science this is called Psy-Ops, for your info.” ― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

Thank you, Brother xchrom! Outstanding article that needed to be written and read by everybody, sane and not-insane.

[hootinholler]

40. Funny my question is:

Not if we are crazy, but are we schizophrenic or manic depressive.

[treestar]

42. Less so than North Korea

Less so than Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, etc.

[Brigid]

44. Yes.

I offer into evidence the comments on this story about an incident that happened here just last night:

http://www.wthr.com/story/27832816/police-investigate-shooting-at-38th-meridian

[dhill926]

49. used to live about a mile north of this area….

not surprised at all by the comments. Happily left Indiana for the comparative socialist paradise of California 8 years ago. Never looked back….

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

47. Paranoid-Schizophrenic complete with "voices" heard from politicians and the media.

"America is the first country to have gone from barbarism to decadence without the usual intervening period of civilization." -  Oscar Wilde

[CrispyQ]

48. Big culprits are American exceptionalism & rugged individualism.

Too many think that America can do whatever it wants because our motives are good & true, which is bullshit, but too many don't see that. Within our own country, we elevate individualism over community - the individual is greater than the whole, when in reality that is tearing apart the fabric of our society. Individuals need a strong, solid community to excel, but we've put the cart before the horse. Insane or just acting like self-absorbed, spoiled brats?

You know the old saying, though - the bigger you are, the harder you fall. Bob Altemeyer's article on The Authoritarians is such a great article on what has been going on in this country. The authoritarian leaders have duped the authoritarian followers & there are going to be more & more disillusioned Americans in the coming years when they realize that they have 'played by the rules' only to be played like a fool.

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

[jwirr]

60. It is almost impossible to self diagnose mental illness so I would not know. But I do have a

question. Can a whole nation or a large part of one actually go insane together? How does this happen? We just elected a bunch of Rs to congress even after they told us exactly what they were going to do. Is that one of the symptoms? We are ignoring climate change and other vital problems of the world that could actually destroy us. Is that another one of the symptoms? I could go on but you all know what I mean.....

[mwb970]

102. It's even worse than you say.

"We just elected a bunch of Rs to congress even after they told us exactly what they were going to do."

Congress has an ELEVEN PERCENT approval rating. Yet 96% of incumbents were returned to office. "We disapprove strongly of what you're doing, so we are going to re-elect all of you so you can do more of it." Now THAT'S crazy, man.

[MisterP]

64. yes: a deliberately-cultivated, well-funded, carefully-sheltered "crazy"

remember that before WWI it was Britain whose schools cared only about sports scores and doling out beatings and that the humanities should be dry and the sciences ignored, whose foreign policy was bloodlessly callous, casually cruel, and insanely militaristic and chauvinistic; modern creationism and flat-earthism are both very British things

meanwhile the US's leading philosophies were literally named Transcendentalism and Pragmatism and the creationists' main arguments were fighting social Darwinism

[City Lights]

65. Sadly, yes. nt

[russ1943]

67. K & R

[Strelnikov_]

69. Craizer than a shithouse rat . . .

but a hell of a lot more dangerous.

[olddots]

71. I wouldn't call it crazy

I'd call it way the fuck fucked up

[DeSwiss]

76. I'll let this be my answer:

- K&R


''A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.'' ~Martin Luther King Jr.

[adirondacker]

87. +1000! nt

[Euphoria]

77. While living overseas

I'd try to explain our craziness on: lack of sleep, not enough vacation time, no sense of security, not enough preventive medical care and living in a corporate-mass-media induced bubble.

[marions ghost]

109. Stress is a BIG part of it

people are pitted against each other in this society.

[workinclasszero]

78. Countries overseas need to understand this about America

We are slowly being taken over by fascists. The 1% rules us all in the USA.

And uh don't think you are all safe in your countries when the nation with the largest military forces ever known in the entire history of mankind falls to fascism.

You all will be right behind us! The 1%ers want it ALL!

[marions ghost]

110. Good point

--agreed, they want it all. Not to see this is to live in delusion.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

80. Our Right Wing is crazy....

And they consider the Left to be crazy for refusing to admit defeat.

[tclambert]

83. We're not crazy! Everybody else is!

They all envy our sanity, and simply aren't smart enough to follow our logic. That's what it is. Yeah. We're the only ones in touch with reality in the whole wide world.

[Ned Flanders]

84. Yes (meds)

We have been taught it is rude to disagree or express an opinion on anything, even in matters of life an death (example: secret service staffer accepting supervisor's explanation that shots fired at white house were construction noise, even though he/she figured different).

We have been heavily medicated, to the point where prescription drug overdose is the number one cause of accidental death. Our youth are being dosed with way too many drugs, by the authorities, often in manners for which the drug in question was not intended. Adderall and Ritalin ARE gateway drugs for meth, ya know.

We have for-profit prisons, for bejesus' sake, and probably employ more mercenaries than "regular" troops, while moving government jobs to the private sector in the name of "smaller government."

We did what we were supposed to do, worked hard (2nd behind japan in terms of annual hours worked?) and saved a good portion of our checks for retirement, only to have the bankers steal it. Now they've put our savings accounts on the line, what with using FDIC to back more risky banking practices.

We have watched our leaders sell themselves out to foreign powers and corporations. We vote based upon who is the lesser evil.

Hell yes, we're crazy to put up with this. Don't count me in with the contrail crowd. Who needs contrails when we have doctors prescribing so much crap, medicating our ability to make rational decisions. I mean my Jah, getting paid incentives to prescribe meds?! Why does China crack down on such practices, but Glaxo can still do that here?

[marions ghost]

111. True

taught to behave, to accept lies, and deal with the dissonance of that with medication.

[certainot]

86. biggest political mistake in US history, left continues to ignore talk radio

take any issue you consider evidence of national insanity and you'll find it is based in alternate realities created with coordinated repetition from an unchallenged talk radio monopoly - 400 liars and idiots with think tank scripted programming yelling from 1200 radio stations to 50 mil people a week, creating their own truth.

in most parts of the US there are no free alternatives for politics while driving or working. it completely dominates sparsely populated states which unfortunately all have 2 senators. the majority republican senate was elected with less than 50 mil votes and the minority democratic senate was elected with almost 70 mil votes.

the worst part is that it has been kicking the left's ass in this country for 25 years. ignorance and underestimation of it by the left is the biggest political mistake in history, considering the time lost on global warming.

also amazing and absurd- that talk radio monopoly depends heavily on more than 90 major universities/colleges who rent their sports team logos/mascots to those stations for a few dollars to help them sell their advertising, lies, racism, sexism, attacks on public education and teachers, and global warming denial.

yes, we are fucking crazy for allowing that to continue unchallenged.

[nikto]

91. Great point

And a very troubling reality in America (malignancy of RW talk radio).

[kairos12]

105. Agree. I remember back in the late 80s I was driving across

country and listening to the radio when I stumbled on right wing shill Limbaugh. I thought I had fallen into some alternate wing nut universe. I remember frantically switching stations looking for a left wing answer to his vile spewings. Couldn't find it. Still can't find it.

[Doctor_J]

89. American conservatism is definitely a mental illness, and I would

say that some of the OBots show some symptoms.

[dflprincess]

90. Not just crazy, but stupid as well

and very, very gullible.

[Puglover]

103. Fellow Minnesotan here

and I totally agree. I am grateful that we have carved out a small but cold island of semi sanity in our state.

But the crazies are here as well.

[dflprincess]

115. I never realized how many crazy there are in the state

until I started reading the Strib's comments section.

[grahamhgreen]

92. America is in its Nazi phase. It bombs other countries, then, when the oppressed respond, use that

As an excuse to Bomb them again!

[world wide wally]

93. Any sane person would say "Yes"

I don't even think an explanation is in order. Just watch the news and then see how people vote. What more evidence do you need?

[ReRe]

94. Is th U.S. crazy?

Yes.

[Thespian2]

95. Great Insight in this post

When I retired, Billy Clinton was giving away the country by allowing the Repugs to end Glass-Steagall. Shortly there after, the Supreme Court Idiots gave the presidency to W. Bush, latest in a long line of criminals bearing the name Bush. I immigrated to Canada. I became a permanent resident. I am still an American citizen and hate to see my home country controlled by wealthy Thugs. I get many questions from my friends about the craziness in America. I don't always want to answer them, but my experience as a teacher, college professor, and human being taught me that Americans love ignorance. To be completely uninformed about the world is a badge of honour. I met too many young people who would be hard-pressed to find Canada on a map of North America. They were uninformed; they knew they were uninformed; and they were very proud to be uninformed.

Making and keeping Americans as dumb as possible is the holy mantra of the right-wing, not the T-Party idiots, but the millionaires and billionaires who have worked for years to create the world that Americans now have to live in.

[DeSwiss]

97. Great insight in yours as well.

As far as I'm aware, most children are born with a natural curiosity and inquisitiveness about the world. And then we send them to school and they somehow stop wanting to learn and many begin to hate learning.

Instead of education being a natural process of discovery and the unfolding of one's inclinations and natural abilities and interests, they are forced into pigeonholes, tested and scored on how they respond to questions and problems. They learn in schools today how to answer the questions, not understand problems and how solve them.

And even now millions still chase after ''an education'' that at best upon the conclusion of it may offer them a lifetime sentence in a corporate cubicle devoid of any inspiration other than the fact that it pays the bills. As long as they don't get outsourced.

And of bills there will be aplenty, especially the BIG ONE for that fine ''education they earned'' and which that landed such a plum gig living and working behind four movable walls.

The social contract (such as there was one that ever actually existed), has surely been broken. People continue in these ruts because that is all they know to do. It is what the ''leaders'' tell them to do.

- Many have said in the past that when one is heading down the hole first thing to do is to stop digging. I say the first thing to do is recognize you're in a hole......

[Thespian2]

114. Thanks

Truthful and accurate description of "education."

[defacto7]

98. In the general sense..

Yes.

The US as an organism, a conglomeration of greed, privilege and passive aggressiveness... Yes. But I think the "crazy" has risen and fallen in waves over generations as it has in many periods in world history seemingly dependent on power shifts. I don't think the world is large enough anymore to buffer those shifts so in that sense I don't know that there is a precedent to base a prediction for the future of the US or humanity that is based on history. I'm cynical about what the US is at this point, but In the end the earth will have the last say.

I think we have a few things in common regarding world travel. Good post.

[Rex]

99. What gets me are the people that love American exceptionalism yet don't live here.

They always make me wonder WTF.

[King_Klonopin]

100. Having had life-long experience on the subject of treating mental illness,

I say that the Collective Conscious of our country is quite sick, and getting sicker.

Yes; more so on Axis II (personality disordered), wherein we have become narcissistic
and antisocial. Too often, our society -- like a sick parent -- reinforces and rewards
bad, selfish behavior.

As a "society", we have BECOME self-absorbed (FaceBook, cell phones, etc), we
insulate ourselves from criticism, we are indifferent to the suffering of others, we
lack empathy and treat people like objects, we deplore mercy and charity, we are
xenophobes, we covet and idolize money and the wealthy class, our corporations are
well-protected sociopaths, we live by the mottoes of "the ends justify the means" and
"every man for himself!", we are grandiose and conceited -- lacking in true humility,
unable to admit to error or accept fault, etc. -- we are devolving to the level of primitive,
dumb beasts.

Any efforts which are made to reverse this trend and to evolve are met with denial,
scorn and disdain (i.e. we reject the very notion that we need to change and, therefore,
the need for treatment or "therapy&quot Whenever our healthier Collective Super Ego tries
to assert itself, it is met with the stiff resistance of our Id.

[marions ghost]

112. Idiocracy

...you describe it well.

[mwb970]

101. I have been ashamed of my country for years now. /nt

[WillyT]

106. HUGE K & R !!! - THANK YOU !!!

[JEB]

107. Kick.

Thanks for the insightful post and many insightful comments as well.

[marions ghost]

113. Please tell people in sane nations that

that we are depending on them to reject the United States in our present incarnation. Tell them to put more pressure on our unqualified, exploitative, war-mongering so-called leaders. America and all it supposedly stands for --is on life support.

((((help))))

[Bonobo]

116. Live abroad and you will realize the problems (and good things) about your own country.

Having said that, yep, America is pretty fucking whacked out.

Arguably an "evil" country on the macro scale if you ask me and if such things exist. Maybe "bad actor" is a better description.

[woo me with science]

117. Our government is purchased by corporate sociopaths.

Red versus Blue is largely orchestrated propaganda at this point to hide the fact that we have united oligarchy now, not divided democracy.